Page 182 of Modern Romance November 2024 5-8

He shrugged easily. ‘I don’t suppose I ever had occasion to mention it.’

‘How many properties do you have, besides the estate in Seville?’ she asked out of simple curiosity. As someone who had never owned any property at all, never mind a villa or an entire estate, the idea of having several was utterly alien to her. Sometimes, when she was with Santos, she forgot how wealthy he was...until something like this reminded her. They were worlds apart—galaxies.

Santos frowned in thought as he considered her question. ‘Hmm...let’s see. The villa on Amorgos, an apartment in Madrid—mainly for work and my mother’s shopping trips—a place in the Caribbean and a ski chalet in Klosters.’ He smiled and spread his hands. ‘That’s it.’

‘That’s it.’ Mia let out a little laugh as she shook her head. ‘I can’t imagine having that many houses. I can’t even imagine having one.’

He frowned. ‘Not even one?’

That had slipped out without her meaning it to. In their five months together, Mia hadn’t told him very much at all about her tempestuous childhood and upbringing. She’d kept the details vague, simply saying she’d grown up with a single mum and that they’d ‘moved around a bit’. Such an innocuous term for a childhood that had been at best unsettling and at worse truly dangerous...something she tried not to think about too much. It had been hard enough never to have known her father, to feel her mother hadn’t wanted her, but to feel as though everyone else was out to get her as well... Mia hadn’t wanted to dwell on it.

Neither had she wanted Santos feeling sorry for her, and she still didn’t now. But if this whole ‘let’s work on our marriage’ thing was indeed going to work, then maybe she needed to be honest. At least, alittlehonest. She wasn’t ready to tell him everything; she already knew that for sure.

‘We never owned a house or an apartment or anything like that,’ she told him. ‘My mother liked to move around a lot.’

‘Yes, I remember you saying something like that,’ he replied thoughtfully. He left the helm, putting his hand on the small of her back to guide her to an L-shaped sofa in the shade of a pergola. Someone had left a jug of fruit punch and several glasses on the coffee table, and he poured them both some. ‘How much is a lot?’ he asked as he handed her a glass.

Mia took it with a murmured thanks and curled up in one corner of the sofa. So, they were going to do this ‘let’s get to know each other for real’ thing now. Why did it make her feel so edgy? This was what she’d wanted, or at least what she’dsaidshe’d wanted—them opening up to each other. Or at least, Santos opening up to her. Truth be told, she wasn’t sure she felt like reciprocating. She wasn’t used to it, because keeping her emotions close to her chest was a way of staying safe. But surely she could talk about the ancient history of her childhood without it hurting too much?

‘A lot was a lot,’ she told him frankly. ‘Sometimes every few months.’ Or even every few weeks, depending on what events had led them to leave...again. ‘My mum didn’t let any moss grow on her rolling stone, shall we say.’To put it mildly.

‘Still, that sounds rather disruptive.’ Santos cocked his head, his gaze sweeping over her. ‘Did you enjoy that much moving around?’

Mia shrugged. ‘I didn’t know anything different, I guess.’ And it was what she’d chosen for herself as an adult—moving from place to place, never getting close or caring too much. As much as she longed for something more, she wasn’t sure she knew how to be any different. Maybe that was another reason why their marriage hadn’t worked.

And yet, with Santos she’d felt safe for the very first time in her life. She’d felt as if she’d found somewhere—and withsomeone—she wanted to stay.

‘Still.’ Santos took a sip of his punch, his dark gaze tracking her over the rim of his glass. ‘I imagine it must have been quite difficult to have to make new friends so often.’

Mia let out a hollow little laugh. ‘Well, after a while you stop trying. Good thing I’ve always liked my own company.’

He was silent for a moment, absorbing that. Mia felt she was revealing more than she’d meant to, and she didn’t even know what it was. What did Santos think about her unorthodox childhood, about the way it had shaped her? What didshe?

‘Where is your mother now?’ he asked and she felt a little splinter of shock that he didn’t even know this about her. How was it that in their admittedly brief marriage they hadn’t covered this stuff?

Because you didn’t want to talk about it. You still don’t.

‘She died when I was seventeen,’ Mia told him. ‘Cancer. She never went to the doctor, so it wasn’t caught in time. In the end, it was pretty quick.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Santos said quietly. ‘I know how hard it is to lose a parent.’

Mia knew he’d lost his father when he’d been just a bit older, although, like her, he hadn’t seemed to want to talk about it...and she hadn’t asked. When someone didn’t want to be asked many questions, they tended not to ask questions of others.

‘I think you were probably closer to your father than I was to my mother. It didn’t hurt as much as you might think.’ Her mother had never really been interested in her as a person, never mind as a daughter.

He frowned. ‘Even so, a parent is still a formative person in your life. My father was in mine.’ The slight pause he gave was the perfect opportunity for Mia to jump in and ask a question, but he continued before she could think of what exactly she wanted to say—or summon the courage to say it. ‘Still, that’s very young to be left all on your own. What did you do? Did you have any relatives to take you in, support you?’

Mia took a sip of her drink, mainly to stall for time. She really didn’t want his pity, and yet she feared she would get it when she told him, which was probably why she never had. ‘No, there wasn’t anyone like that,’ she replied, trying to keep her tone brisk and matter of fact. ‘But you know, it was fine. I was working by then, anyway. I left school when my mum got sick. I was able to support myself.’

She’d waitressed in a diner and rented a room in a shabby house outside New York City. It had been a lonely existence, sordid and small, and she’d moved on as soon as she’d saved enough for a plane ticket. She hadn’t looked back—had never looked back.

Santos, predictably, looked horrified. ‘But you were only seventeen! A child...’

‘Did you think of yourself as a child at that age?’ Mia challenged, and Santos fell silent. ‘Besides, a hundred years ago, or even fifty, sixteen-year-olds got married and had babies,’ Mia replied, and then wished she hadn’t brought it all up. ‘All I’m saying is,’ she said quickly, ‘Sometimes you have to grow up fast, and that can be okay. I was fine.’ Her voice came out a little too stridently, and she feared he didn’t actually believe her. There was the pity in the softening of his eyes, the downturn of his mouth.

Mia gritted her teeth. She didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for herself, and especially not Santos. Yes, her childhood had been hard, harder even than she’d told him, and she hadn’t grown up with the kind of privilege and wealth he had, but she’d beenfine, darn it. She’d made her way; she’d had friends in every place she’d lived, she’d never truly suffered and, in the end, she’d come out all the stronger. Hadn’t she?

‘I’m not saying it wasn’t tough sometimes,’ she admitted. ‘But I survived—thrived, even,’ she added, in something of a challenge. ‘Anyway, enough about me. Let’s talk about you.’

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