Chapter 23
‘That sounds like so much fun! Can I come along?’
Jo could almost see her daughter’s hackles rising. She could only imagine one thing worse than shopping for pretty dresses for a wedding: shopping for pretty dresses with your ex-husband’s bride-to-be, while your daughter looked on in mortification.
She should never have mentioned their shopping trip in the breakfast room, where anyone could overhear and try to tag along. Next, she’d have Rita asking to join them. She glanced reflexively at her former mother-in-law, looking away again in alarm to find the woman’s eyes on her – in sympathy, as usual.
‘Don’t you have things to prepare for tomorrow? I wouldn’t want to waste your time,’ Jo tried diplomatically.
‘My facial isn’t until one o’clock. I’d love to join you. I know what everyone’s wearing, so I can help you!’
Jo gulped, feeling suddenly sorry for Mónica. ‘We’d… like some mother-daughter time, actually.’
‘But you can do that when Ben and I are on our honeymoon. You don’t think I’d sabotage you, do you?’ she asked, dropping her voice. ‘I’ll be happy to see you in something beautiful tomorrow.’
Liss looked ready to vomit now.
‘Trust me, the thought never entered my mind until now,’ Jo assured Mónica. ‘I know you have a much better sense of style and I believe you want me to look nice, but we don’t want you to come with us.’
Mónica blinked at her, as though she hadn’t been expecting a clear rejection. Jo breathed out slowly, strangely comfortable with the idea of being straight with her.
‘I like you, Mónica,’ she began, ignoring the sight of the other woman picking her jaw up from the floor. She sensed the fleeting glances of the family and friends in the breakfast room, but she was all done worrying about María Dolores – if she even existed outside of Adrián’s bad jokes. ‘I mean, I like you within reason. We’re never going to be best friends and—’ I’m not sure I can forgive you for being so immature with Adrián. ‘I respect you and I believe you’re trying your best.’
Liss was eyeing her as though she thought her mum had a screw loose.
‘But this situation is awkward. Your future husband has my kids. We’re a family built on the remains of two former families.’
Mónica flinched, but she didn’t say anything.
‘It is what it is. We don’t have to pretend to be best friends. I appreciate that there’s no open hostility, but we can’t be close. You don’t have to love Liss and Dec and they don’t have to love you.’
That set Mónica off. ‘But I’m marrying their dad! Of course we have to love each other!’
‘You have to love Ben.’
‘I do!’
Jo tried not to dwell on the fact that Mónica had felt the need to defend her feelings. ‘But you can’t force love. Oscar is young, but Liss and Dec are almost adults. They have a right to their own feelings – and so do I.’
Wow, it felt good to say that. She wasn’t the confused and powerless woman who’d left Ben, unsure of what her life meant.
‘You want to marry Ben? You have my heartfelt blessing, even though you don’t need it. In fact, you should want to marry him even if I was threatening to scratch your eyes out.’
Mónica’s gulp suggested Jo was getting carried away, but now it had all started coming out, she couldn’t stop it. The breakfast room was unnaturally silent, but even all those eyes weren’t enough for her to backtrack.
‘Marrying Ben isn’t going to be all rosy – or anywhere near perfect. You have to accept that you can’t make my kids play happy families. You might have to meet them where they want instead of where you’re comfortable. You’re going to be a stepmother. This is the reality, even if the priest has found a loophole to call it your first wedding.’
Mónica bristled. ‘I do know how that must feel for you?—’
‘You don’t,’ Jo said, cutting her off gently. ‘But if that’s what you want for your wedding, it’s your choice. My dress? That’s my choice – my feelings too. I’m Ben’s ex-wife. I won’t cause you any trouble, but I’m here – I’m still here.’ She just knew Adrián could hear her and she wished she knew what he thought of her words. ‘Marrying Ben means occasionally dealing with me. I’m prepared to make that relationship amicable – friendly even, over time. But I’m not prepared to pretend that everything is perfect and my first marriage didn’t exist.’
She felt Liss’s hand slip into hers and her blood rushed in her ears.
‘Um, while we’re here,’ she added. ‘I really wanted to help Liss choose a dress myself. I understand she already has one, but if you don’t mind, we’ll buy another one today.’
