Page 199 of Modern Romance November 2024 5-8

He gazed down at their clasped hands once more, and then back at her. Her eyes were wide, with a sheen of tears that made him hurt all the more. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said in a low voice, ‘For the way I treated you. Maybe some small part of me did blame you in that moment, Mia. Averysmall part; I can be honest enough to admit that. But, if I did, it was only because it felt easier than what I really felt—which was that I should blame myself.’

‘You...’ The word slid from her lips on a soft gasp. ‘Why?’

Because he was an Aguila, the man of the family who took responsibility for everything. Because he should have been able to protect his wife, hischild. Because if he’d been a better man, husband or father, this would never have happened.

He knew, in his head at least, that none of that really made sense. The doctor had been abundantly clear that it was just one of those things; some babies died before they were born, before they’d barely had a chance to grow. It was sad, it was hard, but it was also a simple reality of life. Heknewthat...and yet he’d felt something else. And it made him realise afresh how different emotions, different ideas, could co-exist. How Mia could have not wanted the baby and still grieved its loss. How he could have known it was an accident of providence or fate but still blame himself. Human beings were contrary. Life—and love—was complicated.

‘So,’ she said slowly, ‘Like with the sea urchin, you blamed yourself?’

‘Yes, but more than that.’ He swallowed, trying to ease the aching tightness in his throat. ‘There’s something else—I didn’t tell you how my father died.’ He’d mentioned it in passing, consigned it to distant memory and assured her, and himself, that he’d moved on. It was what he did with everyone.

‘You said he had a heart attack,’ Mia murmured, a gently questioning lilt in her voice.

‘He did,’ Santos confirmed. ‘It was all very sudden. We were walking in the orange groves. He was showing me some of the trees. He was worried about a disease, a tree-killing bacteria—it had wiped out ninety percent of some growers’ harvest in different parts of the country.’

Even now he could picture the furrow in his father’s forehead, the sombre way he spoke. Santos had been concerned, but he hadn’t felt the weight of it the way his father had. ‘We could have survived that,’ he continued, wanting, needing, to explain. ‘Our financial interests are mainly in investments and property—but the orange and olives groves were my father’s heart. The family estate was his soul. He was terribly anxious, and when he saw a sign of the bacteria he clutched his chest and keeled over. It happened in a matter of seconds.’

Mia’s voice was soft and sad. ‘Oh, Santos...’

‘We were too far from anywhere for me to go for help,’ he continued bleakly. ‘I knew I had only seconds. I tried to give him mouth-to-mouth. For a second, I thought he might respond. His eyes flickered...he looked as if he wanted to say something...but he couldn’t.’

He paused, reliving those awful moments even though he didn’t want to: the icy panic, the terrible dread and somehow, even worse, that treacherous flicker of hope. ‘He didn’t recover, though, obviously,’ he finished flatly. ‘He died in my arms a few minutes later.’

‘Santos.’ Mia clasped his hand with both of hers. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’

‘When you lost the baby,’ he continued, knowing this part was even more important to say, ‘I remembered all that. It came back to me like a...’ He shook his head slowly in wonder. ‘Like an avalanche. I felt like I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. I’d suppressed the memories on some level, you see, for years...decades. I’d refused to think of it, to...to process it. Emotionally.

‘But when you started bleeding... When we saw the baby on the ultrasound and for a second, just like my father, I thought it was going to be okay and then I realised it wasn’t, that there was no heartbeat... Our tiny little baby was so very still.’ He gazed at her, blinking back the haze of tears in his eyes, only to see her own slipping down her cheeks.

‘I shut down,’ he confessed. ‘In that moment. Truth be told, I can’t remember much of it—the procedure, I mean, or afterwards. I just felt as if I were existing in some...some empty space. It doesn’t excuse me; I know it doesn’t, not for a single second. But that was what was going on with me, Mia. Not anger, but sorrow. Not blame, but grief.’

‘Oh, Santos.’ She shook her head as more tears spilled down her cheeks. ‘Thank you for telling me all this. But I wish... I wish you’d told me before.’ She swiped at her cheeks as she shook her head again. ‘In all those weeks after when it felt as if you were freezing me out...as if you couldn’t stand the sight of me...why didn’t you explain then?’

He hated, absolutelyhated, the thought that she’d suffered for so long and, worse, that it was all his fault. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said helplessly. ‘I know I should have. But I felt as if I were frozen inside. And you are right—I was angry at you, in some small way,’ he added, knowing he needed to be completely honest. ‘But only because it felt easier than dealing with my own emotions. And after you left, well, then it became even easier to be angry with you.’

She let out a trembling laugh. ‘So why did you ever come and find me? Was it just pride?’

‘No, not pride.’ His voice was a thrum in his chest. ‘Desperation. I missed you, Mia. And... I missed who I was when I was with you. I wanted that back and I wantedyouback.’ He remembered the ache in his chest when she’d left him, as if an essential piece of him had been ripped out. ‘I was angry at first, yes, and—and I was hurt. More hurt than I wanted to admit to anyone. It took me two weeks before I decided to start looking. I hired a private investigator, one of the best in the world.’

Mia let out a shaky laugh. ‘I had no idea someone was on my tail for that long.’

‘You’re good at running,’ he remarked wryly. He’d been surprised at how long it had taken the investigator to find her—nearly three weeks. It had felt like for ever.

She shrugged, her gaze sliding away from his, her mouth drawing down as, for a few seconds, a sorrowful wistfulness slipped over her like a dark cloak. ‘Well,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ve been running for most of my life.’

He frowned, trying to untangle that statement. He knew she’d grown up with a mother who had moved all over the world, butrunning...? They were two different things, surely?

‘It doesn’t matter now,’ she said a little too quickly. ‘What matters is you found me. And I found you, in a way. I understand so much more now, Santos, and for that I’m glad. I’m even glad that stupid sea urchin stung me!’ She smiled, but he couldn’t quite manage it. She’d come too close to death for him ever to laugh or even smile about that.

Mia reached for his hand once more. ‘It’s the future we need to think about now,’ she said, but Santos had a feeling it was the past she did not want to talk about. Still, he decided to let it go—whatever ‘it’ was.

They’d shared so much already and, while it had been healing, it had also been hard. Truth be told, he didn’t know if he had the words—or the strength—for anything more, at least not then.

‘The future,’ he agreed, and leaned forward to seal that promise with a tender kiss.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

MIASTAREDOUTof the window as a soft sigh escaped her. They’d been at Villa Paraiso for ten days, tengloriousdays she didn’t want to end, and yet she felt in her bones that it was time to go home. Santos hadn’t said as much, and neither had she, but it was as if there’d been a change in the air, a shifting of seasons, as inexorable as the waning of the moon or the pull of the tide.

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