Chapter Nineteen
Gabriela actually felt tongue-tied, as if she did not know him at all, but Enrique was an expert at overcoming people’s awkwardness, and soon he had her laughing and feeling at ease. Though that might have had a bit to do with a very expensive wine!
With her mother being in charge of a royal kitchen, Gabriela had grown up on really good food.
And yet nothing compared to this meal, under a star-studded sky, with Enrique’s attention focused solely on her.
As dessert was brought out, he lost his lighthearted tone.
“I spoke to my mother,” he said. “She admitted it was true, that she not only sent you away, but that she kept us from getting in touch with each other. She was, of course, not the least apologetic. She claims to have saved us from ourselves, that she felt we were barreling toward catastrophe.”
Gabriela contemplated that, and reluctantly could see there was some wisdom in it.
“She was concerned the fallout from young love would change the dynamic between our families.”
Again, reluctantly, Gabriela could see the point. They had been eighteen and nineteen. An adult observing would see the naivete, the intoxicating power of first passion that might lead to poor decisions with far-reaching repercussions.
“I question her motives were purely altruistic,” Enrique went on, “because by allowing me to think you wanted nothing to do with me—”
“And me to think the same thing.”
“She was able to engineer the relationship she wanted for me, the one with maximum benefit to Hermosa Mariposa and Amelia’s family, also.”
“And if I could put back time,” he said pensively, “would I? I cannot imagine a world without Marcello.”
His love for his son was so beautiful, and yet she could hear something in his voice that she felt compelled to pursue.
“I’ve seen many changes in him in a very short time,” she said.
“Yes, I have, too. And I’m very grateful for that.”
“But?”
“But it seems every time I almost get to the place of trust and connection that I hope for between us, he slams up a barrier, as if I am his enemy, not his father.”
“It’ll come, Enrique. It’s just going to take time.”
“It’s come farther since you’ve been back than it ever had before.” He lifted his wineglass in salute. “Thank you for that.”
So, this was what this dinner was about, then. An expression of gratitude. She needed to be very careful not to read more into it.
“It’ll continue with Darla. She’s extraordinary with him.”
“You are, too. You seem to have a natural gift. You want children, don’t you?”
That question seemed far more complicated than it might have before her return to Hermosa Mariposa. Of course she wanted children one day! And yet, there was only one man she wanted children with.
“Timothy was a really good guy,” she said, to hide her new truth from Enrique. “Solid. Reliable. The kind of guy you look at, and go, Wow, he’s going to make a great daddy someday.”
She saw Enrique flinch, ever so slightly, insecure about being a great daddy himself.
“So, what happened?”
She gazed out over the view, the sparkling lights of Santiago reflecting in the dark waters of the bay.
“When Guido got sick, Timothy wanted to come back here with me.”
“That seems very supportive.”
“I couldn’t picture him on Hermosa Mariposa,” she admitted to Enrique softly. “I realized I couldn’t picture him against the backdrop of my world. Or maybe didn’t want to.”
She didn’t mention that she had certainly not wanted him to meet the Prince. Because the comparison would be inevitable, like a racehorse standing beside a plow horse.
“And then he called me on it. He said I held a piece of myself back from him, and that he wanted more for himself and me.”
“I’m not sure love should be comfortable,” Enrique said, and then grinned, self-effacingly, “not that I am any expert on the subject.”
She didn’t tell Enrique that Timothy had called her out on the lack of passion. It had always been comfortable between them, but there were none of the sparks of pure chemistry between them.
Of course, having had her world burned down once because of those sparks, she had been wary of them. In that way, Timothy had seemed like a good pick.
But now, sitting across from Enrique, the sparks practically falling down around them when they weren’t even touching, she saw she had very nearly missed something that suddenly felt essential to life.
When he walked her to the garden gate, hours later, she felt blissful. There would only be one way to feel more blissful, and that was to recapture what had started to unfold between them at the beach.
