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Unlike her.
Picturing the remote expression on her father’s face, the distance in his eyes, she curled her fingers into the pillow. He had not only managed to deny her existence, he’d replaced her too.
Her stomach flip-flopped as beneath her pillow the alarm buzzed on her phone. Reaching round, she switched it off, glancing at the screen. There were several missed calls, all from a number she didn’t recognise, and for one brief moment she considered calling back.
But now was not a good time. For a start, she needed to shower, pack and get dressed, and she also wanted to check in with her boss. She trusted Grace—not just professionally, but on a personal level too—and she wanted to see if she had any last-minute advice for her.
And anybody who mattered would call her back if it was important. Not that whatever he or she was calling about was likely to be life-changing.
Rolling out of bed, she grabbed a towel and walked into the bathroom.
* * *
In another bathroom, on the other side of the city, Luis stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around the taut muscles of his stomach. Ignoring the mirror on the wall, he ran his hands slowly through his hair, smoothing the tangles with his fingers.
He released a slow breath, remembering how just hours earlier Cristina had done more or less the same thing. Except her hands had been urgent, frantic. Almost as frantic as her mouth.
His lungs emptied slowly. And she’d tasted so sweet...sweeter than molasses.
It was supposed to have been just sex—a carnal union designed to delight and, more importantly, to distract him from his thoughts. Except that now he couldn’t stop thinking about her. And even though he knew she was in a hotel on the other side of the city, her presence was so strong in his memory that he kept turning to look at the bed, expecting to see her there.
Watching Cristina in the club had been one of the most confusing experiences of his life. She had dazzled him. Even just looking at her in those heels and that top, those shorts, had made a pulse of excitement beat beneath his skin. He had wanted her—and yet he’d almost hated her too. For she was too beautiful, too sexy, and an attention-seeker to boot. In other words, everything he loathed in a woman.
And so he’d got up to leave—
Gazing at his reflection, he felt his face grow warm.
She might have spilt his drink but she’d been right. It had been his fault. He’d been so desperate to leave that he hadn’t been thinking about anything but getting as far away as possible from her gravitational pull. He certainly hadn’t been looking where he was going.
Breathing in sharply, he ran his hand slowly over the stubble grazing his face.
Only instead of apologising he’d acted like a jerk.
His heartbeat slowed. He had lost her then, and that might have been the end of it—would have been if his bike hadn’t refused to start.
He stared at his reflection, steadying himself, pushing aside the thought of what might have happened, or rather not happened, if his bike hadn’t been washed or she hadn’t come outside.
But she had, and she’d rescued him.
He swallowed.
Rescued him and then kissed him.
Or were they one and the same thing?
Glancing out of the window, he felt his heartbeat accelerate. He was naturally cautious by nature, but even if he hadn’t been life had taught him in the most brutal and devastating way not to act impulsively. He didn’t do spur-of-the-moment or random.
Yet last night he’d done both. Only instead of regret or shame he could feel a kind a radiance inside his chest. It took him a moment to realise that it was happiness, and that for the first time since stepping off the plane in Athens he was ready to face his past.
Picking up his phone, he punched in a number.
‘Carlos. It’s Luis...’
Having settled his bill, he made the hotel’s owner day by giving him his bike, and then, having finally extricated himself from the man’s grateful and disbelieving embrace, he strolled down the street towards the peluquería.
It was just opening, and the old guy who ran it seemed slightly astonished to have a customer so early, but he was happy to do what Luis asked.
Thirty minutes later Luis stepped out into the sunshine, his dark hair cropped close to the head, his face smooth. Catching sight of himself in the window, he felt a flicker of panic. He looked so young. Almost as though the last five years had never happened.
Only so much had happened. So much he could never change. He ran his hand slowly over his jawline. The last time he’d been clean shaven had been for his brother’s funeral.
It hadn’t been a conscious decision to stop shaving—he’d just found it so hard to look at himself as life—his life—had carried on.
He had set up a hedge fund, a lucrative, global business. And he’d bought a house—several, actually. He’d even had the occasional girlfriend.
But none of it had mattered. None of it had felt real. Without Bas there to tease him about his tie, or drag him out at the end of a busy week, he’d felt empty, hollow.
Until last night.
With Cristina.
Picturing her beneath him, her eyes darkening as he’d thumbed her legs apart, he almost lost his footing on the pavement. Her passion had been primal; it had blindsided him, left him grappling for breath and self-control.
