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‘Where exactly?’
‘Your grandfather had a property outside of Seville, and a church on the edge of the city.’ The mission had been attached to the church, caring for homeless kids, of which there’d been a large number.
‘Will you go to Seville?’
‘Not on this trip.’
‘Will you see your father?’
Anger flattened Alicia’s lips but she avoided expressing it to her daughter. ‘No, darling. I don’t think so.’ She’d been careful not to colour Annie’s opinions of the minister, but as the little girl grew older, she had naturally shown more curiosity. One day, Alicia would have to be honest about the rift that had formed between them, about the way her father had thrown her away, so disappointed in her for becoming pregnant at sixteen that he hadn’t been able to continue living with her.
You are my greatest failure, Alicia.
One day, she’d tell her daughter that Edward Griffiths, admired and respected man of faith, had threatened to press charges against Graciano if Alicia ever spoke to him again. That threat had hung over her head for years. As a girl, she’d believed it unfailingly, and even now, as an adult, she credited the cynical likelihood of Edward’s words.
That boy from the streets, with no family and no one to speak for him, took advantage of you inmyhome. No police officer or judge is going to believe him. He will rot in jail for this. Just give me the excuse to do it and I will. He deserves it.
‘Why not?’
She was dragged back to the present, her palms sweaty, her heart quickening.
‘I’m going for work, and I’m not going to waste a moment doing anything other than work, because I’ll be so desperate to come home to you.’ She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Annie’s forehead. ‘Di will pick you up from school tomorrow,’ she said. ‘And I’ll see you Saturday morning for football, okay?’
‘We’re playing Ridgehaven.’
‘I know.’ Alicia smiled, standing, doing her best to hide the distracting direction of her thoughts.
‘They’re really good.’
‘Yes, but so are you.’ She tousled her little girl’s vanilla-scented hair. ‘Go to sleep, darling. I’ll see you in the morning.’
Graciano’s eyes chased the rolling waves as though he could find meaning in their rhythm, as though the depths of the sea might help him gain clarity, but there was none. He stared at the sea, all the questions that usually plagued him swirling and churning—and central to those questions was where was his brother? He thought again of yet another thwarted lead, of hopes raised then dashed, of the compounding certainty that he was all alone on this earth, his entire family lost to him forever.
He’d come to accept that reality.
But seeing Alicia again had stirred everything up, had made him remember a time when he’d hoped for a new family, when his heart had begun to crack open, just a little.
Only for it to slam shut in spectacular fashion, never to be opened again.
The decision to invent a function for her to organise had been spontaneous and immediate, yet he didn’t regret it. Graciano trusted his instincts, and the moment he saw her again, he’d known it was long past time for her to reckon with how she’d treated him.
Lately, he’d been thinking of his brother again. Of his parents. Of a childhood that shimmered on his horizon like blades of sunshine—ephemeral and striking, warm and impossible to grab hold of. His mother’s laugh, his father’s voice, his brother’s little body, his hand slipping into Graciano’s to hold as they crossed the road, walking to school.
He’d been loved, and he had loved deeply, and then he’d lost, in the most horrific of circumstances. He could vividly recall the sound of metal on metal as their car was hit and pushed into the railing on the side of the road.
He closed his eyes, pushing those thoughts away, ignoring the throbbing feeling deep in his gut, a yearning for something he’d lost long ago that could never be replaced.
Graciano was a pragmatist. He couldn’t get his brother back, he couldn’t save his parents and he couldn’t find his way back to his family, but he had all the money in the world, and on this one occasion, he could use it to right at least one wrong of his past: he could make Alicia eat crow, and that was a delight he intended to savour...
CHAPTER TWO
ITWASARELIEF, Alicia told herself, that Graciano hadn’t appeared at London City Airport to meet her on Monday morning. It was also a relief that he hadn’t been onboard the extremely luxurious private jet that had carried her from London to an airstrip in Valencia, and from there to a sleek, white helicopter that had lifted up over the Balearic Sea, conveying Alicia the short distance from mainland Spain to a cluster of islands a little to the east of the city.
The helicopter circled the cluster before moving closer to one, the largest of six, something that from the air, at first glance, looked like a place that time had forgotten. The forest was so verdant and sprawling it seemed almost prehistoric, but as the helicopter came in lower and offered a different vantage point, she saw that the western side of the island was more developed. A golf course was unmistakable, as well as a large, white-walled mansion with a central courtyard bursting with colourful vines, and several smaller buildings dotted away from the main house but joined to it via paved roads. Lower still they came, and she saw a fleet of golf buggies, some parked at the smaller cottages, others lined up on the side of the mansion. The beach was immaculate, all white sand and clear sea, and there were two swimming pools—one beside the house, and a smaller one surrounded by colourful trees and vines, but most inviting of all on a warm day like this was the ocean that glittered with the force of diamonds, making her ache to wade out to hip height, then dive beneath the surface.
How long had it been since she’d had a holiday?
Any kind of holiday?
