Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
‘ W e should tell her,’ Felipe overheard Katerina say.
It was almost dinner time, it had been a very long day and he had been thwarted at every turn.
All he wanted to do was talk to Rebecca on her own, apologise and check that she was happy.
And see if she had a damned ring on her finger. Surely the girls would know.
‘No,’ said Ana, urgently. ‘You can’t.’
Intrigued, Felipe, who could hear the conversation as he walked along the hallway to the kitchen, was tempted to eavesdrop outside the door, but his scruples overcame his nosiness.
‘We could sing it to her,’ said Cristina, fisting her hands on her hips. ‘He’s a creep.’
‘He’s Rebecca’s choice,’ said Ana.
‘What are you talking about?’ he asked.
The faces of all three women became comically blank.
‘Nothing,’ said Ana so quickly that it was obvious that it had been something.
‘To do with Rebecca?’ he asked, trying to sound nonchalant when his curiosity was well and truly piqued.
‘No,’ denied Ana.
‘Yes,’ said Cristina.
‘Sort of,’ said Katerina.
He cocked his hip against the kitchen door frame. ‘No, yes, sort of?’
‘The Will man,’ said Cristina, her face wrinkling with disdain.
‘Are they engaged?’ he asked because he couldn’t help himself.
‘No. He’s asked her to move in with him and she said yes,’ said Cristina, her voice ringing with teenage outrage. The relief almost floored him. ‘He’s a phoney.’
Now Felipe really was intrigued. ‘How so?’
‘I heard him,’ Cristina piped up. ‘He said he was sorry, but then what he said was fake.’ She curled her lip in disgust, her young face radiating disapproval.
Felipe was grateful when Katerina jumped in to explain. ‘He told her that he couldn’t live without her, but with flowery words, except they’re from a song by Snackboyz.’
‘Who?’
‘ Yooooou brought light into the darkness .’ Cristina launched into the song, belting it out and clutching her clasped hands to her chest, her eyes wide with entreaty while she blinked her eyelashes furiously.
Felipe recognised the catchy tune from constant play on the radio in recent weeks as Cristina continued warbling– very badly, it had to be said, ‘ Yoooou brought sunshine into my heart. ’
Ana and Katerina joined in with the next line, ‘ Without yoooou, I am blind and lost. So blind and lost. ’
They then burst into cackles of laughter. ‘It’s such a bad song,’ said Ana, with rare criticism. ‘And him saying it… is so ick.’
‘It isn’t,’ said Cristina hotly.
‘The lead singer is a hottie,’ conceded Katerina grudgingly.
Felipe frowned, still lost. ‘He sang to her?’
‘No! That’s what I’m telling you. He said it as if he’d made it up, like he was telling her something important. Like he was a poet.’ Cristina glowered so hard her dark eyebrows almost met in the middle.
‘What a loser,’ said Felipe, smirking, amused as much by her disgust as by the feeling that he had some kind of moral superiority over Will.
‘He’s a liar,’ said Katerina. ‘So I think we should tell her.’
‘It would be unkind,’ said Ana. ‘We shouldn’t interfere.’
Felipe looked between them, seeing the mutinous expressions on both Cristina and Katerina’s faces.
He sighed. Much as he’d love to call Will out, it would hurt Rebecca and he’d learned his lesson.
He didn’t want to do that to her again. He wanted to make her happy, to see the carefree smile on her face every day.
From her response in the Pilates class that morning, she was clearly pissed off with him, and he couldn’t blame her.
What did it matter if Will had borrowed the words from a song?
If she loved Will and Will loved her back, that was going to make her happy in the long run, wasn’t it?
So where did that leave him? It wasn’t his style to give up and walk away from something he wanted– but what did Rebecca want?
Who knew it was so hard to be unselfish?
So much for being upfront and honest with her from the start.
How was he to know that his feelings for her would change so radically?
Falling in love with her was his problem, not hers.
‘Ana’s right. It would be unkind.’
‘But he’s a liar,’ insisted Cristina.
‘It’s not for us to get involved.’
‘Why not?’ asked the younger girl.
‘Because she doesn’t need to hear it from us,’ said Felipe firmly. ‘She has to decide for herself. I can’t be responsible for her as well.’ The minute he said it, he could have bitten his tongue off. Ana’s luminous eyes turned on him, widening, not quite accusing but assessing.
‘I thought you liked her,’ said Cristina with a pout.
‘I do.’ The quiet admission dropped as loud into the room as a rock down a well. ‘I like her a lot. But telling her this, if she’s happy, would be cruel and unkind.’
All three women stared at him. He met their gazes and lifted his chin slightly.
Ana lifted an eyebrow in question, her penetrating gaze looking right into the heart of things. He nodded.