Over his shoulder, he felt rather than saw a dark saloon car peel away from the opposite side of the square and head towards him. For a moment he carried on walking, and then, slowing down, he turned and waited as the car drew up beside him.
Before it had even come to a stop a thickset man wearing a dark grey suit stepped out onto the pavement and pulled open the back passenger door. Luis nodded at him and climbed inside.
‘Thanks for picking me up, Carlos,’ he said softly, turning his head towards the window. ‘Now, let’s go home.’
The journey took less time than he remembered, but it was still long enough for his stomach to turn over and inside out. As the car passed slowly beneath a large stone arch and into a courtyard he had a familiar glimpse of yellowed walls and tall windows, and then he was stepping onto the cobbled paving.
Trying to rein in the beating of his heart, Luis made his way through his childhood home. It might be five years since he’d been back, but he knew exactly where his parents would be waiting.
But he was wrong.
As he walked into the sitting room he frowned. It was empty.
It looked the same, though. He stared round dazedly, barely taking in the opulent interior with its beautiful tapestries and paintings by Goya and Velázquez. Only where were his mother and father?
Behind him a door opened softly and, turning, Luis felt his heart squeeze with a mixture of love, respect and dismay as a silver-haired man walked into the room.
His father, Agusto Osorio, might be nearly seventy, but he was still handsome. And his dark, austere grey eyes and upright bearing were a reminder that he was a man who was used to demanding and getting his way.
But although he was still tall, and immaculately dressed, there was a hesitancy and unsteadiness in his manner that hadn’t been there before. Unable to watch his father’s faltering progress any more, Luis crossed the faded Persian carpet and embraced the older man gently.
‘Papá!’
His heart gave a lurch as he hugged the older man. His father smelt of shaving soap, and that old-fashioned cologne his mother loved, and there was a reassuring familiarity to his father’s shoulders. As a child he’d loved to be carried up there; for a long time it had been the only way he could be taller than Bas.
His chest tightened as Agusto released him and smiled.
‘We were expecting you earlier. Your mother was worried until she got your text. She misses you. We both do,’ he said simply. ‘It’s good to have you home, Luis, even if it is just for a week.’
Trying to suppress the ache inside his chest, Luis nodded. ‘It’s good to be back, Papá. And I’m sorry I can’t stay longer—’
His father patted him on the arm. ‘We understand.’ He gestured towards a trio of sofas and armchairs. ‘Sit! I’ll ring for coffee.’
Watching his father’s face crease in pain as he turned and tentatively lowered himself into one of the chairs, Luis held his breath. As a child, Agusto had seemed to him like one of the mythical knights in the books he’d used to read to his sons. A man of honour, vital, inviolate and invincible.
Now, though, his father looked frail and tried—smaller, somehow. Only it wasn’t just the passing of time that had caused these changes, but the pain and grief of losing his oldest son.
He felt another stab of guilt and, glancing past him, said quickly, ‘Where’s Mamá? Should I go and find her?’
‘You don’t have to, mi cariño, I’m right here.’
Across the room, his mother Sofia was standing in the doorway. Before he’d even realised what he was doing he was on his feet and moving. As they embraced he felt a tug at his heart, for he could sense that she had changed more than his father. Not physically—she was still beautiful, slim and elegant—but her sadness was palpable. It seemed to seep into him so that he was suddenly struggling to breathe.
‘Luis, you look so well. Doesn’t he, Agusto?’ She turned to her husband.
Smiling, Agusto nodded as the housekeeper arrived with a tray. ‘Yes, he does, querida! Ah, here’s the coffee. Gracias, Soledad. Just there will be perfect.’
Luis waited until they were alone again, and then, turning towards his mother, he smiled. ‘So, how many people are coming to the party?’
‘Sixty, of course—that’s why we had to arrange it for tomorrow. It was the only date everyone could make.’
Picking up his coffee cup, Agusto cleared his throat. ‘But we can always squeeze in one more if there’s someone special you’d like to bring along.’ He glanced over at his son. ‘We did wonder if you might bring Amy.’
Shaking his head, Luis met his father’s gaze with resignation. ‘That’s not going to happen, Papá. I haven’t dated her in about a year. We’re friends now—that’s all.’
His father frowned at him. ‘But you’re seeing someone else?’