But when she leaned into him, and touched her lips with his own, he answered tenderly, but chastely. He put her away from him.
And then took the sting out of his rejection completely, by saying: “Can we do this again?”
And so they did it again. The most amazing week unfolded. He invited her to a movie night at the palace theater, which they had all to themselves. And then to a picnic for two at the Butterfly Garden.
And finally, he had invited her for a private evening in the small, walled courtyard, outside his quarters, the open patio doors giving a glimpse of his bedroom.
There had been a table set up, and candles, wine and chocolates. Music filled the space.
And after they’d had a drink, he’d invited her to dance. For all that they had known each other forever, they had never danced, that most intimate of courtship rituals between a man and a woman.
Gabriela had hoped the close proximity to his bedroom might have meant he had something more planned, but no, he said good-night to her with the same chaste kiss, and then walked her to her own gate.
When it closed behind her, she hugged herself and twirled. She contemplated the feeling inside her: so alive, so excited by life.
So in love.
But there was that doubt. How could Enrique be courting her? She thought of the evening they had just shared, so perfect in every way, the sensation of being in his arms, gazing up into the liquid brown of his eyes. She sighed.
Wouldn’t he need now, as he had then, to make a strategic match? Wouldn’t he need to marry a woman from his own background? Surely his mother would not be happy for him to enter a relationship with an ordinary woman, much less the daughter of staff members?
Gabriela realized that as blissful as it was to just immerse herself in these moments that she spent with Enrique, neither of them was addressing the elephant in the room.
Which was why? Why were they doing this? To what end?
She moved through the garden and into the house. It seemed strangely empty, and then she saw a note on the kitchen table. Maria and Guido had gone to the other side of the island to visit his sister, Gabriela’s Aunt Sophia. They would stay the night.
She smiled as she contemplated that note. Guido was up to an overnight trip. He just seemed to be feeling so much better, stronger, more himself.
Geraldo strutted into the kitchen, and demanded attention, so she picked him up. The radio was playing softly, and she danced around the small space with him cuddled against her.
“You’re nearly as good as a prince,” she lied to him. He purred deeply. He, too, seemed healthy and vibrant.
The storms that had gathered around her life felt as if they were dissipating. She allowed herself to dismiss the cloud of why that hung over her, and luxuriate in the feeling of all being right in her world.
She allowed herself to luxuriate in her sense of happiness.
She should have known, by now, that was like throwing out a challenge to the gods.
The phone rang. She glanced at the clock, alarmed. It was very late. She put down the cat and snatched up the phone receiver, terrified it was bad news about her mother and father.
But no, the familiar voice of her boss, Peter, in New York reached her. He’d obviously forgotten the time difference.
She let relief sweep her.
“Gabriela! I’ve been trying to reach you for days. I seriously cannot believe you don’t check your phone or your emails.”
“My phone doesn’t seem compatible with the system here. The internet is, um, cranky.”
Though this was true, the biggest part of the truth was that she had let go of her other world, so as to more completely immerse herself in this one.
“It’s absurd,” Peter said. “I don’t think I could live a day without checking my email and watching a few reels on my phone.”
Just a short time ago, she would have felt the same way. Now she felt reconnected to life in a way she cherished.
Though, how much of that had to do with the enchantment of Hermosa Mariposa and how much had to do with dancing with her very own prince tonight, she could not determine.
“Listen, I’ve got some exciting news for you. Are you sitting down?”
She wasn’t. What kind of news would she have to sit down for? Her feeling of relief ebbed away.
“You’re being offered the Madrid office.”
“I’m not following.”
“They want you to head it. Our biggest office, the hub of all our international trade. I’ve got the offer in front of me, and it’s unbelievable.” He named the salary. “Shares! A house comes with it.”
She could feel the blood draining from her face, the joy sliding out of her. “I have to think about it,” she said.
“What’s to think about?”