‘Oh my goodness,’ whispered Ana.
‘What?’ asked Cristina, looking from one to the other.
Katerina studied Felipe’s face and then her eyes widened.
‘Felipe’s in love,’ she said.
A slow smile of delight spread across Ana’s face, her eyes lighting up with pleasure.
‘With Rebecca?’ screeched Cristina, jumping up and down on the spot. ‘Are you going to marry her? Can you? We really like her. She’s so fun.’
A blush heated Felipe’s cheeks. ‘I didn’t say I loved her.’
‘But you do,’ said Cristina, giving him an enthusiastic hug. ‘I’m so happy for you.’
They crowded round him beaming and it felt churlish to deny it. In fact, it was a relief to actually admit it, to them as well as himself.
He held up a hand. ‘She has no idea, and she’s in love with Will. You can’t say anything. It’s not fair. And I’m not the right man for her.’
‘But Will!’ Cristina screwed up her face. ‘He’s nowhere near as nice as you.’
‘She definitely likes you,’ said Ana thoughtfully. ‘I’ve seen the way she looks at you.’
‘I’m not about to mess up things for her.
She’s wanted Will for a long time.’ Felipe was trying to say the right things even though it wasn’t what he wanted.
But doing the right thing sucked, and for once, he forgot to be guarded.
‘Besides, I’ve got enough…’ He bit the sentence off.
Again, Ana, like a deer sensing trouble, lifted her head and looked straight at him.
All three of them glared at him. Then whirled when they heard footsteps coming down the stairs.
‘You have to make her fall in love with you,’ hissed Katerina. ‘We’ll help.’
‘I don’t need any help,’ said Felipe, a touch panicked. The last thing he needed was his teenage cousins meddling. Goodness only knows what would happen.
‘Rebecca!’ Cristina’s saccharine sweet voice rang out. ‘You’re here!’
Rebecca looked a little startled. It wasn’t surprising because they all stood there looking at her like she was a movie star who’d just stepped out onto the red carpet.
‘Who’d like a glass of wine?’ suggested Ana.
‘While you have your nails done. Felipe, why don’t you open a nice bottle of Alvarino? ’
‘Come sit down,’ invited Katerina, indicating the row of nail varnishes at the end of the table.
Looking bemused by the overly cheery response to her arrival, Rebecca sat down.
Felipe busied himself opening the wine, although he was all fingers and thumbs.
Now he’d actually admitted it out loud, he was a bundle of nerves, fearful that one of the girls would say something.
He knew he could trust Ana to be discreet, but Cristina? One never knew what she might say.
He poured glasses, including a small one for Katerina, who had the occasional glass with them, while Cristina helped herself to a can of Sumol.
He leaned against the cabinets in the kitchen while the women settled around the table and Rebecca kept glancing uncertainly at them all, while avoiding looking at him. There was a definite sense of awkwardness in the air. Not helped by Cristina’s faux chirpiness.
There was a screech as Katerina pushed her chair back on the tiled floor. ‘I forgot… something.’ She grabbed Cristina’s arm and tugged her out of the kitchen.
Seconds later, her head bobbed around the door jamb. ‘Ana, we need you.’
With an apologetic smile his way, Ana, docile as a hand-reared lamb, stood up. As she passed him, she leaned down and whispered in his ear, ‘You’re wrong,’ before trotting out of the room after them, leaving him with Rebecca. He didn’t have time to ponder his cousin’s words.
Awkward didn’t begin to describe the silence.
It felt incumbent on Felipe to say something. ‘I gather congratulations are in order.’ With obvious defiance, she lifted her head and looked at him without saying anything. ‘I heard champagne was requested. Good news?’
‘Will asked me to move in with him.’ Her words were tight and unfriendly.
‘Are you still angry with me?’
‘I don’t think I’ve got anything to say to you.’
‘I’m sorry I upset you.’
‘You didn’t.’ With a shrug she gave him a defiant glare, her eyes belying her words.
‘Are you happy?’
‘Pardon?’ she asked with icy composure, looking every inch a princess as she looked down her nose at him.
‘It was a simple question,’ he said, wondering why he had to be so combative about it.
‘Then I’ll give you a simple answer.’ She looked directly into his eyes. ‘Yes, I’m happy.’
He paused, trying to form his face into the appropriate expression. ‘Well. That’s good then.’
‘I wasn’t aware I needed your approval.’ She lifted her chin in that way she always did when she challenged him.
The resultant pregnant pause could have birthed a couple of elephants.
Rebecca refused to look his way and he realised he had nothing further to say. If she was happy with Will, he had to accept that. He wanted her to be happy– even if that happiness didn’t involve him.
Being the better man didn’t bring him any pleasure.