CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER SEVEN
I N ALL HER travels Mia had never been to Barcelona. The city stretched before her now in a sea of terracotta buildings and stretches of vivid green grass punctuated with the electrifying and elaborate architecture the city was known for. Before her lay the prow-like Natural History Museum, the rumpled roof of the Santa Caterina market and, of course, the wedding-cake spires of Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia cathedral, still unfinished after nearly one hundred and fifty years. All of it was a feast for the eyes, the senses, and Mia could scarcely take everything in as she and Santos left the confines of the yacht for the city.
They’d moored the yacht at the exclusive Marina Port Vell right in the centre of town. Santos had arranged for a car to be waiting for them to whisk them away to the penthouse suite of the Mandarin Hotel on Passeig de Gràcia, in the beating heart of the city’s luxury shopping district.
Even though Mia had lived with Santos in some style for several months, the wealth and luxury had never quite felt real; she’d never felt as if such things could be trusted. In the imposing rooms and galleries of the Aguila hacienda, with its ancient oil paintings and ornate woodwork, Mia had felt like a gawking visitor, and sometimes an unwanted one at that. Certainly his mother, although doing her best to be gracious, had been unenthused by her only son’s choice, and in truth Mia could hardly blame her. If she’d been in a similar situation, she would probably have been horrified.
During their short time at the estate, she and Santos had never ventured far, save for a few dinners out in Seville, and the days had often been long and empty because he’d been so busy with his work. She remembered wandering the rooms of the hacienda, feeling entirely out of place, his mother eyeing her narrowly, no doubt wondering how long she’d last. Well, not very long, as it had turned out. She hadn’t even met Santos’s sister Marina, who lived in Madrid.
Now, strolling into the elegant foyer of the hotel as the porter sprang to attention to take their bags, Mia felt as if she was experiencing something else entirely—truly the honeymoon they’d never had.
‘I’ve never actually been in a penthouse,’ she remarked when they’d taken the lift up and she walked through the stylised rooms of the hotel’s best suite on the top floor. Everything was sleek and sharp, with lots of streamlined angles and modern art. A set of sliding glass doors led to their own private rooftop terrace overlooking the old town. There were two bedrooms, including a stunning master suite with its own sumptuous bathroom, its gold-plated fixtures gleaming; a kitchen, a living room, dining room and a study. They had a butler at their beck and call and the use of a private car for their entire stay. It felt extraordinary...decadent.
Admittedly, she’d had similar privilege back in Seville. The staff at the Aguila estate numbered in the dozens, and everything had been the height of old-world luxury. Yet somehow this felt different—more personal, perhaps—because it was just the two of them. There were no sober-faced staff standing by to intimidate her, no censorious mother-in-law to impress or avoid.
Until she’d fled, she hadn’t realised just how oppressive she’d found the whole experience, Mia reflected—such as her mother-in-law’s careful yet pointed reminders of which fork to use for which course at the elaborate family dinners, while Mia had fumbled and dropped a spoon. Such as her remarks about how Mia would have to educate herself on Spanish customs and manners, making her feel like an absolute yokel. She recalled how busy Santos had always been so busy, managing a massive estate. And how extraneous she’d seemed to everyone, wandering around the empty rooms, trying not to feel lost, homesick for...what?...a place she’d never even known.
Yes, thankfully this was all different. She could breathe more easily here...except when she thought of what might happen later that night, and then her breathing hitched as her heart started to race with anticipation. She didn’t think she’d imagined the look of blatant intent simmering in Santos’s eyes when he’d suggested coming to Barcelona. Was he expecting her to share his bed tonight? Did she want to?
Part of her, a very large part, ached to be in his arms again. Ached to feel loved, even if she knew she still couldn’t trust that it was real. Another part told her to be cautious, to guard her body along with her heart. They hadn’t so much as brushed lips since before the miscarriage. There had been a reason for that.
‘Why don’t you relax?’ Santos suggested as he strolled through the penthouse as if he owned it. He was a man totally at ease in this world in a way that Mia doubted she ever would be. Yet another difference between them—she was mentally chalking them up, trying not to let the sheer number dispirit her. They were there, though, and they mattered. She had convinced herself they didn’t when she’d been swept away in the first whirlwind of their romance, but over the difficult months of their marriage she had come to realise just how much they did...whether Santos was willing to acknowledge it or not.
‘When are we going to go shopping?’ she asked.
‘I called a few boutiques and arranged for them to stay open for us privately,’ Santos told her, as if it was a small matter to arrange such a thing. ‘So, we can suit ourselves with the timings, but we do have a dinner reservation for eight. I thought we’d appreciate not having to deal with the crowds.’
