CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER FIVE
T HE LOOK OF blatant shock on Santos’s face would have been comical if it hadn’t hurt so much. He was surprised —really? After everything that had—and hadn’t—happened between them? She still remembered the agonising moment he’d walked out of her hospital room without a single word and left her there alone to deal with the aftermath, blood, pain and grief. It was something she wasn’t sure she could forgive...just as he couldn’t forgive her for what he’d thought she’d done. What he knew she’d felt.
‘Don’t deny it,’ she told him in a low voice that thrummed with both anger and pain. She felt dangerous all of a sudden, ready to strike, lash, wound . She’d been holding back this anger for months; she hadn’t believed she had the right to be angry, because she’d felt so guilty for what had happened. But now the guilt was gone and all she felt was pure, clean rage.
‘Mia...’ Santos shook his head slowly, spreading his hands wide. ‘I never believed you murdered our baby. Of course I didn’t.’
She let out a hollow laugh. ‘Oh, it’s that obvious to you, is it? Well, trust me, Santos, it wasn’t to me.’ The words came out of her in jagged bursts, splinters that drew blood with every syllable.
Santos frowned, his straight, dark brows drawing together, his eyes flashing darkly with concern and confusion. Even though he seemed disturbed by her accusation, she couldn’t quite assess his response. Was he pretending to be so surprised that she’d thought that? Or had he actually convinced himself that he hadn’t blamed her back then? ‘I never accused you—’ he began.
‘Santos, you didn’t need to.’ The anger was gone, as quick as it had come—just like their infatuation—a spark that had turned into a fire then died out, leaving her only cold and weary. ‘You showed me,’ she told him quietly, ‘With everything you said and did. And with everything you didn’t say or do.’ She’d not forgotten the silences, the accusing looks. The way he’d averted his head whenever she’d come into a room, as if he couldn’t bear to look at her. Those two months had been the longest she’d ever known, every day an endurance test, until she’d finally broken—and run.
He was silent for a long moment, his forehead still furrowed. ‘So you are condemning me for thinking something I never even said?’
‘Do you deny it?’ She met his concerned gaze with a challenging one of her own. They’d never, ever spoken about this, as she had backed away from it every single time, but she was actually glad they were having it out now, whatever the result of their conversation. ‘Do you deny it?’ she said again, a statement as well as a demand. ‘Surely now is the time for truth, Santos. If we’re going to talk about what happened, then let’s talk about it— all of it.’
Pain flashed across his face and his gaze briefly dropped from hers before he resolutely returned it to stare her down. ‘All right, we will. But not in anger.’
Of course he would be so level-headed about it all, so emotionless. A memory crashed through her brain of her screaming at him to feel something. He’d replied coolly, ‘You don’t know what I feel.’ And that, Mia thought, had been the problem exactly: he’d never told her. He’d never let her in. She hadn’t been much better; she could acknowledge that now, and would have even then.
But if he’d held her...if he’d made her feel safe...maybe she would have admitted how guilty she felt, how grief-stricken, yet how she feared she didn’t have the right to the emotion. She would have confessed everything she’d buried deep inside, but his chilly silences had possessed the power to hurt her, so she’d shut down, just as he had.
‘I’m not angry,’ she stated as calmly as she could. And she wasn’t, at least not in this moment; she felt too tired for that level of emotional engagement now. ‘But if you’re going to deny basic reality then I’m not sure how far we’ll get.’ All right, maybe she was still a little angry after all, Mia thought. She could feel her hands curling into fists before she wilfully unclenched them. ‘You blamed me, Santos. At least, you acted as if you blamed me, for two whole months.’
He fell silent again, clearly considering his response, staying so even-tempered while she felt as if she could fly apart into a million pieces, scattering to the four winds. ‘I did not blame you for the death of our child,’ he stated finally. He sounded like a lawyer, being so careful with his words. ‘You had a miscarriage, Mia. It could happen to any woman. It wasn’t your fault.’
The words sounded, and felt, robotic and rote. She didn’t believe he meant them, even though it was what the doctor had told them both when they’d been in hospital, having seen the still, lifeless form on the ultrasound—such a little peanut! It had been tiny and curled up, yet with arms, legs, fingers and toes. She’d only been eleven weeks’ pregnant. She hadn’t realised that a baby looked like, well, a baby so early on. She hadn’t let herself think that way; in that moment, with that tiny form so still on the screen, she had.
‘I know I had a miscarriage,’ she replied, trying to keep her tone as even as his. ‘But that doesn’t mean you don’t blame me. Maybe you think I willed the baby to die somehow.’
He made a scoffing sound. ‘Superstition. No, I’d never think something like that. I didn’t .’
‘Or maybe you think I didn’t do enough to keep it heathy—taken pre-natal vitamins, or rested the way I should have, or cut out caffeine.’ She hadn’t done any of those things. She’d still been adjusting to the utter shock of her pregnancy and Santos’s delight. She’d been afraid, but that wasn’t what Santos had seemed to assume. He’d seemed to think she was selfish, shallow, for not wanting their child, but it had been so much deeper than that.
