Page 76 of Midnight Surrender to the Spaniard

‘Always business with you...’ José grumbled.

‘Can’t we just keep it about family today?’ Alejandro asked his brother.

‘The world keeps turning,’ Sebastián said. ‘We can’t all just take a month or three off.’

Sebastián didn’t care if he came across as a cold-hearted devil. It was what they expected him to be. But he wanted to get his father on his own and work was the obvious excuse.

José, though, was rather more familiar with his eldest son’s tactics, and as they stepped out into the bright son, he rolled his eyes.

‘Don’t worry. I know the baby is very small. I’m not going to—’

‘It’s not about the baby.’

‘Well, I don’t want to hear anything against your mother. She’s excited to be here, and if you can’t accept that—’

‘It’s not about Maria.’ Sebastián signalled to a table at a café and the rope was removed so they could step in and take a seat. He ordered coffee for them both. ‘Carmen is going to speak to you.’

‘About?’

‘Riding.’

‘What about it?’

‘She’s unsure if it’s what she wants to do with her life and—’

‘Ofcourseit’s what she wants to do.’

‘Listen—’

‘No!’ Jose thumped the table. ‘She’s world-class. It is what she loves.’

Sebastián sat and listened as his father gave every reason he had expected him to as to why Carmen shouldn’t give it up.

‘Finished?’ he said.

‘I have not finished. That girl doesn’t know what she wants. This is the one thing she excels at!’

‘Listen to me, Papá.’ He leant forward and stared right into his father’s eyes, as he had so very many times. ‘She needs to know you love her—that whatever she does with her life she has your support.’

‘Well, she doesn’t in this,’ José huffed. ‘Why the hell would she give it up?’

Sebastián spooned sugar into his coffee and let him carry on. There was a certain feeling of déjà vu about this situation. Throughout Carmen’s childhood and teenage years he had pre-warned or primed José, deciding it might be better for his at times fiery father to let off the inevitable steam with his eldest rather than with his sensitive and temperamental youngest.

‘We should get back,’ Sebastián said. ‘Don’t tell her I—’

‘Okay, okay,’ José snapped. ‘I won’t tell her you said anything.’ They stopped for a moment and looked out at the yachts. ‘Where’s yours?’

Sebastián pointed. ‘We’re going there after the hospital.’

‘It’s been ages,’ José said. ‘And your mother has never been on board. It will be nice for her to see it.’

‘Yes,’ Sebastián said, not revealing the supreme effort behind that single word. He would have her walk the plank if he could, for all she had done—or rather not done. To Carmen and Alejandro too...

He glanced at his father, smiling as he looked out at the water, and for his sake kept his own emotions in check and joined in with his idle chit-chat.

‘You still have Dante as the captain?’

‘Of course.’ Sebastián nodded. ‘He’ll be pleased to welcome you.’

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