Hot Summer Flings: A Spanish Awakening / The Italian Next Door... / Interview with the Daredevil

That luck appeared to be working in his favour as he drove into what appeared to be the only vacant parking space a full ten minutes before his ex-wife’s flight was due in.

Emilio walked towards the terminal building feeling glad as he passed by a group of vociferous placard-carrying air-traffic controllers that he was not here to catch a flight. The building was filled with anxious and, to varying degrees, angry people who clearly were.

He spared a sympathetic thought for them before his thoughts turned to the reason for his presence. He sighed, wishing he shared Philip’s apparent belief that one word from him would somehow magically remove any obstacle in his friend’s path to romantic fulfillment. Still, some of the things his friend had said had made it seem that there were things that had been left unsaid.

Emilio had not seen Philip Armstrong for almost a year, so it had been a surprise to see his old friend walk into his office yesterday.

Emilio gave a sardonic smile—it had not been the last!

He chose a vantage point where he would see Rosanna and allowed his thoughts to drift back over yesterday’s extraordinary conversation.

‘There is a problem.’

It was not a question. A person did not have to be an expert at reading body language to see that there was something wrong in Philip’s world.

‘I’ve never been happier.’

The gloomy reply made Emilio’s lips twitch. ‘It does not show.’

‘I’ve fallen in love, Emilio.’ If anything, the Englishman’s gloom seemed even more pronounced as he explained the source of his great joy.

‘Congratulations.’

Missing the sardonic inflection, Philip produced a dour ‘Thanks.’ Adding, ‘Oh, I don’t expect you to believe it. I’ve often wondered, you know …?’

‘What have you wondered?’ Emilio asked, mystified but not inclined to take umbrage from the underlying antagonism that had crept into the other man’s manner.

‘Why did you ever get married?’ he said bitterly. ‘It’s not as if you were—’

‘In love?’ Emilio suggested without heat. ‘No, I was not. I am presuming you did not come here to discuss my marriage.’

‘Actually, I did, sort of,’ Philip Armstrong conceded. ‘The thing is, Emilio …’

Emilio repressed his impatience.

‘The thing is, I want to get married,’ the Englishman revealed in a rush.

‘That is surely good news?’

‘I want to marry your wife.’

Emilio was famed for his powers of analytical deduction, but he had not seen this one coming!

‘You’re shocked. I knew you would be,’ his old school friend announced with darkly pessimistic gloom.

‘I am surprised,’ Emilio corrected honestly. ‘But if I was shocked, would it matter? Rosanna has not been my wife for quite some time. You do not require my blessing or my permission.’

‘I know, but the thing is I think she feels guilty about finding happiness.’

‘I think you are imagining things,’ Emilio said, wondering if he ought not at some level to feel a little jealous.

He didn’t. He was still fond of Rosanna, but then that had been the problem: he had been fond of Rosanna just as she had been fond of him. It was one of the many things they had in common, and they had both agreed that mutual respect and common interests were a much stronger foundation for a successful marriage than anything as transitory as romantic love.

Madre di Dios, he really had been that stupid!

The marriage had, of course, been doomed, but Emilio had been spared the painful task of telling Rosanna that there was ‘someone else’. He hadn’t needed to agonise over it, she had taken one look at him and known.

Women’s intuition, or had he been that obvious?

What he had not been spared was the overriding sense of guilt—irrational, some might have said, considering his wife had been already unfaithful to him—that and the nasty taste that came with failure in any form.

It had been drummed into Emilio in his cradle that an integral part of being a Rios was not contemplating failure. It was a lesson he had learnt well. Divorce was not just failure, it was public failure, and that had been tougher to take than his wife’s confession she had slept with someone else months after they had exchanged vows.

Emilio had been a lot more tolerant of her weakness than he had his own, and in his eyes the fact he had not been physically unfaithful did not make him any less culpable.

Before issuing the public statement on the divorce they had told their respective families, to prepare them. His father’s reaction had been predictable and Emilio had been able to view his final ranting condemnation with an air of detached distaste that had clearly incensed his parent further.

What had been far less predictable was the viciously hostile response of Rosanna’s family—that had been a genuine shock to him, but not, quite clearly, to her.

It had come out during the heated exchange that unbeknown to him his father had agreed to pay the blue-blooded but broke Carreras family a large sum of money on the marriage and another equally large sum when the first offspring of that union was born.

Under the impression that her attitude had been similar to his own when they had married, he could now see that his bride’s motivation had been less to do with pragmatism and more to do with coercion and parental pressure.

It certainly explained Rosanna’s initial refusal of a divorce when he had floated it. At the time he had been mystified, but now he realised that she was more afraid of being disowned by her money-grabbing family than living a lie.

It was the reason that, though supporting the official line of mutual decision, amicable divorce, blah … blah, Emilio had not made any effort to deny the rumours that had hinted heavily that his infidelity had caused the rift.

It was not totally a lie and it made things easier on Rosanna, as did the sum he paid the Carreras family out of his own funds.

The media, having created the story, had waited, headlines at the ready, confidently anticipating a lover or lovers to surface once they realised their sordid stories were lucrative. Of course none had because the person he had left his wife for remained oblivious to her role in these events.

Any woman seen with him immediately after the divorce would run the risk of being labelled the other woman, but patience in the circumstances was, he had reasoned, if not a virtue, certainly a necessity if he wanted to protect the reputation of the woman he had fallen for.

So he had waited a decent interval, or almost—there were limits to his patience—before he made any move: six months for the divorce to be finalised and six months for the dust to settle. The only minor problem he’d anticipated that day had been his inexperience at courtship; Emilio knew about seduction but he had never wooed a woman.

The dark irony of it almost drew a laugh from him—almost. It was hard to smile at anything related to the day he had had his heart broken and his pride crushed simultaneously.

In hindsight he was now able to appreciate that the injury to his pride had caused the most damage. He was embarrassed that for a short time he had done the predictable bitter and railing-at-fate thing, but he had reined in those emotions, walled them securely up—a man had to put a time limit on such self-indulgences—and got on with his life.

There had been a certain dark irony in Philip’s comment of, ‘If you could fall in love with someone, I’m sure Rosanna could move on.’

‘With anyone in particular?’

‘God, no, anyone would do.’ Emilio’s laughter brought his attention back to his friend’s face. ‘Sorry,’ he said with a self-conscious grimace. ‘I’ve had a sense of humour bypass. It’s just I know we could be happy, but Rosanna—I think she won’t be able to move on until you’re with someone …’

‘I have hardly spent the last two years living the existence of a monk.’

‘I know that and I’m sure most men would envy you,’ Philip admitted. ‘I did. The thing is, Rosanna thinks that underneath you’re not really that shallow, not that I think you’re shallow.’