‘Oh, of—’ Mónica looked a little at sea. ‘Of course,’ she said solemnly.
Ben made his belated entrance at that moment and it would have been impossible to miss the tension in the room. When he noticed Jo and Mónica, he rushed over.
‘Everything okay?’ The familiar sweep of hair fell over his forehead, as it always did when he was stressed. She knew every inch of his face – his body, his mannerisms. But it was odd how detached she felt when he approached. In fact, she surprised herself by willing him to comfort Mónica, to show her some kind of support during this unavoidable confrontation.
His hand snaked around Mónica’s waist. Jo stared for a moment, that tiny gesture making her feelings stumble over each other. She prompted Mónica with an expectant look. She should answer Ben’s question.
‘Yes,’ the other woman said curtly. ‘I think so.’ She grasped Ben’s sleeve. ‘Let’s get a coffee, mi rey. I haven’t woken up yet.’
If Jo hadn’t already eaten, she would have had to find a café because there was no way she could stay in the room after that conversation. She floated towards the door, hardly aware of her own footsteps. She could really do with a dumb joke to burst the tension right now, but Adrián was still eating and they’d agreed to stay away from each other – at least she thought they had.
‘I’m so glad you’re here now, Mum,’ Liss said emphatically as soon as the doors closed behind them. ‘You’re my hero.’
Jo wasn’t going to cry – she wasn’t. ‘I hope I said the right thing,’ she murmured.
‘It was the truth. Someone needed to say it. I’m so tired of pretending – and I’m soooo glad I don’t have to wear that hideous dress!’ She threw her arms around Jo. ‘You saved the wedding.’
Jo choked. Liss was exaggerating but Jo wasn’t sure if she truly wanted to give up the protection of her resentment. It had kept her detached – and safe – for too many years. Damn it! She didn’t want to cry when she couldn’t begin to explain her feelings to her concerned daughter.
Her phone beeped and she gave herself an inward shake as she grasped for the distraction to extricate herself from her confronting thoughts. But she started when she saw it was a message from Adrián.
You were right – honesty is sexy. You’re so hot right now.
Stifling a snort, she shepherded Liss in the direction of the stairs before her daughter had a chance to ask what she was laughing about.
Jo was surprised three hours later when Dec’s response to her text about lunch informed her he was on the beach. Not the type to sunbathe if there was a darkened room available, Dec didn’t explain what had lured him out, so Jo and Liss just exchanged a puzzled look and dawdled in the direction of the waterfront.
The sun beat down on the fortifications looming over the water and the beach stretched as far as Jo could see – apparently as far as the distant blue hills on the northern horizon. The sand was dotted with parasols and people stretched out on towels, but it wasn’t crowded.
She was just starting to think about ice cream when she caught sight of Declan and her jaw dropped. His hair was wet and dripping in his face. He was wearing swimming shorts and had obviously been for a cooling dip. And he had an enormous smile on his face as he flicked a neon-yellow frisbee down the beach with a run-up, tumbling into the sand when he threw it too hard.
On the receiving end of the frisbee – or rather, leaping to miss Dec’s wild throws and then stumbling through the sand to retrieve it – was Adrián, also shirtless and wet from the waist down, but with the sling still strapped around his shoulder.
Jo had to stop for a moment to fight the warmth shooting through her at the image they made: Adrián and her son. Together. She swallowed the emotion that swelled up in her throat.
Adrián saw her and waved, a grin splitting his face and shivering through her. Dec turned and waved, too, and she noticed Oscar in the shallows, building something with a bright red shovel.
‘Just don’t let him fall over!’ she called out.
‘I won’t!’ called back Adrián.
She laughed. ‘I was talking to Dec!’ They both turned to her in surprise. ‘What?’ she said as she and Liss approached on the sand, kicking off their sandals. ‘I nursed you back to health. I don’t want to have to do that again.’ She was aware of Liss’s sidelong glance, but ignored it in favour of Adrián’s open smile – and his bare chest.
‘There are two loungers and a parasol over there if you two want to stay out of the sun,’ he said.
‘Do they belong to María Dolores and María Rosa?’ she asked.
‘Something like that,’ he said with a laugh.
