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‘No.’ He responded coldly, but with obvious determination. ‘The event is to take place on my island, and so, too, should the planning. You cannot possibly arrange what is necessary without seeing the place for yourself. If you want my money, accept these terms.’
Her jaw dropped.
‘Mr Cortéz.’ Connie tried to imbue a little formality back into the conversation. ‘That is not the way these things usually—’
‘My donation is not usual,’ he said with the confidence of a man who was completely right. ‘This is the deal. Take it or leave it.’
Every fibre of Alicia’s body willed her to reject it—to tell him to go to hell. A week on Graciano’s island? She wasn’t crazy. She wasn’t stupid. But she’d already tabulated what his half a million pounds could do—how many families it could help. There was no way she’d be the reason the charity lost his donation. Bitterness crept through her as she mentally moved the pieces of her life around. Diane would have Annie. Her schedule was hectic, even though she was only working part-time now—she volunteered extensively, and had a wide social circle. But Alicia knew she only had to ask and Diane would help. The older woman had become like a mother or grandmother to Alicia, the one person in her life she had been able to rely on since Annie was still growing inside of her.
It would be a wrench to be away from her daughter for five nights—they’d never been separated for more than a night, and even then only rarely and when necessary—but Annie was no longer a baby. At nine years old, she felt on the cusp of becoming a teenager already, her legs growing impossibly long and slim, her hair falling all the way to her waist, wild like Alicia’s always had been, but chestnut brown rather than sunlight blonde.
Annie no longer pined for Alicia, calling for her in the middle of the night. She was a confident, well-liked girl who adored school and spoke with the maturity of a much older child. She would cope without Alicia for a week.
A pang of hurt resonated in Alicia’s heart, even when she knew that independence was a good thing, really. It still felt like a betrayal of sorts.
She watched as Graciano reached into his pocket and withdrew his phone. ‘I’ll wire the money now, if I have your agreement.’
How on earth did he become so ridiculously wealthy?
An image of him on that last day formed in her mind, as clear as if it were a photograph: scruffy running shoes, old jeans, a loose T-shirt. Her throat ached. Even with his second-hand clothes, he’d always carried himself with confidence and class. He’d always been destined for more than the life he’d found himself living. The question wasn’t how he’d made his fortune, but why she’d ever doubted him.
‘Alicia?’ Connie frowned at her boss, obviously picking up on Alicia’s ambivalence and hesitating in response.
Alicia stared at Graciano, wishing she understood him as well now as she had then. What was he thinking? What did he want?
‘It’s a very generous donation, Mr Cortéz.’ She deliberately kept them on a more businesslike footing, but his lip curled with a hint of derision—lips that had dragged over her body, tasted her most intimate flesh, teased her breasts, left purple circles on her skin from where he’d sucked her until she’d cried out. Heat flushed her face and she looked away quickly. ‘Connie will handle the formalities. If you’ll excuse me, there’s someone I have to speak to.’
‘You’re really going to Spain? For a week?’
It was impossible to meet Annie’s intelligent, inquisitive eyes. A new kind of guilt, most unsavoury, flooded Alicia, to look at the little girl who was so like the father she’d never met—the father who’d made it clear he didn’t want to hear from Alicia ever again.
Until last night.
She was baffled and she was terrified in equal measure as choices she’d made as a scared, abandoned sixteen-year-old were suddenly raised to the light, making her question everything she’d once chosen.
She’dtriedto tell him, she reminded herself. She hadn’t wanted this. She hadn’t chosen this. Nonetheless, the fact she had borne Graciano’s baby and raised her for nine years suddenly felt like a crime.
‘Mummy?’
Mummy.Alicia’s heart clutched. Not such a pre-teen yet, then.
Tears lodged in her throat as she made herself look into her beloved daughter’s eyes directly. She was all tucked up in her still very childish bed, in the small pale pink room at the top of the stairs.
‘Well, darling, it’s supposed to be five nights, but I’m going to try my hardest to get home sooner. Do you think you’ll be okay?’
Annie wrinkled her nose, snuggling deeper into the pillows. ‘You do know Didee lets me eat ice creambeforedinner when you’re not here.’
Alicia laughed. ‘Is that why we never seem to have any left in the freezer when I go looking?’
‘No, that’s because Didee has two huge bowls all to herself,’ Annie corrected, and Alicia’s heart panged. ‘What’s Spain like?’
Visions of sunshine flooded her thoughts, of oranges picked straight from the tree and eaten while still warm, crystal clear water, rolling hills, clay buildings, music that breathed life into your soul, the kindest people in the world... Graciano when he’d first arrived, all skin and bone with angry, dark eyes and fascinating, capable hands, so silent at first, so cold, that she couldn’t help but want to make him smile.
‘It’s beautiful.’ Her voice was croaky.
‘How long did you live there?’
‘Five years.’ She cleared her throat. ‘We moved right after your grandmother—my mother—passed away.’
