came down over Leandro’s eyes and Isabella could have kicked herself. She’d hate to think that he might believe she would tell anybody anything that he’d told her …especially about his work or his private life. Considering that both were topics he’d deliberately avoided discussing during their time together, he must know he had nothing to fear?
‘I will be getting back to work, sí. Isabella?’
‘Yes?’ Her dark eyes widened as she watched his hand scrape through his tousled hair.
‘I would give you my phone number but it is not something that I do readily or easily. In my position, I have to be careful …you understand?’ His words confirmed she was not important to him in any way as well as reiterating his intense need to guard his privacy. Fielding the immense wave of hurt and disappointment that washed over her, Isabella briefly inclined her head. ‘Yes, I understand.’
‘Why don’t you use the shower first?’ he suggested smoothly and she could easily sense his withdrawal from her. ‘I have a couple of phone calls to make before we leave.’
‘Okay.’ She felt as if she’d been somehow dismissed from his life as though she were nothing but an afterthought, and Isabella’s heart was sickeningly heavy as she turned her back to get out of bed …
CHAPTER FOUR
Eighteen Months Later …London, England.
‘I’M SORRY I’m back a little late, Natasha, but Chris and I went for coffee after the film. Is Raphael asleep?’
‘He’s sound as anything. I don’t even think an earthquake would wake him! And you’re not late at all …I told you not to rush. You could have gone for a meal or something instead of just a coffee. How was it?’
The petite blonde stood back from the door to allow Isabella entry, watching her friend unbutton her long black coat, then unwind her cerise knitted scarf and hang them both on the pine-wood coat-stand inside the hall.
‘How was what?’ she asked distractedly, blowing briefly down onto her chilled hands. The November weather was icy tonight, with the wind as lethal as a sharpened razor. The past few winters had been almost strangely mild but this one was kicking in with a vengeance, it seemed. Northern Spain and those sun-drenched mesas seemed a million miles away.
Mockingly lifting her pale, perfectly shaped brows, Natasha put her hands on her almost stick-thin hips. ‘The film, of course! What did you think I meant?’
Isabella almost didn’t want to discuss the film. Instead she wanted to stow the memory of it away and savour the details later when she was alone—like a treat she wanted to keep for herself and didn’t want to share. The story had touched her deeply. It had been about a mother’s relationship with her son …a son who, when he was grown, had rejected his simple country background in every sense because he had been so thoroughly seduced by the apparent ‘glamour’ of western culture. So seduced that he’d turned his back even on the woman who’d raised him. The director had been one Leandro Reyes. Even if Isabella had never had the good fortune to meet the man, she would have instantly been a fan after seeing this movie. It had been done exquisitely sensitively and, although emotions had unquestioningly been stirred, never at any time had Leandro’s sublime direction allowed the audience to be manipulated by them. He’d simply let the story and the consummate skill of the actors playing the parts speak for themselves—yet the guiding hand he’d wielded was unmistakable. Leaving the cinema afterwards with her friend Chris, Isabella had been in silent awe at what she’d witnessed.
‘The film was wonderful! You should try and get to see it some time. I couldn’t recommend it highly enough.’
Both women turned automatically towards the kitchen. Isabella because she was in dire need of a soothing cup of chamomile tea to calm emotions that had been charged quite unremittingly by Leandro’s film, and Natasha because she was eager to hear any titbits of gossip that Isabella and Chris had shared in her absence.
‘You know me. I don’t really go for those intellectual art-house films. Give me a nice uncomplicated romantic comedy any day!’
‘But it wasn’t trying to be intellectual at all.’
Reaching the kitchen, Isabella filled the electric kettle with water, then plugged it in at the socket next to the toaster. Opening an overhead cupboard, she retrieved a chamomile teabag and dropped it into her favourite patterned pottery mug. ‘Tea or coffee?’ she asked her friend.
‘Neither, thanks. I had a coffee just before you got back and I really should go home, to be honest. I’ve got to be up early to open the nursery at eight.’
‘Okay …but like I was saying …’ Isabella folded her arms across the black ribbed sweater she wore with her red corduroy skirt, a slight frown between her dark brows ‘ …the film wasn’t coming from the intellect at all …It was coming from the heart.’
Shrugging a little self-consciously because she knew that she’d expressed her opinion so passionately, Isabella tried to fend off her natural fear that she shouldn’t reveal her feelings quite so vociferously. Keeping her deeper emotions mostly hidden was something she had learned by necessity to do so that she wouldn’t make waves with her family. And even though she did buck the trend every now and then—such as when she’d called off her wedding to Patrick and upset everybody—somehow the trait had translated to other relationships too. And sometimes, Isabella reflected, the insights and revelations she had learned on the Camino were not always ready to be shared with others …
Generally, people didn’t like you raising topics that made them question the purpose of their own lives. Most folk got along quite happily pretending that everything was fine, she had found—even when it clearly wasn’t.
‘Anyway—’ Natasha grinned ‘—how’s Chris getting on with this new bloke of hers? Do you think he’ll last beyond two or three dates as is her usual record?’
Chris had confided in Isabella that she really liked this new man she was seeing and, yes, she definitely did have hopes that the relationship would last beyond her usual quota of a couple of dates. Her friend yearned to get married and start a family and, at thirty-one years old, had started to fear that it might never happen. Tonight she had confessed to Isabella that she envied her being the mother of a baby son …
At the thought of her little boy, a bubble of joy seemed to burst inside her and Isabella happily anticipated cuddling him later and reacquainting herself with that most delicious of baby scents at the back of his adorable neck. She couldn’t deny she was looking forward to her favourite occupation—spending precious time with her beautiful child. He had truly become the centre of her whole world. For her, walking the Camino Way back in the spring of last year had been even more life changing than she’d anticipated. Now she had Raphael …the unexpected ‘gift’ she’d received from her incredible night of passion with Leandro Reyes. The discovery that she was pregnant had honestly come as the most stupendous of shocks.
They’d been so careful, she’d recalled hotly, even as a stomach-rolling memory had disturbingly nudged her recall—of being half asleep in the dead of night with the shrill repetitive drone of cicadas filling the hot, sultry air and hearing Leandro murmur as if dreaming …Isabella …my Isabella …’ before reaching out to her …Raphael had been conceived during those somehow ‘unreal’ moments when they’d both thought they were dreaming, and Isabella’s previous life, as a young single woman who’d been feeling vaguely dissatisfied and in turmoil