‘The hoi polloi ?’ Mia replied wryly, and he shrugged.
‘Yes, if you like. Do you feel differently?’
She knew he was doing his best to be thoughtful and considerate, and she appreciated it; she did . And yet... ‘No, not really, but... I’m the hoi polloi , Santos.’ It simply had to be said. ‘The great unwashed, as it were.’ She was not even half-joking although she kept her tone light. ‘I hope you don’t mind rubbing elbows with me .’
He frowned before deliberately turning the corners of his mouth up into a smile. ‘You know I don’t, Mia.’
‘I know, it’s just...’ Heaven knew, she wasn’t trying to pick a fight, but these things had to be pointed out. They mattered . ‘Another way in which we’re different,’ she finished before adding resolutely, because perhaps this needed to be said too, ‘Maybe too different.’
Santos folded his arms, his expression turning obdurate in a way she remembered all too well. He really could be the most stubborn man. ‘You seem determined to believe that such things are insurmountable.’
‘I’m just trying to be a realist.’
‘Which is what all pessimists say,’ he teased, unfolding his arms and walking towards her with them held out, as if he was going to catch her up into an embrace, although he stopped short of that as he came to stand in front of her. ‘No, you’re not of some ancient, aristocratic lineage. So what? I don’t care.’
‘Maybe you should,’ Mia returned, feeling compelled now to an honesty to which she’d never dared give voice before. Once she started, it felt hard to stop. ‘Your mother does, I imagine, and don’t you think your father would have as well? Maybe your sister, too?’
As soon as she asked the question, Mia realised she’d struck a nerve, a painful one. Santos stilled, the teasing smile dropping from his face like the mask it clearly had been, his arms falling to his sides. ‘This isn’t about my mother,’ he said after a moment, his tone repressive, hinting at a latent anger underneath. ‘Or my father. And my sister definitely wouldn’t care about anything like that. She lives her own life as a textile designer in Madrid.’ His expression softened briefly. ‘I hope you meet her one day. I’m sorry you didn’t before.’
Mia suspected she hadn’t because his mother hadn’t wanted her to. She’d wanted to keep Mia apart, to wait and see if she lasted.
‘Isn’t it about them, at least a little bit?’ Mia challenged quietly. ‘You told me yourself you wanted to follow in your father’s footsteps, and that you feared you never could. Marrying me... Isn’t that part of all that fear? Your father must have wanted you to marry some—some blueblood, someone of your social standing and pedigree.’
Not an illegitimate American waif who had never had a home to call her own. In light of all that, Mia supposed his mother had been as welcoming as she possibly could have been. Her frostiness had to have been expected; at least she hadn’t been outright cruel, even if Mia had longed for so much more. She’d wanted a home, a family, and she’d found neither.
Santos swung away from her. ‘Let’s not talk about all that, Mia,’ he said gruffly. ‘I don’t want to be mired in the past. We’re here now. Let’s enjoy ourselves.’
Which was a pretty effective way to shut down the whole conversation without addressing any of the issues, but Mia accepted it...for now. She was as weary as he was of raking over the past, and they only planned to be in Barcelona for a few nights. She wanted to enjoy herself just as much as he did.
‘Okay,’ she said, and then, wanting to be as honest as she could, added, ‘I’m not trying to pick a fight, Santos, or make things more difficult than they need to be. It’s just... I’m afraid that this stuff matters.’
He turned back to her with a smile that seemed forced, his eyes still shadowed. ‘I know,’ he said, coming up to her and resting his hands on her shoulders. ‘I know.’ He gazed down at her for a moment and then slowly he drew her towards him. Mia came in a few faltering steps, her heart starting to beat rather hard. Was he going to kiss her? His expression looked too sorrowful for that.
He drew her right up to him, so her breasts were brushing his chest, making them ache with both memory and desire. Every time he’d touched her, she’d come alive. She’d had no idea a man could make her feel that way, like little sparks setting off all over her skin. That hadn’t changed, she acknowledged as she felt the warmth of his palms through the thin cotton of her T-shirt.
His breath fanned her hair and his hands were warm and solid on her shoulders. For a few seconds, they simply stood there, breathing each other in. The ache of desire inside Mia was spreading, taking her over and making her sway. She wanted him to touch her, to kiss her. He must feel how much she wanted him to.
Then slowly, deliberately, he pressed his lips to her forehead. Mia closed her eyes. There was something infinitely sweet and tender about the gesture; it felt like a seal as well as a promise. His lips lingered on his skin and then he eased back with a smile, although his eyes still looked sad.
‘We’ll get through all this,’ he told her. ‘We will. But today...tonight...let’s just have fun. We haven’t done that for quite a while.’
