Page 200 of Modern Romance November 2024 5-8

The sun still shone brightly, the days were long and lazy and full of love, but still Mia heard a whisper of the future, and it felt like the threat of a storm, despite the blue skies.

One morning while she sat in the garden, soaking in the sunshine and reading a paper-back she’d found in the library, Santos disappeared to his study to answer some emails. Three long hours later, he came to find her, managing to look both sheepish and obdurate, his shoulders thrown back, his dark brows drawn together.

‘Did you get done what you needed to?’ she asked lightly, and he let out a small sigh as he sank into a deck chair next to her. All around them oleander and frangipani grew in unruly abandon, and in the distance the sea sparkled under the sunlight, as bright as a diamond. Still, despite the peaceful beauty of the scene, Mia braced herself for what might come next.

‘More or less, yes.’

‘Which is it?’ she asked, striving to keep her voice light. ‘More...or less?’

Santos didn’t answer for a moment, his lips pursed and his gaze on the ground. Mia put down her book. It definitely seemed like less...which meant Santos needed to return to Seville. She’d known it was coming; had felt it in herself, in the changing mood, a sense of time running through their fingers like sand. And yet still she experienced a sense of wrenching loss, almost like a tearing inside. She didn’t want to go. She didn’t want to return to Seville and the painful memories they’d made there.

‘I’ve been absent from work for over two weeks,’ he said at last. ‘I haven’t been gone from work for that long since we first met...’ He glanced up at her, and she was heartened to see his expression soften. ‘And, even then, I was back at my desk on the fourteenth day.’

She smiled in memory. ‘Were we crazy, do you think, to get married after such a short time?’

He smiled back as he reached for her hand, twining his fingers though hers. ‘Most likely, but I don’t regret it for a second.’

‘I don’t either,’ she replied honestly. And yet...the future loomed in front of them. It was easy, Mia thought, to feel as if she was in love when she was on a Greek-island paradise, without any problems or other people around. But, back in Seville, she feared the old issues would come to haunt them. They’d revert to their former and maybe even truer selves—who was to say otherwise? Santos would become cold and stand-offish, and she’d become both rebellious and despairing, longing to run, to escape.

‘What are you thinking about?’ he asked softly. ‘You suddenly have the bleakest look in your eyes.’

‘I’m worried,’ Mia admitted. ‘About going back to Seville.’

His fingers tightened on hers. ‘It will be different this time, Mia, I promise.’

‘You don’t need to take all the responsibility, Santos,’ she said. ‘All the blame. What happened before was down to both of us. How we reacted when the pressure hit... It became the perfect storm that took both of us.’

His forehead creased, his eyes narrowing. ‘What do you mean?’

Whatdidshe mean? ‘I suppose we’re both products of our backgrounds,’ she replied slowly. ‘You, with the weighty history of your family, as well as your father’s death...’

His frown deepened. ‘And you?’ he asked after a moment.

Mia shrugged. She was the one who had opened this particular can of worms, and yet now she was reluctant to let any of them wriggle out. She hated talking about her past, the pity it inevitably incurred. She’d told Santos a little about it when they’d first met, and more on the yacht, but she had always done her best to act dismissive, as if none of it mattered any more. Did she really want to go into it all now? And yet maybe she needed to, for both their sakes.

‘Mia?’ he prompted gently.

‘I just mean,’ she said, knowing she was hedging a little, ‘That I’ve been similarly affected. You remember I told you that I moved around a lot as a kid? Well, that affected me—as you would expect it to.’

That was the very much condensed version, she thought with an inward sigh.

‘Ye...s,’ Santos agreed slowly. ‘But you never talked abouthow. In fact, you assured me it hadn’t actually affected you all that much. Something I didn’t really believe at the time, but I didn’t press the point, because it felt as if we had so much other stuff to deal with. Maybe I should have...although I suspect you would have given me the run-around. But I hope you’re not going to do that now?’ He quirked an eyebrow, and she had to smile. He knew her so well.

‘No, I’m not going to,’ she replied wryly. Despite her deliberately light tone, her heart was starting to thud rather hard. She really didn’t like talking about this. She didn’t even like thinking about it, or remembering...

‘You told me,’ Santos began, glancing down at their clasped hands, ‘That you moved around a lot, sometimes every few months, and that it got lonely. You also said your mother died when you were seventeen and you started working then, on your own.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘I knew that must have affected you, but you turned the tables on me so neatly, and made me talk about myself, that I let it go. I shouldn’t have. I realise that now.’

Mia rolled her eyes. ‘Santos, are you going to blame yourself for this too?’

He gave a small smile of acknowledgement, his eyes crinkling at the corners. ‘No, not if you tell me what you didn’t want to before.’

‘It’s not a big secret or something,’ Mia said quickly. ‘I just don’t like talking about it. As you haven’t liked talking about, well, about stuff.’ She didn’t want to dredge anything else up, not now.

Santos gave a brief nod, his warm, golden-brown gaze steady on her. ‘Okay,’ he said, his voice level, accepting, as if he was ready for whatever she threw at him.

‘Well...’ She hesitated, not knowing how to begin; not wanting to. ‘It was a pretty unstable childhood, as you can imagine,’ she said slowly. ‘Not just the moving around, but the places we moved to. My mother was something of a free spirit, so we ended up in a lot of communes, cooperative farms...that kind of thing. Some of them were really cool,’ she said quickly, ‘And, you know, genuine. Others...weren’t.’

Santos’s fingers tightened on hers. ‘Mia,’ he said in a low voice, ‘What are you saying?’

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