Page 195 of Modern Romance November 2024 5-8

The family I hoped to have one day.For once, those words didn’t reverberate with loss, but rather with hope. Yes, Mia’s miscarriage had been hard for both of them, but it was in the past, and they had a future to look forward to.

‘And then I never ended up going,’ Santos finished on a sigh. ‘More fool me, I suppose.’

‘Well, you’re here now,’ Mia reminded him. ‘And I’m glad.’

‘So am I.’

They shared a lingering look that made Santos’s insides warm. Yes, the futurewassomething to look forward to. With that happy thought in mind, Santos went to adjust the sail.

When he returned, Mia continued with the questions, leaning back on her elbows, her hair flying in the wind. ‘You still haven’t saidwhyyou built it,’ she pressed. Her voice was light enough but there was an insistence underneath Santos both heard and felt. ‘For you and your family, yes, but why, when you have the estate, the apartment in Madrid, the Caribbean whatever, the ski chalet and I can’t remember where else?’

‘I think those are all of them,’ Santos said with a smile. ‘But this place is different. It’s...mine. And I wanted an escape.’ It sounded like an innocuous remark, he’d meant it to be, but he knew right away that he hadn’t fooled Mia by the way she narrowed her eyes and cocked her head.

‘An escape?’ she repeated slowly. ‘From what, exactly?’

Santos was silent for a moment as he turned to squint out at the sea, its surface shimmering with sunlight as if some giant, benevolent hand had strewn it with diamonds. He could breathe so much more easily out here, under the sun and on the sea...and with Mia by his side.

‘An escape from everything,’ he stated simply. ‘From being an Aguila. From beingtheAguila—the head of the family and all that it means. From the responsibilities of work and managing an estate with over a thousand staff, and that’s not even including the Aguila offices in Madrid and Rome, which employ hundreds. From...from being me, but not really me—being the me I need to be in order to be the head of the Aguila family.’ The words had come out of him in a staccato rush and, he realised, were some of the most honest and revealing he’d ever said.

Mia stared at him for a long moment, her expression thoughtful, her eyes soft with sympathy which Santos couldn’t quite bear. He didn’t want to be pitied, of all things. He was anAguila, the head of one of Spain’s oldest and most aristocratic families. And yet wasn’t that the problem in the first place?

He glanced back at the water, not trusting the expression on his face, not wanting to see the pity on Mia’s. Then he felt her reach over and cover his hand with her own.

‘I’m glad you have this place,’ she said softly. ‘For your sake, but also for mine—forours.’

Santos nodded jerkily, still not trusting himself. They didn’t speak for a few moments, but as he let himself relax into the silence he realised it wasn’t as bad as he’d feared. Mia’s understanding wasn’t actually pity; it didn’t weaken him in her eyes, or in his own. To his own surprise, he realised that he was actually glad he’d told her.

Mia tucked up her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them as she tilted her face to the warm sun. Santos was focused on steering the boat into the cove of a small, uninhabited island, little more than an outcrop of rock with a stretch of sand.

His handsome face was drawn into lines of concentration, his hands resting on the tiller, his broad shoulders gleaming under the summer sun. He looked a little bit like she imagined Apollo should look, Mia thought fancifully—bronzed, powerful, perfect. Every time she looked at him, she marvelled that he wanted to be with her. And yet, against all odds, he did...and, slowly and cautiously, she was starting to trust in that.

They hadn’t spoken for a little while, and Mia had been okay with that, because she’d sensed Santos had probably said more than he’d wanted to or was comfortable with, and he needed time to recover his equilibrium. She was still very glad he’d said all he’d had. Grateful that he’d been willing to share so much with her, because it helped her to understand him so much better.

If only she’d understood that before...

But no—no more recriminations or regrets. No more looking back at all. The future was shimmering all around them, just like the sunlit sea, and that was what Mia wanted to focus on.

‘So, if you’ve never been snorkelling, how did you know where to go?’ she asked teasingly.

‘Alvaro told me. He said this was a particularly good spot—not too rocky.’

It looked like a good spot, Mia acknowledged, the water crystal-clear, with a sandy shore all along the postage-stamp-sized island.

Tossing her a quick smile, Santos heaved himself off the side of the boat and waded through the water. He was a breath-taking sight, dressed only in a pair of board shorts, the sun glinting off his dark hair and the neatly trimmed stubble on his jaw, his burnished, olive skin taut over sleek muscle. He certainly stole her breath, anyway, Mia thought wryly. She felt as if she could watch him for ever.

‘Aren’t you coming in?’ he called to her, and she didn’t need to be asked twice. She slipped over the side of the boat and into the water, which was lovely and warm and came up to her thighs. Santos secured the boat and then handed her snorkelling gear—mask, breathing tube and fins.

‘I always feel a little ridiculous with all this on,’ Mia admitted, and Santos grinned at her.

‘You look ridiculous too,’ he said, before pulling her in for a quick kiss before she put in her breathing tube. Mia laughed and shook her head, enjoying how happy he seemed. It was an unsettling thought, because it made her realise Santos hadn’t seemed happy back in Seville...and neither had she been. Had that been the cause of the problems, rather than any of their differences—rather their surprising and unspokensimilarity?

It was a thought she couldn’t quite her head around, not yet anyway. She needed to consider the idea more, let it settle and seep through her. Santos had talked about needing this escape and how heavily duty seemed to weigh on him...she’d had no idea about any of that. No idea that any part of him resented or at least felt burdened by the responsibility he carried so squarely on his shoulders.

Did the fact that she now knew that change anything? Mia wondered. She thought it did, or at least it could. She felt as if she knew and understood Santos more with him away from the estate and everything it represented, or at least this version of him. She felt the same way she had when they’d met in Portugal. But in Seville he had changed; he’d become taciturn, remote...and no more so when she’d told him she wasn’t happy to be pregnant. But even before then she’d felt his disapproval, his disappointment, and it had played on every doubt she’d ever had from a childhood of living with a mother who had resented her at every turn.

You’re not good enough... You’ll never be good enough... Nothing you ever do will win anyone’s love.

Those thoughts had circled relentlessly through her head in the awful weeks before she’d finally worked up the courage to leave, or, really, given in to the desperation to.

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