Not since those first heady days in Portugal, when everything had felt electric. ‘I know,’ she whispered, and for the first time since he’d come back into her life she felt a pang of genuine sorrow for the loss of all they’d once shared. She missed the way they’d been together.
Once she’d made the decision to leave, she’d been so determined to convince herself it hadn’t been real. She’d been so desperate to write her feelings off as foolish infatuation, as a dreaded fling, that she hadn’t let herself think about just how sweet, how powerful and poignant things had truly been between them...at least at first. Now, for a few achingly sweet moments, she let herself remember. She let herself feel ...and want.
Gently, Santos squeezed her shoulders. ‘The shops should be opening for us in about an hour, if you want to get ready.’
‘All right,’ she whispered, and she slipped from beneath his hands, her whole body aching with remembered and reawakened desire.
As Mia disappeared into the bedroom, Santos swung away from her, fighting a rising tide of sexual frustration as well as alarm and even fear at what she’d brought up.
Don’t you think your father would have as well?
The question had been painfully pointed, more than Mia could possibly know, because he absolutely knew, one hundred percent, that his father would have wanted him to marry elsewhere. His father had picked out his bride when he’d been just seventeen years old—Isabella Ruiz, the daughter of an old business associate with a lineage as esteemed as his own. Santos had nothing against the girl. He’d met her on various occasions and found her meek and willing, obedient and hopeful. He’d told himself he would be willing to marry her eventually, and yet as the months and then years had passed, and his reluctance hadn’t faded, he’d realised the only thing to do was put them both of their misery.
He’d asked her to meet him for dinner and explained that he didn’t feel they were suited. He hadn’t gone deeper than that, and in the end he hadn’t needed to, because Isabella had been relieved. She’d fallen in love with someone else and, while she would have married Santos out of duty, she was glad to be free...and so was he.
His mother had been disappointed, but Santos had assured her that he would find a suitable bride. And so he had, although he acknowledged Mia was hardly what his mother had expected. Still, with time, he’d believed she would come round.
‘I’m ready.’
He turned to see Mia come out of the bedroom; she’d changed into a pale-pink sundress with straps that tied on her shoulders, and made Santos instantly, overwhelmingly, want to release the bows and watch the dress slither down her body, revealing the perfect, golden flesh underneath he remembered so well.
Later , he told himself. He hoped...
‘Wonderful.’ He kept his gaze on her face even though he ached to let it rove over her curves, slender yet lush. ‘Shall we go?’
Almost shyly, she nodded. This was new for both of them, he realised—the seeming normality of it. They were moving on, not just from the pain surrounding the miscarriage, but the novel, heady passion of those first few weeks together.
Real love is something that roots down and grows , Mia had said. Santos hoped that was what was happening right here. He hadn’t let himself think about love when he’d first gone to find Mia; he’d just known that he wanted her back in his life. He’d told himself he was being a man of his word...yet already he knew his feelings for Mia were so much than that. Maybe they really were love, or at least the start of it.
He took her arm as they strolled into the lift, and she let him, resting her hand on his forearm. ‘So, what boutiques do you have this private arrangement with?’ she asked a bit teasingly.
‘Only a few, but we can go in any shop that takes your fancy. I don’t mind. Trust me, I will enjoy buying you whatever you like.’
He’d bought her so many clothes and jewels when they’d first married. He’d showered her with designer gowns, and diamond necklaces she hadn’t worn, but in hindsight Santos realised he hadn’t actually had her choose any of it. Such a notion hadn’t even occurred to him. He’d simply ordered everything in her size from the most elite and expensive designers and had them delivered to the estate.
She must have worn some of those clothes at the formal dinners his mother still insisted on, he acknowledged—five interminable courses, eaten mostly in silence—yet he found he couldn’t picture her in one. All he could remember, he realised with a pang, was the look of strain on her pale face as she’d studied the five rows of cutlery on either side of her plate. Knowing now what he did about her upbringing, he realised just how strange and overwhelming coming to the Aguila estate must have been for her...and he hadn’t made it any easier.
He let out a startled, ‘Oof!’ as Mia poked him in the ribs. ‘You’ve gone quiet,’ she told him with a small smile. ‘ And you’re scowling. What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing’s wrong,’ he said quickly, more unsettled by that memory and all it could signify than he wanted to be. ‘I’m just looking forward to seeing you try on all these clothes.’ He allowed himself a wolfish smile. ‘Maybe you’ll need help with some of the zips.’
To his delight, Mia blushed. ‘Maybe I will,’ she murmured, looking away, her cheeks still washed with colour.