Enrique. Marcello.
“You know my father isn’t well.”
“Well, yeah, but what are you going to do? Put your life on hold forever? Like are you sitting around there waiting?”
She knew this bluntness was the American way, that family was not the same priority for them, and yet still it stung that he was making her sound like a vulture in a tree.
“The Madrid office is the perfect solution,” Peter said. “What’s Madrid from your airport there? An hour?”
She knew, of course, what Peter did not.
It was more subtle than last time. Far more subtle.
But the reasons were the same. While she thought her and Enrique’s deepening relationship was unfolding in private, there was really no such thing in this royal world.
She knew exactly who was behind this spectacular offer, and why.
“Let me think about it,” she said again. She was only twenty-six years old. Even though she knew she was good at her job—maybe even spectacularly good—the position was way above anything she had earned.
“Really? What’s to—”
She hung up on him. She picked up Geraldo again, but the music had stopped—it felt like literally and figuratively—and the news was on.
Hermosa Mariposa news. A traffic light not working in Benito. A baby being welcomed by the Gonzales family. An international grant for Mariposa Gardens. A burst water main in the Colombo district.
And then, “And Queen Katarina has just announced that Princess Bettina of Isle Xavier will be arriving on Hermosa Mariposa on Monday for an extended visit. Though no official reason has been given for the visit, it is largely thought that she and Prince Enrique will announce their engagement—”
Gabriela felt blindsided, and then despised herself for being so naive. What had she thought? All this time, enjoying him, lapping up his attention and affection, allowing herself to believe… What exactly had she believed? That he was going to marry her? That love was going to win this time?
Yes.
That was exactly what she had thought. She had thought he was courting her! But now what had seemed like his desire for privacy felt instead as if it might have been secrecy. Hiding her, hiding how he felt about her.
Why had she not asked him the obvious question? Will you have a need to remarry?
But she knew the truth. She had not asked it because she was a coward. Because she could not bear the answer.
In her naive love for him, she had missed all the signs.
This was not meant to be. It could never be. Guido had told her love didn’t ask what’s in it for me, it asked how to serve.
She could not put Enrique in the position where he had to choose to give up everything for her. The Queen would never consent to a union between them.
So, would he? She thought of the time they had spent together, and figured it was possible he would.
She knew what it was to give up a world. She knew the agony of it. How much worse for him, who had been born to his life and his role and his obligations, who knew nothing else?
She thought of another poor lost prince who had famously given up everything to follow his love of a woman, and how he seemed now to be rudderless, without a place for his heart to call home.
Gabriela called on every bit of her inner strength. Her fortitude. Her love.
She would serve love one last time. She would give to Enrique—freely, knowing there was nothing in it for her, no possibility of a future—what he had never had. Not once in his whole privileged life.
And, if the radio was correct, that he was heading back into.
A loveless arrangement between two powerful families.
He had a duty. He had been born with obligations. He had learned that in his world it would always be service above self. He could not break out of it. He had a life that was bigger than himself, and he was a prisoner to that life.
They had, both of them, succeeded in “living in the moment” the last while. But maybe they had been too successful, not giving enough weight to the future and decisions that would have to be made.
She knew he loved her. She knew that suddenly and deeply and wonderfully. But that knowledge made her aware he might think he could choose her. Maybe that’s what all this, in his mind, had been leading toward.
But if she really loved Enrique, could she put him in that position? Could she ask him to make a choice that would reverberate through not just his life, but Marcello’s, as well?
She had been naive to think he could ever be free to choose his own partner And while he did not seem like a naive man, he seemed to be under that illusion, as well.
She would save them both from the illusion.
Yes, she would give him something, but she would take something back.
A final memory to sustain her through the lonely road she saw unfolding ahead of her. In permanent exile from her family, because she would never be able to bear to come back here to see Marcello with a new mother, to witness Enrique’s life unfolding, once again, with another.