Page 177 of Modern Romance November 2024 5-8

Santos, as relaxed as ever, held up the platter of pork. ‘May I serve you?’

Mia hadn’t eaten all that much since she’d boarded the yacht and, while she was hungry, she wasn’t sure she could manage so much as a mouthful right now. But she forced a nod. ‘Just a little, please.’

She watched as Santos loaded up both their plates with various delicacies. There was a bottle of white Rioja chilling in a bucket of ice next to the table, and he took it and poured them both a glass. It was all so very civilised, she thought as he lifted his glass.

‘Arriba, abajo, al centro y pa’ dentro!’he proclaimed, reciting the old Spanish toast.You are never above me, never below me, never away from me and always with me.

Was that a warning, Mia wondered as she drank, or a promise?

‘So,’ Santos said after he’d set down his glass and leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers together like a professor. ‘In answer to your question, do I think our marriage was a mistake...?’

He paused and Mia tensed. She realised, in that moment, she didn’t actually want him to think that at all, which had to be phenomenally stupid.Shethought it was a mistake and of course he should as well. It would make everything easier if he did.

‘The answer is twofold,’ he continued in that calm voice, as smooth as a river of honey rolling right over her. ‘First, Idon’tthink that, but second, it doesn’t matter—even if I did, we are still married, and should therefore honour our vows.’

Mia carefully set down her glass. ‘Putting the second point aside for the moment,’ she replied as mildly as she could, ‘Why don’t you think that?’

Santos gazed at her thoughtfully, his head cocked to the side. It felt as if he were trying to plumb the depths of her soul, and it took all of Mia’s strength simply to sit there, a faint, enquiring smile on her face, and wait. ‘I suppose,’ he answered after a moment, ‘The question really is, why do you?’

She let out a small, hollow laugh. He was deflecting, the way she often did, another aspect of her mother’s ‘don’t let anyone close’ philosophy, don’t actually ever admit what she was thinking or what she cared about—who shewas. And yet, what was the point of this conversation, its discomfort, if she didn’t tell the truth—or at least a bit of it?

‘I suppose,’ she answered slowly, toying with the fragile stem of her wine glass, ‘Because we’re so different. And we want different things out life.’

‘I can certainly agree with the first point,’ Santos replied with a smile, his teeth gleaming whitely in his tanned face. After the carefully leashed fury of that first night, he seemed remarkably at ease now. Why? What had changed? ‘As to the second...what do you want out of life, Mia? Truly?’

Startled, she lifted her glass and took a sip of wine as she attempted to organise her thoughts. What did she want out of life? ‘Safety’ was the first word that came to mind, but she discarded it because she already knew Santos would insist he could make her safe—more than anyone else, with his money, his power and his high-walled estate locking everything and everyone out if he so chose.

But that wasn’t the kind of safety she meant. Physical safety and emotional safety were two very different things. As a child, she’d known far too well what it was like to have neither—she’d hid under her covers, listening to her mother and her drunken friends in the next room. The two of them would have to run from yet another commune, farm or shabby flat because once again it had all gone wrong... Her childhood had been a tempestuous sea of instability, and she’d been tossed on its waves over and over again.

Santoshadmade her feel safe, back at the beginning, in both ways. It was what had compelled her to agree to his unexpected and reckless proposal of marriage. She’d trusted him at the start, and she wasn’t someone who gave her trust away easily. How had it all gone so wrong, so quickly? And was there any way to make it right again? Santos seemed to think there was, but Mia felt too jaded to share that hope.

‘Freedom,’ she finally said, because hadn’t she learned that was what emotional safety essentially was—never letting anyone close enough to hurt her? Going her own way as a choice rather than default or rejection?

‘Freedom,’ he repeated slowly. His eyes had narrowed, but his tone was mild. ‘What kind of freedom, exactly?’

Mia shrugged restively, not wanting to give much more away. ‘Just...being free. Making my own choices, being able to do what I want.’ Which made her sound a bit selfish, she realised, and it wasn’t really about that at all. It was about not being hurt—notableto be hurt. But she didn’t know how to explain that and, even if she did, she wasn’t sure she wanted to. Actually, sheknewshe didn’t want to...but then maybe this conversation was pointless.

A sigh escaped her at the thought, and she reached for an olive from her plate, nibbling its tart saltiness. ‘Anyway, it’s the first point that’s more relevant, Santos,’ she replied with clear deflection. ‘We’re simply too different.’

He leaned back, steepling his fingers together again. ‘Don’t they say opposites attract?’ He smiled faintly as he cocked his head and waited for her reply.

‘Attract, yes,’ she allowed. They’d certainly been attracted to each other They’d left the bar the first night they’d met and gone right to Santos’s five-star hotel. There had been no discussion, no question about any of it. Mia remembered soaring up in the lift to dizzying heights, her heart racing in time with it. Santos’s slow, sure smile as he’d reached for her hand... And, when he’d kissed her for the first time, it had felt as if fireworks had gone off inside her head, her heart.

She’d never been one for flings, and had never had a one-night stand, because she hadn’t wanted to give that much of herself away so cheaply. Yet she’d had no doubts about being with Santos, about it feeling and being right. At least, not until much later.

‘Whether opposites can stay together is another matter,’ she finished, and then popped the olive into her mouth, forcing herself to swallow, for her throat suddenly felt dry as Santos’s eyes narrowed in speculation.

‘I suppose it takes more effort,’ he remarked slowly. ‘To understand where the other person is coming from.’

Effort, Mia supposed, that neither of them had really made. Their attraction had been so wonderfully easy, and she’d assumed—maybe they both had—that the rest would be too. The first bump in the road that they’d come to—and admittedly it had been a big one, very early on—had utterly derailed the whole thing. It had been hard, if not impossible, to recover from that.

‘I suppose any marriage is hard work,’ she replied, meaning it to be more of a generic observation than an assessment of their own unfortunate nuptial state.

Santos leaned forward, his eyes firing to bronze. ‘Then let’s put in the work, Mia.’

She’d walked right into that one, Mia realised, but even so she was surprised. Santos certainly hadn’t seemed to want to put in the work before. Did she even want him to now? Didhe, really? Was it worth it? She didn’t think could take any more heartbreak, any moreguilt.

She definitely knew she couldn’t stand Santos looking at her the way he had in the hospital, when their baby had bled out of her, as if she’d committed a crime.

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