How the hell he lived like this on a permanent basis, Estelle had no idea. All she knew was she was not going out tonight.
He could, she decided, dressing and heading out not for the trendy boutiques but for the markets. She just wanted a night at home—or rather a night in Raúl’s home—and something simple for dinner. There must be some subclause in the contract that allowed for the occasional night off?
Marbella was rarely humid, the mountains usually shielded it, but it struggled today. The air was thick and oppressive and the markets were very busy. Estelle had bought the ripest, plumpest vine tomatoes, and was deciding between lamb and steak when she passed a fish stall and gave a small retch. She tried to carry on, to continue walking, tried to focus on a flower stall ahead instead of the appalling thought she had just had.
She couldn’t be pregnant.
Estelle took her pill at the same time every day.
Or she had tried to.
All too often Raúl would come home at lunchtime, or they’d be in a helicopter flying anywhere rather than to his father’s—the one place he needed to be.
She couldn’t be pregnant.
‘Watch where you’re going!’ someone scolded in Spanish as she bumped into them.
‘Lo sierto,’ Estelle said, changing direction and heading for the Pfarmacia, doing the maths in her head and praying she was wrong.
Less that half an hour later she found out she was right.
* * *
Raúl didn’t get home from work till seven, and when he did it was to the scent of bread baking and the sight of Estelle in his underutilised kitchen, actually cooking.
‘Are we taking the wife thing a bit far?’ Raúl checked tentatively. ‘You don’t have to cook.’
‘I want to,’ Estelle said. She was chopping up a salad. ‘I just want to have a night in, Raúl.’
‘Why?’
‘Because.’ She frowned at him. ‘Do you ever stop?’
‘No,’ he admitted, then came over and give her a kiss. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine. Why?’
‘You didn’t wake up when I left this morning. You seem tense.’
‘I’m worried about my niece,’ Estelle said, removing herself from him and adding two steaks to the grill.
She was curiously numb. Since she’d done the test Estelle had been operating on autopilot and baking bread, which she sometimes did when she didn’t want to think.
She just couldn’t play the part tonight.
They carried their food out to the balcony and ate steak and tomato salad, with the herb bread she had made, watching a dark storm rolling in.
Estelle wanted to go home, wanted this over. Though she knew there was no getting out of their deal. But she needed a timeframe more than ever now. She wanted to be far away from him before the pregnancy started showing.
She could never tell him.
Not face to face, anyway.
Estelle could not bear to watch his face twist, to hear the accusations he would hurl, for him to find another reason not to trust.
‘I spoke with my father today.’
She tore her eyes from the storm to Raúl. ‘How is he?’
‘Not good,’ Raúl said. ‘He asks that I go and see him soon.’
‘Surely you can manage to be civil for a couple of days?’ She was through worrying about saying the wrong thing. ‘Yes, your father had an affair, but clearly it meant something. They’re together all this time later…’
‘An affair that led to my mother’s death.’ He stabbed at his steak. ‘Their lies left the guilt with me.’ He pushed his plate away.
The eyes that lifted to hers swirled with grief and confusion and now, when all she wanted was to be away from him, when she must guard her heart properly, when she needed it least, Raúl confided in her.
‘I had an argument with my mother the night she died. She had missed my performance at the Christmas play—as she missed many things. When I came home she was crying and she said sorry. My response? Te odio. I told her I hated her. That night she lifted me from my sleep and put me in a car. The mountains are a different place in a storm,’ Raúl explained. ‘I had no idea what was happening; I thought I had upset her by shouting. I told her I was sorry. I told her to slow down…’
Estelle could not imagine the terror.
‘The car skidded and came off the mountain, went down the cliffside. My father returned from his so-called work trip to be told his wife was dead and his son was in hospital. He chose not to tell anyone the reason he’d been gone.’
‘Did they never suspect he and Angela?’
‘Not for a moment. He just seemed to be devoting more and more time to the hotel in San Sebastian. Angela was from the north and she resumed working for him again. Over the years, clearly when Luka was older, she started to come to Marbella more often with my father. We had a flat for her, which she stayed in during the working week.’
‘He had two sons to support,’ Estelle said. ‘Maybe it was the only way he could see how.’
‘Please!’ Raúl scoffed. ‘He was with Angela every chance he could get, leaving me with my aunt and uncle. Had he wanted one family he could have had it. Perhaps it would have been a struggle, but his family would have been together. He chose this life, and those choices caused my mother’s death.’
‘Instead of you?’
‘I blamed myself for years for her death. I thought the terrible things I said…’
‘You were a child.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I see that now. The night she died was two days after Luka’s birth. I realise now that she was on her way to confront them.’
‘In a storm, with a five-year-old in the back of her car,’ Estelle pointed out.
‘I thought she was trying to kill me.’
‘She was ill, Raúl.’
He nodded. ‘It would have been nice to know that she was,’ Raúl said. ‘It would have been nice to know that it was not my words that had her fleeing into the night.’
‘It sounds as though she was sick for a long time, and I would imagine it was a very tough time for your father…’ Estelle did not want involvement. She wanted to remove herself as much as she could before she told him. Yet she could not sit back and watch his pain. ‘He just wants to know you’re happy, that you’re settled. He just wants peace.’
‘We
