like Rafael. He’s afraid I’ll never meet a man as long as I’m running a store, let alone one that sells women’s products. What he doesn’t realize is, I could go out every night of the week, and still not come across a man who truly interests me.”
“My sentiments exactly.” Mallory flashed her a compassionate glance. “In order to placate your brother, you might remind him that part of our new advertising campaign is geared to reaching the male population—that group looking for a special personal gift for his wife, girlfriend, or mother.
“Knowing what the Portuguese men want, the company is prepared to cater to their individual tastes. Assure him you’ll be meeting a lot of male customers as time goes by.”
“Unfortunately Rafael wants that miracle to happen now. Tonight!”
They both broke into laughter.
“It sounds like he loves you a lot,” Mallory observed.
“He does, and it’s mutual.”
Mallory already knew that. No matter the topic of conversation, since she’d first met Lianor, her brother’s name always managed to creep into the conversation.
Lianor flicked her another glance. “Your father was so nice and laid-back. Does he ever get upset because you’re not married yet?”
“Maybe,” Mallory murmured honestly, “but neither he nor mom has ever said anything. It’s probably because they didn’t marry until their early thirties. They don’t want to come off sounding like hypocrites.”
“My mother was just nineteen when she married my father. Rafael proposed to Isabell when she was only twenty.”
Rafael again. “What do you think’s the reason he hasn’t remarried?”
Her companion let out a deep sigh. “It isn’t for a lack of women! Most of the time I’m appalled at the lengths they go to in order to capture my brother’s attention. But the plain truth is, he loved Isabell so much, it almost killed him when she died. Since then he’s been devoted to Apolonia, and has buried himself in work.”
Apolonia. The niece with the beautiful name.
“Maybe you need to get busy and find him someone he could love. You know him better than anyone else. If he married again, he might not be quite as concerned about your single status.”
“Don’t count on it,” Lianor muttered. “However you’ve given me an idea to solve a problem that’s been plaguing me since he came to the store earlier today with bad news. It has shaken me for several reasons.”
The unexpected emotional throb in Lianor’s voice alerted Mallory that whatever was on her mind was serious. “Do you want to talk about it?” she ventured quietly.
“I shouldn’t have brought it up, but you’re too good a listener.”
“I feel the same way about you. Why do you think I came to Portugal?”
Lianor’s head jerked around for a moment. “What do you mean?”
“You’re running the store so well, I didn’t really need to come. But since I was already in New York, it seemed the perfect opportunity to take you up on your offer to visit.”
“I’m glad you did, Mallory.”
“So am I.”
“Tomorrow’s Sunday and the shop will be closed. I’ll take you sight-seeing. Give yourself a couple of weeks here and we’ll be able to cover the whole city on foot if you want.”
“Oh I want,” she assured the other woman. “If only I could take two weeks off to do nothing but soak up the atmosphere. Nevertheless tomorrow I’m hoping to sleep in and then lie on the beach. I haven’t had a real holiday since I went to work for Liz.”
“That’s too long to go without,” Lianor chastised her, in the nicest possible way of course.
Mallory’s mouth turned up at the corners. “Now that we have that settled, tell me about your brother’s bad news.”
In a few minutes she’d put Mallory in the picture.
“Maria’s virtually irreplaceable,” Lianor confided further. “We all love her, and Rafael has depended on her so totally, I’m worried. Of course he has Ines, his housekeeper. He can rely on her to help him with my niece, but it’s only a temporary solution.
“I have to face the fact that word of Maria’s fatal illness changed his whole world today. As for Apolonia, the loss will be devastating when she finds out Maria isn’t coming back.”
Mallory could only agree.
“My closest girlfriend from childhood has recently come out of an ugly divorce from her Spanish husband. She’s back from Madrid and needs something to absorb her time right now. Rafael has always known Joana and liked her. So has Apolonia. I’m thinking if she came to help, it would be good for all three of them.”
“You could be right,” Mallory said. “Given time, they might even fall in love. How nice would that be. Your best friend becoming your sister-in-law.”
“Don’t think I didn’t used to fantasize about it. However that was a long time ago, before Rafael fell for Isabell and dashed both our dreams.”
“You mean yours and Joana’s.”
“Yes. She was crazy about my brother.”
Somehow that news didn’t surprise Mallory, not if he was as remarkable as Lianor—in all the ways that really counted.
At this point they’d reached the coast, a breathtaking sight this time of night. The smell of the ocean intoxicated her. Waves crashed against the sand, creating froth that stood out in the darkness. She could hear the pounding surf, that familiar sound she craved almost as much as she craved air to breathe. She didn’t know how much she’d missed it until now.
They rounded a curve on the winding highway. Suddenly she let out a cry. There was a baroque palace on a cliff in the distance, lit up as if it hung in the sky. “I can’t believe what I’m seeing is real,” she whispered. “What’s the name of it, Lianor?”
“Rafael and I call it home, but the tourists know it as the Palacio D’Afonso.”
Speechless, Mallory’s head turned, unable to do anything but stare at her friend.
“It was one of several small palaces built by King Pedro the Second of Portugal. Some historians claim he had it built and named it in honor of his brother King Afonso who was paralyzed and died at the age of eleven. Others say he built it out of guilt after deposing Afonso and exiling him to the Azores while Pedro was acting regent.”
“Ooh—that doesn’t sound good.”
Lianor chuckled. “By the time my great-grandfather inherited it, the cost of keeping it up forced the family to turn it into a hotel so it wouldn’t pass from the D’Afonso line. Historians still argue whether it began through one of Pedro’s illicit liaisons with a courtesan. We’ll never know for sure.
“After
