Under the Spaniard's Lock and Key

Angelina carried on smiling, displaying a perfect set of white teeth as the dimple in her chin deepened. ‘No, Rafael, you should not.’

The first time he had seen Angelina and Alfonso together it had been obvious even to a cynic like him that they were crazy about each other, and as far as he could see the honeymoon was still on.

Ten years down the line, who knew?

‘Motherhood suits you.’ He saw the flicker cross her face and knew he had inadvertently dredged up a memory.

‘Thank you, Rafael. The twins, it’s hard not to think about…It was all so different this time.’

Rafael had no trouble interpreting the disjointed sentence. He watched her swallow and wished he had kept his mouth shut.

He saw her lips quiver and hoped she was not going to start crying. He put a lid on his empathy, a sympathetic word or gesture now would no doubt open the floodgates and he had a major dislike of female tears. ‘Why think about it?’ he said brusquely.

Rafael’s philosophy was if you made a mistake you lived with it. Beating yourself up over it was to his way of thinking a pointless exercise, and an indulgence.

‘You’re right.’

‘If only more people realised that.’

Generally appreciative of his ironic sense of humour, Angelina did not smile.

Her shadowed eyes were trained on the far end of the vaulted hall where her husband, a son balanced expertly on each arm, paused to allow admiring relations to kiss the cherubic cheeks.

‘He is such a good father.’

‘And you are a good mother, Angelina.’

She shook her head. ‘It makes me think…did I do…?’ She lifted her troubled brown eyes to Rafael. ‘Was it the right thing?’

Rafael had no doubt. ‘You did the right thing.’

Rafael had strong feelings about advice: he never requested it and he never gave it.

It was a sound position, it was just a pity that he had forgotten and made an exception for Angelina.

‘But I hate lying…’

‘Confessing might have made you feel better, but what would it have achieved other than—?’

‘Make Alfonso call off the wedding. He would never risk a scandal.’

‘Maybe,’ Rafael lied. In his mind there was no maybe.

He actually had no doubt at all what the outcome would have been had Angelina found Alfonso and not himself at home the day she had arrived at his cousin’s city apartment to confess all.

Would Alfonso have felt sympathy for Angelina, forced to give birth at sixteen to her married lover’s child? Yes.

Would he have married her after she had confessed? No.

‘You did the right thing, Angelina. Why should you suffer now for a mistake you made when you were little more than a child? You were the victim then—is it fair you be the victim now? Everyone makes mistakes…’

‘Alfonso doesn’t,’ she said wistfully.

Rafael might have said that Alfonso wasn’t perfect, but he knew it would be a waste of breath. To his wife he was.

‘It doesn’t seem right I’m this happy. I wonder if she’s happy, my little girl. I wonder sometimes…’

‘Better not to,’ Rafael advised tersely. ‘Why think about what you can’t have?’ He had wasted many nights wanting his mother back, but he was no longer ten and he knew better.

CHAPTER THREE

MAGGIE WANDERED THROUGH the winding streets just soaking up the atmosphere. She had a whole afternoon to do her own thing before she needed to be back at the hotel for what the tour guide had enthusiastically described as an ‘authentic paella experience.’

Attendance was optional but he’d told her it was highly recommended.

Having paused for a glass of wine at a pavement café, she pulled the map from her shoulder bag. The tour guide had declared the street market a must for any visitor to the city in search of authentic Spain and, according to her map, it was really close.

Half an hour later and totally lost in a maze of alleys Maggie decided to admit defeat. With the clock ticking and the tour guide’s instruction to be back at the hotel by seven if she planned to join the group for dinner, she finally decided to head straight for the cathedral.

Maggie was just beginning to think that she would miss out on seeing that too when she spotted the distinctive spire of the cathedral directly ahead.

Standing on the pavement, sweat trickling down her back—the day had been hot; the evening was sultry without a breath of breeze to offer relief—she waited for a lull in the steady stream of traffic. It quickly became clear there was none. Not that this seemed to bother other people, who just stepped confidently into the road weaving their way through the traffic to an accompaniment of horns, yells from drivers and rude gestures to the opposite side of the congested road.

Before she could think better of the idea she stepped out.

The security outside the hotel was tight; the media had been kept away, only a couple of approved photographers had been permitted access, though unfortunately Rafael’s departure coincided with their arrival.

‘Since when were you camera shy, Rafael? I’d heard you are very photogenic. I think your face and reputation keep half the scandal rags in business.’

Rafael reacted to his elderly uncle’s cackle of laughter with a sardonic smile.

‘I suppose I was slightly naive to think that my family at least would give me the benefit of the doubt.’ Rafael liked women, he liked sex, but if he had bedded as many beautiful women as the press liked to suggest he doubted he would have the strength to get out of bed.

‘You were never naive, Rafael—not even when you were a baby like those two…I remember your baptism like it was yesterday,’ his uncle reminisced. ‘You bawled your head off all through and your father kept saying, “Elena, do something,” and she did, though I doubt if Felipe had an affair in mind.’ He angled a look that held more curiosity than apology at his tall great-nephew’s face as he added, ‘No offence intended.’

The muscles along Rafael’s strong jaw tightened, but his expression did not change as he promised, ‘None taken.’

‘Her mistake was confessing. Honesty is not the best policy, especially when dealing with people like your father. How old were you when he…?’

‘Threw her out? Ten.’

Old enough to feel angry and betrayed. An image flashed into his head and he felt nothing as he watched his ten-year-old self begging his mother to take him with her and shouting when she tearfully sobbed she couldn’t.

‘It was a tragedy she died so young.’

Before he ever had a chance to retract the things he had yelled at her as she left.

Not insensible to the sensitivity of the subject, Fernando slid a glance at Rafael’s stony profile before observing, ‘There are worse things in life than being considered a sex god.’