The first boutique they went to on the Passeig de Gràcia was one of those insufferable places with bony, sharp-faced women swarming them as soon as they crossed the threshold, all face lifts and haute couture.
‘Se?or Aguila,’ one of them purred. ‘Always a pleasure to do business with your esteemed family. How is your dear mother?’ Her gaze flicked to Mia, with the most cursory glance, and back again. ‘And who is this? A...friend?’
‘My wife ,’ Santos replied rather tersely, seeing how stricken Mia looked by the whole, awful experience.
Like a flock of crows flapping their wings, the women immediately gave him their congratulations, and assured them both they would like nothing better than to dress the new Se?ora Aguila.
Santos glanced again at Mia, who still looked pale and a bit sick, and found himself shaking his head. ‘I believe we’ll go elsewhere,’ he stated firmly and, taking Mia by the arm, he exited the shop without a word.
Mia let out a trembling laugh as they emerged onto the pavement flanking the wide, tree-lined boulevard.
‘What was that all about?’ she asked. ‘Why did you leave?’
‘I didn’t like them—sanctimonious, snobbish busybodies.’ He was surprised by how much he meant it. He didn’t think he would ever have noticed such things before, or maybe even cared, but he’d felt acutely conscious of it today. He hated the way they’d looked at Mia, as if dismissing her, before he’d told them who she was.
Mia glanced at him, wide-eyed but also sceptical. ‘You don’t need to do that just for my sake, Santos. I mean, I appreciate it, but I should be able to handle this world. I’ll have to learn, anyway, if you want me to be part of it.’
‘Maybe I don’t want to be part of it,’ Santos countered.
Her eyes widened further. ‘The world that’s in your blood?’ she returned. ‘That’s so much a part of you? You can’t mean that.’
‘It’s not all of a piece,’ he argued. ‘The Aguila estate is in my blood, yes—oranges and olives and history—but that doesn’t mean some skinny, supercilious clothes horse in Barcelona has to be.’
To his surprise and delight, she let out a laugh of such genuine amusement—that open, easy sound of joy he remembered—that several passers by turned their heads, curious and charmed. He liked making her laugh, he realised. He liked the fact that he was starting to understand her more than he ever had before, when he’d first been so fascinated. Already their relationship felt deeper, more important and real , and he was glad.
‘Fair enough,’ she conceded, smiling wider still, her eyes sparkling. She looked so much like she used to back when he’d first met her that he had the urge to catch her up in his arms and kiss her senseless. ‘Fair enough,’ she said again, and then, still smiling up at him, she slipped her arm through his as they walked to the next boutique.
Fortunately, the sales associates of that establishment were far more amenable, seeming genuinely friendly, and whisking Mia away to a dressing room to try on various outfits while Santos made himself comfortable on a velvet sofa outside the curtain. He slid his phone out of his pocket, intending to check his messages, realising he hadn’t so much as looked at them in over twenty-four hours, something that was incredibly unlike him.
He started scrolling through them, glimpsing several from his mother as well as his estate manager, along with a few from other business interests. He texted a quick message to his estate manager, and another to the manager of the head office in Madrid, asking them both to handle anything pressing. He found himself swiping to close the messaging app, and then put his phone back in his pocket with something like relief. He didn’t want to deal with all that now; he didn’t want it to interfere with what was developing between Mia and him.
‘Anything I’m allowed to see?’ he called out, and a moment later Mia pulled back the curtain, smiling at him shyly. She was wearing a gown and, oh, what a gown. It was the aquamarine of her eyes, with twisted, Grecian-style straps and a plunging neckline that somehow still managed to seem modest yet so very intoxicating. The dress clung to her hips and then fell in a swirl of shimmering fabric to below her ankles.
‘I don’t know that I’ll ever have an occasion to wear something like this,’ she told him, ‘But the sales assistants both insisted. They said it matched my eyes.’
‘It does and we’ll take it,’ Santos replied immediately. His blood felt as if it were on fire; it took all his strength simply to sit there on the sofa rather than sweep Mia into his arms and slip the straps from her shoulders. ‘As for an occasion to wear it, you already do. Tonight, for dinner with me.’ And later, he very much hoped he’d have the occasion to take it off her.
Mia must have seen something of that in his eyes, for her smile faltered for a second before returning in force, curling slowly as her gaze swept over him, lingering in a way that made his blood heat all the more. His palms positively itched to touch her and caress her.
‘I guess it’s a winner, then,’ she said and, with that smile promising all sorts of wonderful things, she slowly drew the curtain closed again.
Santos leaned back against the sofa, his breath coming out in a rush as he shifted where he sat to ease the undeniable ache in his groin. He was very much looking forward to dinner, he decided, and, more importantly, afterwards .