Page 80 of Midnight Surrender to the Spaniard

The family were all together, and she held up her phone, wondering whether or not she should capture an image of it. Most certainly she could do it unobtrusively, and so she snapped a quick photo of the ‘Elusive Five’. She knew from Emily that there were hardly any pictures of the five of them.

And then she turned back to the gorgeous night.

But all too soon it was over.

Presents were being handed out by Dante—little flamenco dolls holding Spanish sweets—and Anna just knew Willow would love one.

‘Plastic Flamenco dolls!’ Maria said, derisively. ‘They’re a bit touristy! Did you choose these, Alejandro?’

‘I chose them,’ Sebastián responded tartly responded. ‘I’m not exactly up on baby celebrations and Alejandro has been busy.’

He caught her eyes then and Anna smiled. She knew he had somehow chosen the perfect gift to give Willow when she broke the news of the baby to her daughter.

‘Well, I think it’s gorgeous,’ she spoke up for him. ‘I’m going to give Willow mine.’

‘Take two,’ Sebastián said.

And that was it.

The end of their time.

Her heart was lost.

There were effusive goodbyes, with José hugging Emily and Alejandro, and Maria too. Sebastián gave his father a kiss, but as Maria moved to kiss her son he turned his cheek just enough that it missed.

Maria noticed.

Anna did too.

But for the rest it was a friendly goodbye.

‘I’ll see you next time, Anna.’ Carmen smiled and kissed her new friend goodbye. ‘Or maybe in England? We’ll go raving!’

‘Thank you for being here,’ José said, and hugged her.

Anna turned and knew it was time to bid farewell to Sebastián. She just didn’t know how to, and was pathetically grateful when her phone rang.

‘Oh, excuse me. It’s my daughter.’

She removed herself to take it, and chatted to Willow, who was happy but also desperate for it to be tomorrow so she could see her mum.

‘One more sleep,’ Anna said. ‘I can’t wait to see you. I’ve missed you so much.’

In the background she heard Sebastián speaking.

‘I’ll see that Anna gets back,’ Sebastián said. ‘You go straight to the hospital.’

‘We can wait,’ Alejandro said, despite his obvious eagerness to get back to his baby.

‘Anna will be fine,’ Sebastián insisted. ‘Go and see your baby.’

‘Come on,’ Alejandro said to his wife. ‘Sebastián says he will see that Anna gets back.’

‘Tell her we’ll have breakfast tomorrow.’

‘For sure.’

Anna waved to her friend, and then turned her attention back to Willow, grateful to Sebastián for engineering some time for them to say goodbye privately.

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