The Love Dilemma

Chapter 1

Chapter One

ELENA

There weren’t many things that would cause Elena Romero’s body to flood with stress hormones when she was focused on work.

She was a skilled practitioner, calm and reassuring.

‘Assertive’, as her youngest sister, Luisa, referred to her—although usually in a tone that suggested it wasn’t a compliment.

But when her phone flashed with a silent message from Luisa that said Urgent—get home now!

it was enough to threaten the onset of heart failure.

Hiding her panic from her patient, Elena checked the time, relieved to note the treatment session was almost over. ‘How does that feel now?’ she asked, hoping thirty minutes of intensive massaging had alleviated the pain of recurring sciatica.

The woman eased into a sitting position. ‘You’re a miracle worker, even if you’re also a sadist. Seventy-five quid for the pleasure of being tortured is not my idea of fun.’

‘No pain, no gain.’ Elena’s phone flashed with another message.

Where are you? We need you here!

The use of the word ‘we’ meant her other sister, Sofia, must also be involved in whatever drama was unfolding at home, and for Sofia to be absent from work, it meant the situation was serious enough to warrant asking for more time off—something her employers were becoming increasingly unhappy about.

Maybe if they had care responsibilities themselves they might feel differently.

Unless you’d experienced the trials of looking after a poorly loved one, it was hard to comprehend the constant exhaustion and demands.

Elena scrolled through the electronic calendar on her laptop. ‘Same time next week?’

Her patient groaned. ‘If I must.’

Elena tried to appear calm while the woman located a credit card and paid for her treatment.

Transaction completed, Elena was finally able to grab her phone and escape.

If the emergency at home was serious then she’d have to cancel her afternoon appointments, which wasn’t ideal.

Reputation was key to success, and she wasn’t the only physiotherapist in Notting Hill.

The competition would seize any opportunity to steal her business, but family came first, so she’d do what needed to be done.

Her patient was occupying the single-person lift as it creaked downwards towards reception, so Elena skipped down two flights of stairs and pushed through the fire door, almost bumping into a sign-writer stencilling a new name on the glass door of the ground floor office.

The impressive Georgian building had been converted into commercial offices a few years back.

The landlord, Hugh Spencer-Harrison, ran his counselling services from the middle floor, and if she’d known the ground-floor tenant was moving out, she’d have spoken to Hugh and asked if she could switch offices, so her ailing patients didn’t have to negotiate the stairs or use the unreliable lift each time they visited.

But it was too late now, the space had been taken.

She’d just have to hope that whoever Daniel J Jackson was, he might be open to swapping offices with her.

It was a long shot, but nothing ventured, nothing gained and all that.

Slamming the door behind her, she raced down the path and clattered through the iron gate as she headed towards Portobello Road. The market ran every day except Sundays, so the area was always buzzing, and she had to swerve around the mass of pedestrians filling the pavements.

It was normally a four minute walk from Portobello Road to Lancaster Road, where her family lived.

When she exercised at night, she could cover the distance in less than two minutes.

On a bustling market day, running wasn’t an option.

Swerving at speed was the best she could manage, apologising to shoppers as she knocked into them, and trying not to crash into any of the stall holders.

Glancing at her phone, she was relieved to discover no further messages.

Sofia would normally be straight on the phone if there was an issue concerning Luisa’s health, so receiving a message from Luisa herself was an anomaly.

Her youngest sister was usually incredibly stubborn when it came to asking for medical help.

Maybe Sofia was sick? Had something happened to her middle sister?

It was a horrible thought. Sofia had been the only other person keeping the family afloat in recent months since their mum’s unexpected death from an aneurism.

It was a horrendous event that had been compounded by Elena splitting from her long-term boyfriend Felix.

Being dumped for a better job was bad enough.

Being left a week after her mother’s funeral was beyond cruel. Talk about cold-hearted.

With Felix gone, she’d struggled to pay the bills on their rented flat alone.

So when Papi returned to Colombia to sell off his business interests and improve their financial situation, moving back into the family home to help Sofia look after Luisa had seemed like the sensible decision—even if giving up her independence had been a wrench.