‘No one serious.’
He held his breath, waiting for the conversation to continue as he knew it surely would. His parents had met at his mother’s quincañera. It had been love at first sight, and they had both believed—assumed, really—that their sons would find a partner just as effortlessly.
Only with Bas gone all their attention was now focused on him, so that every conversation, no matter how it started, always seemed to turn inevitably to Luis’s relationships. But he didn’t—couldn’t—trust his feelings. Believing that someone loved and desired you was stupid and dangerous. It lulled you into a dream state, made you careless.
And he was never careless. Never took risks. In fact he’d spent most of his adult life doing his damnedest to minimise risk, doing everything in his power to control the world around him. It was one of the reasons why he’d set up his business. Hedge funds were by definition speculative. However, by using algorithms to calculate the optimal probability of executing a profitable trade, he’d eliminated not just fear and greed but risk. Risks that were not worth taking—
His body stilled, his breath catching in his throat as he pictured Cristina, with those ludicrous heels dangling from her hand, as he’d kissed her up the stairs to her hotel room.
She’d been a risk worth taking.
He felt suddenly exhilarated, and a flurry of anticipation rose up inside him.
A risk worth repeating.
He would call her hotel after lunch.
Feeling calmer, he glanced over at his father. ‘Life is different in California, Papá. The people are different there. They don’t care about—’
‘About what? Love? Commitment? Family?’
He could hear the confusion in his father’s voice, and the hurt. About everything that was left unspoken. The past. His brother. And, of course, the family business.
His father was coming up to seventy. He wanted to retire and he wanted Luis to take over from him. But he wasn’t going to. He couldn’t step in for his brother. Sit at the head of that massive oak table in the boardroom. It just wasn’t going to happen.
Glancing at his father expression of frustration and his mother’s stricken face, he wanted to apologise for letting them down. For not being the son they deserved. But to do so would mean having to explain his reasons, and that would mean losing their love for ever.
His father shook his head. ‘Thank goodness we’re only being photographed for this article,’ he muttered. ‘I can’t imagine how I’d explain the fact that my only son and heir has turned his back on his birthright.’
Luis felt his skin tighten across his face, his brain locking on to the one word in his father’s remark that was designed to trigger alarm bells in his head.
‘What article?’
Sofia leaned forward. ‘It’s for a magazine. We’re meeting the photographer before lunch, just to have a little chat. I have her CV here...’
Reaching across, she picked up a folder from the table, and handed it to Luis.
He didn’t open it.
‘But what’s the point of the article?’ He could feel his hackles rising.
His father raised an eyebrow. ‘I know you’re not interested in the family business, Luis. But I would have thought that even you might have remembered it’s the bank’s four hundredth anniversary this year.’
Luis cursed silently. Of course it was. Agusto had mentioned it to him several months back. Believing it to be some kind of entrée into discussing his return to the family business, he’d pushed it away.
Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to speak calmly. ‘I hadn’t forgotten, Papá,’ he said slowly. ‘I just didn’t connect the dots.’ He frowned. ‘I get that the anniversary is a big deal, but Banco Osorio’s reputation is built on our discretion. We never talk to the media. So why go public now?’
‘It was my idea.’ His mother looked up at him, her face suddenly anxious. ‘Do you think I made a mistake, Luis?’
Damn right he did. He didn’t trust any journalists or photographers.
But he could hardly explain the reason for that to his parents.
His spine stiffened, his body tensing as memories filled his head. Memories of the night his brother had died.
He hadn’t even wanted to go to that party, only Bas had insisted and his mother had backed him up. She knew that Luis needed his big brother in order to socialise, and Bas needed Luis to rein in his excesses.
But the party had been so not his style. Wall-to-wall trust fund brats, drinking and whining about their parents.
Watching Bas work the party, Luis had felt one of his occasional twinges of envy. His brother was so charming. With Bas there he always felt like a spare part—particularly around women. Then, out of nowhere, he’d spotted her. And she had been looking at him.
Unlike all the other women in the room, she’d looked at ease with herself. Jeans, boots, hair loose to her shoulders. They had talked and talked, shouting at first, over the noise of the party, and then later more quietly out on the balcony. She had liked the same artists he did, hated parties, and had had an older sister who was much cooler than she was.
He had felt as though she knew him inside out.
It was only later that he’d realised why that was.
