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Alicia squeezed her eyes shut. ‘Please stop being so vague and tell me exactly what’s happened. I can handle it.’
Guilt was a dagger in her stomach. She kept the phone pressed to her ear as she hooked her bra into place. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Graciano matching her, dressing, without the sense of panic but with all the efficiency.
‘She collided with another player and got knocked into the goal. Her arm is broken.’
Alicia swore, all the colour draining from her face. ‘Is she in pain?’
‘Yes, darling, she is.’
It was so like Di—a doctor—not to sugar-coat it.
‘But she’ll live. She needs to get it set and at this time of night, a hospital’s the best place.’ Di paused. ‘While I’m there, I want to get her head checked out. She hit it pretty hard as well.’
Alicia’s stomach was in knots. ‘I’m coming right away. I can be in Hammersmith within fifteen, twenty minutes at the most.’ She cursed the fact it was peak hour, that the roads between Knightsbridge and Hammersmith would be at their busiest.
‘Tell her Mummy’s coming. Tell her I love her.’
‘She’s going to be okay. This is just a precaution. You don’t mess around with head injuries is all. Try not to worry.’
‘Just tell her, okay?’
She disconnected the call, turning to Graciano without really seeing him. ‘I have to go.’ This was a God-awful mess, but her situation with the Spaniard had been bumped lower on her priority list—so, too, the conversation she knew they had to have. This wasn’t the time.
‘To Hammersmith, I heard. I’ll drive you.’
It should have raised alarm bells—she should have known to fight it—but in that moment, anything or anyone who could make this journey easier earned her gratitude.
‘Come on. My car’s downstairs.’
She was strangely calm as they rode the elevator in silence, but once she was in Graciano’s black four-wheel drive with the engine throbbing beneath her, an overwhelm of hysteria bubbled inside of her so she had to look out of the window to muffle her soft sob.
For several minutes neither spoke, but then, as they crossed through South Kensington, he pulled up at the lights and turned to face her.
‘You have a child.’
It was like the dropping of a blade, right against the side of her neck.
She swallowed hard and nodded, eyes stinging. ‘Annie.’ She whispered their daughter’s name.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ His features showed surprise, shock that she’d kept this from him.
She groaned, pressing her head back against the headrest. ‘It just...wasn’t that simple.’
‘Why not? It seems like a very easy sentence to form. “I have a daughter.”’
It wasn’t how she’d wanted to tell him, but there was no way she could carry on without being honest. ‘Annie’s nine,’ Alicia said, the words trembling in the car.
The light turned green and Graciano took off, but his knuckles were white against the wheel as her revelation sunk in. Silence met that statement, but it was a silence that was heavy with the turning of his brain as he analysed that from all angles.
South Kensington morphed into Earl’s Court and then West Ken, all more familiar to Alicia now.
‘Nine,’ he said, pulling up at another set of lights, turning to face her. ‘So you had her soon after we were together.’
Alicia nodded, her throat thick. ‘About eight months later, actually.’
His eyes flared wide and she could see the genuine surprise in his features. This was the last thing he’d been expecting. Her knees trembled.
‘I wanted to tell you.’