She was thirty years old and back living at home. Life was not going to plan.

Elena darted between two stalls selling bric-a-brac and Indian scarves, ignoring the stall holders’ invitations to sample their produce. The smell of freshly baked goods made her stomach rumble. The lure of pain au chocolat would normally be tempting if she wasn’t responding to an emergency.

Skidding around the bend, she entered Lancaster Road—or Rainbow Row, as it was commonly known.

Architecturally, every house was identical.

Three-story town houses, built in the 1820s, each one with a set of steps leading to a colourful front door and a prominent bay window at the front with a balcony above.

The only thing setting them apart was the colour—each one was painted a different shade, from shocking pink to sandstone beige.

There were blues, greens, pastels, each one reflecting the character of the people who lived inside—or, at least, the people rich enough to own such prestigious dwellings.

Current house prices in the area topped three million.

The only reason the Romero family owned such a fancy pad was because her maternal great-grandparents had bought the property back in the 1940s and passed it down through the generations.

Reaching the front door, Elena tried to ignore the flaking cerise paintwork around the doorframe.

Whatever the gaudy colour said about them as a family, she wasn’t sure, but the disrepair certainly told a story.

Money was tight. Papi wasn’t currently earning and the properties in Colombia had yet to sell.

Luisa’s health prevented her from working full-time, and the increasing cost of living wasn’t slowing down any time soon, which left Elena and Sofia as sole earners in the family.

Almost kicking down the door, Elena raced inside. ‘I’m home!’

A scream rang out from above, followed by thundering footsteps running across the landing. Elena had assumed the emergency was medical, now she was wondering if they had an intruder. In which case, she needed to arm herself.

Grabbing a bread knife from the kitchen, she jumped the stairs three at a time, grateful for the power in her legs from regular circuit training.

There was no sign of anyone on the first floor where the bedrooms were, so she followed the banging up another floor to where Luisa had her art studio. The sight that greeted her was surreal.

Sofia was clinging onto one of the large sash windows and holding a mop head, trying to dislodge a distressed pigeon from the rafters, who was flapping about and head-butting the wall.

‘The cavalry has arrived!’ Luisa threw her arms in the air, before performing a comedy double-take when she spotted Elena’s weapon of choice. ‘Err … why are you carrying a bread knife?’

‘I heard screaming, I thought you were being attacked.’ She placed the knife on the floor, out of harm’s way.

Luisa grinned. ‘What were you going to do, slice them to death?’

‘It was all I had time to grab.’ And then she noticed Luisa’s outfit. ‘What on earth are you wearing?’

‘A tent.’

‘Because?’

‘Sewing Bee transformation challenge, turning an old canvas into a wearable garment.’ Luisa did a spin. ‘Like it?’

‘You call that wearable?’

Luisa shrugged. ‘It’s practical, it keeps the paint off.’

‘Is anyone going to help me?’ Sofia was balancing on top of a wooden chair.

‘Sorry!’ Elena headed over to the window, shaking off the sight of her youngest sister wearing an orange two-man tent. ‘Please tell me the pigeon isn’t the emergency.’

Luisa looked disgruntled. ‘Of course it is! I mean, look at the state of my studio. Bird shit everywhere.’

Elena flashed Luisa a loaded look. ‘You called me home from work to deal with a pigeon?’ It was hard to comprehend that Luisa was twenty-five years old, she looked and acted much younger.

But Elena figured that was the curse of being poorly.

How could anyone grow up when they constantly needed looking after?

Luisa folded her arms. ‘Sofia isn’t faring so well. She needed help.’

‘I assume you sent Sofia the same urgent message?’

‘She certainly did.’ Sofia wobbled on the chair. ‘And when I’m done catching this blessed pigeon, we’ll be having a discussion about the meaning of the word urgent.’ She sounded uncharacteristically flustered. ‘This is not my idea of urgent.’

Elena glared at Luisa before kicking off her trainers. ‘Mine either.’

‘What should I have done then? Let the little bastard fly around shitting on everything until you came home tonight? Ruining Mum’s brocade curtains? Gifted to her by her ancestors on their deathbed?’