The tiny, electric pause that followed her statement was all the confirmation she needed to know he had thought something like that. He’d blamed her for not doing enough. ‘The doctor said those things wouldn’t have made a difference,’ he finally said, his tone cautious, as if he didn’t want to admit it.
‘Did he?’ Mia thought back to that dazed conversation, sitting across from the desk, feeling so empty . She recalled the pamphlet the doctor had pushed across to her that she’d been unable to bear reading. ‘I don’t remember him saying anything like that,’ she said.
The guarded look on Santos’s face, quickly veiled, made understanding flash through Mia like a lightning storm. ‘You asked him, didn’t you?’ she realised aloud. ‘When you were by yourself, after you’d left me. You asked him if the things I did or didn’t do would have made a difference.’ Her words rang out in accusation. Before he spoke, she already knew.
‘I was trying to make sense of what happened, Mia,’ he admitted quietly. ‘As I imagine you were. Or,’ he added, his tone suddenly turning quietly lethal, his eyes narrowing just the way they’d used to, ‘Maybe you were just relieved.’
Mia went completely still and taut, her face like a blank mask, while Santos wished he could bite back the words. He hadn’t meant to say them, or hadn’t wanted to feel them, yet... yes ; part of him did feel them and mean them. It was a truth he hated to acknowledge, but there could be no doubting it. She hadn’t wanted their baby. They both knew that unequivocally. She’d told him so, when she’d found out she was pregnant, in a conversation that had shocked and hurt him unbearably. Whatever happened after, that had been a basic reality neither of them could deny.
‘I always knew you felt that,’ she said quietly, too quietly. Her voice was small and sad, and it made him long to hold her, although neither of them moved. ‘Why did you deny it?’
‘Why are you denying it?’ he countered. ‘Mia, you didn’t want our child. You told me so in no uncertain terms. And me acknowledging that truth is a far, far cry from acting as if you killed our baby.’ His voice caught and he felt the sting of tears behind his lids. Their baby —so tiny, so perfect. The grief he hadn’t let himself feel since that day in hospital, when he’d been so horribly numb, now felt like a tidal wave poised to pull him under.
An Aguila is master of his own heart.
He forced himself to push it all back.
‘But you blamed me,’ she said softly. ‘You wouldn’t have asked the doctor those questions if you hadn’t, at least on some level.’
Briefly Santos closed his eyes, his thumb and forefinger bracing his temple. He felt the flicker of his migraine, like a ghostly reminder of the pain. ‘I didn’t blame you,’ he stated again. ‘Please believe that.’ He wanted to believe it, but Mia’s stark certainty was making him question himself. Had he blamed her? He’d been angry, certainly, as well as hurt. And there had been the grief he’d felt that he’d feared, and felt, she hadn’t. So he had retreated into a silence that had probably felt cold to Mia, like a rejection.
But she’d been the same, hadn’t she? She’d shut him out in so many ways, refusing to answer his questions, closing in on herself so he felt he had no access. They’d both been as bad as the other...or almost.
‘I can’t believe that, Santos,’ Mia said quietly. ‘I’m sorry, but I just can’t.’ She straightened, tilting her chin up a notch, her expression bleak. ‘So, where does that leave us?’
He stared at her for a moment, trying to sift through what she was saying. ‘You think we should divorce, then—just because you refuse to believe I didn’t blame you for the miscarriage?’
‘And you refuse to believe that you acted as you did, that you made me feel...’ She drew a shuddering breath. ‘It just feels like too much to get over. Maybe it was a mercy that things happened that way—me getting pregnant so quickly and...and then losing the baby.’ She gulped and then continued, ‘It made us see how incompatible we were...before it was too late.’
There was so much wrong with that theory that Santos didn’t even know where to begin. His jaw clenched as he fought down a wave of fury and did his best to keep his voice even. ‘Mia, we went through something hard—really hard. It doesn’t mean we’re incompatible. And it is too late, anyway, because we’re married.’ He took a step towards her. ‘Did those vows mean anything to you?’ he demanded. ‘For better or for worse? In sickness and in health?’
‘Did they mean anything to you ?’ she tossed back at him. Their conversation had become a tennis match, each slinging accusations back and forth, a volley of words that left them both bereft. ‘You left me alone in hospital,’ she told him. ‘Right after I’d had the procedure. You turned and walked out of the room without a single word.’
Her voice throbbed with pain, shocking him. He’d completely forgotten about that and, remembering it now, he felt a flicker of shame. He had left her, slumped on the edge of the bed, refusing to look at him or even to speak to him. He’d been in a fog of grief, dazed and reeling, painful memories mixing with the terrible present. He’d walked away because he hadn’t known what else to do. In truth, he couldn’t even remember doing it.
