Page 168 of Modern Romance November 2024 5-8

Spaniard’s Waitress Wife

Kate Hewitt

“Umm...do you need something?” the man asked.

“Sí,”Santos replied curtly.“Mi esposa.”My wife. He looked pointedly at Mia while the man’s jaw dropped.

Her face drained of color so the freckles on her nose stood out in bold relief, her eyes widening to nearly navy pools and her lips—those lush lips he’d kissed, tasted—parting slightly.

“Santos...” His name was no more than a breath.

“Mia.” His voice was flat and hard. They stared at each other for what could only be a second but felt endless. In that brief flicker of time, Santos felt as if he could recall every moment of their marriage—the early rapture, the ensuing cold silences, a chasm neither of them could possibly cross, the deep, deep disappointment and the lancing pain. And now this.

He folded his arms across his chest and waited for her to speak. Surely, she would saysomething. Apologize. Explain. Stammer something, at least, even if he already knew nothing she could say would make much of a difference. She’d left him without a single word six weeks ago, slipped away in the night like a thief.

CHAPTER ONE

TECHNOMUSICPULSEDin time with the beat of his heart as Santos Aguila’s narrowed gaze surveyed the crowded bar, his arms folded across his powerful chest. He didn’t want to be here. Moreover, he didn’t want Mia to be here. His wife—hiswaywardwife.

A frown settled between Santos’s dark brows as his gaze continued to move over the young, enthusiastic crowd partying it up—a tiresome and expected mix of trust-fund babies and inebriated gap-year students, along with the odd socialite who had decided to slum it at this rooftop bar in Ibiza Town. He had it on good authority—that of the world-class private detective he’d hired ten days ago—that Mia would be here tonight.

Raucous music continued to blare from the speakers, mixing with the shrill shrieks of feminine laughter, as well as the clink and clatter of glasses and trays. Tension banded Santos’s temples as he felt the unfortunate start of a migraine that he did his best to stave off. He needed to find Mia before he succumbed to any such infirmity. He needed to find her—and bring her home, for good.Whyhe needed to do this, considering she’d left him without so much as a word, was a question Santos chose not to examine too closely. She was his wife, she belonged with him...and that was all that mattered.

They had first met at a bar much like this one—full of the young, hip and trendy, with eye-wateringly expensive cocktails—in Portugal’s Algarve just seven short months ago. She’d been behind the bar, her auburn hair messily piled on top of her head, her blue-green eyes alight with humour and mischief as she’d shaken cocktails with sinuous, elegant ease. Just as with this bar tonight, Santos hadn’t wanted to be there. His oldest friend Emiliano had insisted on a wild stag night, even though Santos didn’tdowild, or even parties; but, when his gaze had snagged on Mia, he’d found himself caught, transfixed.

There had been something about the way she’d moved with such easy, lithe grace, and he’d become mesmerised by every flip of her wrist and the way she tilted her head back when she laughed, a generous, open sound that had floated through him like a warm breeze. She had a small space between her front teeth that somehow just added to her enchantment. She wasn’t classically beautiful, certainly not in the way of the women he’d usually had on his arm—elegant, entitled women suitable for a man of his standing—like his almost-fiancée, Isabella. Mia had been something more, something real and warm...or so he’d believed at the time.

Her gaze had skimmed over him, resting on his form for barely a millisecond before moving on, and it had somehow felt like both a challenge and an invitation. He’d decided he simply had to say hello to her—a compulsion that, a bit uneasily, he had acknowledged was very unlike him—and they’d ended up talking until the bar had closed at three a.m. And then afterwards as well... Oh, he certainly remembered theafterwards.

With effort, Santos pushed such thoughts and the ensuing recriminations out of his mind. No point dwelling on the past and how it had all gone so very wrong. Right now, he just wanted to find Mia...and bring her home.

He shouldered his way through the crowd, continuing to scan the faces that were starting to blur a little as pain tightened on his temples. He hadn’t had a migraine in over a year, he thought in irritation. Why now? And where was Mia?

A sweaty, red-faced twenty-something guy holding two cocktails aloft knocked into his shoulder, sloshing the lurid red liquid over the rim of the glasses and almost onto Santos’s expensively tailored jacket. Santos stepped quickly out of the way, causing a blaze of pain through his head as the guy slurred his apologies and moved on. What on earth was Mia doing in a place like this? It was a question Santos didn’t want to think about too closely because, the more he considered it, the more he feared he’d never known his wife at all.

And yet they were married, and would stay married, because an Aguila kept his vows. Even here, amidst the pounding music of the bar, Santos could recall his father’s voice, deep and certain, telling him again and again what it meant to be an Aguila. He could see his aristocratic face crumpled in pain...

But he couldn’t think about that now. That memory was buried far too deeply. What he knew, what he was absolutely certain of, was that as an Aguila he would keep his word. He would keep hisvow...no matter what happened.

Santos stepped out of the crowded indoor space onto the rooftop terrace. The air was soft, the harbour glinting under the moonlight dotted with fishing boats and private yachts. It was quieter out here, at least, and he felt he could breathe. The pain in his head eased a little...and then he saw her.

The pain flashed again like a blaze of lightning, and he had to put one hand on the doorframe to steady himself. He blinked to clear his blurred vision and there she was: leaning against the low wall that surrounded the terrace, the silver-limned harbour the perfect backdrop for her long, lithe figure. Her auburn hair blew in tangled waves in the sea breeze, and she pushed it back with both hands as she laughed at the man standing next to her. A man, Santos noted grimly, who was looking at her in frank and unabashed admiration.

She was wearing a dress—and, oh, what a dress. It was made of a shimmery emerald satin with a halter top, and it covered her from collar bone to ankle, yet clung to every curve and dip of her figure so lovingly that Santos thought she might as well be naked.

His head continued to pulse with pain. What the hell was his wife doing in a place like this, wearing a dress like that, and with a man next to her, ogling her all the way? None of it boded well. All of it made him coldly furious. Slowly, each move lethal, he stalked towards his wife.

She was so busy talking to the Lothario in tight leather jeans, with his shirt unbuttoned nearly to his navel, that she didn’t notice her husband standing a few feet away—not until her companion threw Santos a startled glance.

‘Umm...do you need something?’ he asked in heavily accented English.

‘Si,’Santos replied curtly.‘Mi esposa.’ My wife.

He looked pointedly at Mia, while the man’s jaw dropped, and then Mia finally looked at him. Her face drained of colour so the freckles on her nose stood out in bold relief, her eyes widening to aquamarine pools and her lips—those lush lips he’d kissed and tasted—parting slightly.

‘Santos...’ His name was no more than a breath.

‘Mia.’ His voice was flat and hard. They stared at each other for what could only have been a second but felt endless. In that brief flicker of time, Santos felt as if he could recall every moment of their marriage: the early rapture; the ensuing cold silences; a chasm neither of them had been able to cross; the deep, deep disappointment and the lancing pain. And now this.

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