Hanging their shopping over the back of one of the chairs, she stretched out next to Liss, as contented as a cat in a sunbeam, especially when a glance to her left produced the view of Adrián leaping for the frisbee – and continually missing. He’d tied his hair up in a little ponytail that she would have thought was ugly and annoyingly swashbuckling a week ago.
She was rather partial to swashbuckling today. Perhaps the gold chain was supposed to be piratical.
‘Do you have to be so obvious, Mum?’ Liss said with a long-suffering sigh.
‘Hmm?’ She tore her eyes away from Adrián, the hair on her neck standing up at her daughter’s queasy look.
‘That was painful to witness. If you need pictures of hot guys, I can train the TikTok algorithm for you.’
She nearly asked if TikTok had videos of forty-two-year-old grumpy dads who played the guitar until she realised that would make everything worse. She opened her mouth, wondering if Liss was too old to accept a glib confession that she and Adrián ‘liked’ each other, but her daughter spoke first.
‘Does this mean you’re ready to date now? That would be one good thing to come from this wedding.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Closure. I always wondered if you’d get back together with Dad because you both seemed so sad.’
‘It was a… grief process, Liss,’ she said softly.
‘Was?’
‘Are you so worried about me?’
‘No. You don’t need a partner to be happy.’
She squeezed Liss’s thigh. ‘Good answer.’
‘But you looked happy just then, ogling Adrián.’
‘I wasn’t ogling him,’ she insisted, but her words trailed off. ‘Okay, maybe a bit. But you can be attracted to someone and still not be interested in anything… romantic.’
‘Does he know that? It kind of looks like he’s sucking up to Dec.’
It did, which was why Jo’s stomach was fluttering and doing repeated loop-the-loops.
‘He should know.’ She bit her lip, deciding Liss deserved at least part of the truth. ‘We decided to be friends. Anything… more seems like a bad idea.’
‘Mum! Did you kiss him?’
‘I don’t really want to talk about it. The wedding is tomorrow?—’
‘You did!’
If Jo wasn’t sitting in the shade of the parasol, she would have thought she’d had too much sun. ‘It was… intense, when we were trying to get here and everything went wrong. But don’t worry. The most important thing is that it doesn’t get weird for you kids.’
‘The most important thing is taking a chance with a guy you like, Mum. You’re old, not dead.’
‘Gee, thanks,’ she mumbled. ‘You’ll eat your words when you’re my age.’
‘I hope I have a hot boyfriend when I’m your age,’ Liss said with a sniff.
‘Have you forgotten he’s Mónica’s?—’
‘Of course I haven’t forgotten!’ Liss said, sitting up. ‘But if it was someone else, I bet you’d use the excuse that you’re Dad’s ex-wife! I’m a teenager. I know it’s hell when you like someone, but if it’s hell anyway, why not try it out?’
‘I can’t believe you’re encouraging me,’ Jo said, emotion rising up her throat. ‘After all the angst about Dad, why would you think it’s a good idea for me to start seeing someone?’ The ‘someone’ sat uncomfortably on her tongue, as though it didn’t matter who, when the ‘someone’ was the only reason she’d even entertained the idea of dating – dating! That awful activity where both parties posture and suffer and pretend they’re normal. ‘And what about Oscar? I thought you didn’t like him!’
‘I didn’t like how Mónica keeps trying to make us a family – which you fixed for me this morning. If he was just some kid… sometimes he can be sweet. Dad barged over us, sitting us down to “tell” us stuff instead of asking. You’re asking and it makes all the difference. I feel like part of things this way – and I’m shipping you two a little as well.’
‘I’m asking because I’m uncertain,’ she pointed out. ‘And don’t get too attached to the idea of me finding someone new. Everything has gone wrong for Adrián and me so far.’
‘I trust you,’ Liss said. Simple words, but they acted on Jo like fire on clay. ‘If you trust him, then go for it!’
If you trust him…Wasn’t that the question?
Jo didn’t need any encouragement to turn and look at Adrián, where he was talking to Dec about something, pointing out to sea. He noticed her and gave her a grin big enough to be seen from the yacht out in the deep water. How strange that they’d arrived in Pe?íscola, survived another day from hell yesterday, but this little parallel world had travelled with them. Not only that, but their kids had jumped through the portal too.
Could they really take all this back to London with them? Was closure something she could find at this wedding amidst so much embarrassment and hurt?