‘I suppose I thought you wanted to be alone,’ he told her. ‘You didn’t say a single word to me. But maybe I should have tried harder. At the time, I was just...reeling, really.’ He paused and then, the words feeling awkward even though he meant them, said, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Oh, Santos.’ Mia let out a jagged laugh. ‘Don’t you see? We isolated ourselves from each other every single time. When things got hard, we did everything wrong. We never, ever turned towards each other in our grief and pain. I know you don’t think I felt any,’ she added, her tone turning spiky, ‘And maybe you’ll never be able to believe me about that, just like I can’t believe you about the blame. But I did feel it. I was sad about the loss of our baby, even if I wasn’t thrilled when I found out I was pregnant.’
‘I believe you,’ he said after a moment, and he did. It didn’t negate the other fact, of course—that she hadn’t wanted their baby—but he could see how those two sentiments could co-exist...sort of.
‘Do you?’ she asked despairingly, shaking her head.
A flash of irritation went through him, although he did his best to tamp it down. ‘What can I do to convince you, Mia?’ he asked. ‘You seem remarkably determined to believe the worst of me.’
‘And you seem determined to believe the worst of me ,’ she retorted, and then threw her hands up in the air. ‘Listen to us! We just never get anywhere. This is why we should divorce. You won’t ever see my perspective, and you won’t ever even let me know yours. How can we possibly make a marriage work?’
He stilled at this new accusation. ‘Wait...what is that supposed to mean?’
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘You shut me out, Santos, at every turn. You wouldn’t talk about how you felt sad, or angry, or anything. Maybe I should have tried harder to get you to open up, but when I did it felt as if you just shut down even more. I ended up screaming at you like—like a fishwife and feeling worse about myself than I already did.
‘Do you know why I left?’ she demanded, her voice raw and throbbing with pain. ‘Because I couldn’t take it any more, feeling that way. Having you make me feel like the worst person in the world. I left because I couldn’t bear it. Sometimes...sometimes I thought I’d rather be dead, than feel the way I did, like our baby.’ She pressed her fist to her trembling lips as she choked back a sob, turning away from him to hide her face.
Santos stared at her in stunned disbelief. She’d rather have been dead ? He didn’t think she was being melodramatic; Mia wasn’t prone to theatrics. But had he made her feel that way? He wanted to deny it, needed to, and yet he saw it there in her face—saw the way she was curling into herself, trying to hold back the sobs—and it felt as if the knowledge was tearing him to shreds.
Dear heaven. What had happened to them? How had they got to this forsaken place?
‘Mia...’ he began, reaching one hand out to her, even though she was too far away to touch. It was a paltry gesture, and he had no words. He felt utterly unequipped to deal with this moment and its fraught emotions. ‘Mia, please. When we get back to Seville we can—’
‘I can’t go back to Seville,’ she said suddenly, the words coming on a ragged gasp. ‘I can’t face that house—your mother, the silverware ...’ She let out a high, semi-hysterical laugh that ended on something between a shriek and a sob. ‘I won’t go back there, Santos. Don’t make me.’ She whirled around, her face pale and streaked with tears, her voice turning shrill, as if she was gripped by panic. ‘Don’t make me! Don’t make me, please !’
He’d never seen her as distraught as this, not even after the miscarriage. What on earth was going on? The silverware ...? Santos realised there was a lot more going on than he’d ever understood, or tried to understand, but maybe he needed to now. He closed the space between her in two long strides. She was crying silently, tears slipping down her cheeks as she stared at him helplessly, and he took her by the shoulders.
‘Mia, please. It’s all right. It will be all right. I won’t make you. We...we don’t have to go back to Seville.’
She gave a shuddering gulp as she stared at him, tears still trickling down her face. ‘We...don’t?’
‘No,’ he said firmly, although he was thinking on his feet. He had at least a dozen meetings scheduled for next week in Madrid and Rome, as well as estate business to see to back in Seville. Every moment of every day was accounted for, as it always was, but just then none of it mattered. ‘We don’t. We’ll go somewhere else.’
The idea unfurled inside him, blooming into something both cautious and wonderful. ‘We’ll go somewhere just the two of us together. I have a villa in Greece, on a little island.’ It was a place where he’d dreamed of staying for weeks at a time, but he’d never managed it. Not yet. ‘We could go there for a little while. We never had a honeymoon, after all. Maybe now is the time.’
‘A honeymoon ...?’
The look of blatant scepticism on her face would have hurt him once, but now it just made him more determined. He’d come to Ibiza to find his wife and he’d go to Greece—he’d move heaven and earth—to win her back. Whatever had happened in the past, they could get over it...together. He’d make sure of it; he’d put in the work that he’d said every marriage needed. He’d put in the work for Mia, because this wasn’t just about keeping his word or being an Aguila—it was about what they’d shared, and what they could share again. It was, he decided, time to woo his wayward wife.