when you met him at university. You should have stuck with him, sis, instead of marrying that creep.’
‘Let’s not go there, Ollie.’ As always, Sophie’s brain shut down at the mention of her late husband’s name. He had his place in a box in her head, firmly locked away. Talking about him was not only pointless but it tore open scabs to reveal wounds still fresh enough to bleed.
Roger, she told herself, had been a learning curve and one should always be grateful for learning curves, however horrible they might have been. She’d been young, innocent and optimistic once upon a time, and if she was battle-hardened now, immune to girlish daydreams of love, then that was all to the good because it meant that she could never again be hurt by anyone or anything.
She stood up and gazed out of the patio doors to the unkempt back garden which rolled into untidy fields, before spinning round, arms folded, to gaze at her brother. ‘I’d ask you what he said...’ her voice was brisk and unemotional ‘...but there wouldn’t be any point because I don’t want to have anything to do with him. He’s...my past and you shouldn’t have gone there without my permission.’
‘It’s all well and good for you to get sanctimonious, Soph, but we need money, he has lots of it and he has a connection with you.’
‘He has no connection with me!’ Her voice was high and fierce.
Of course he had no connection with her. Not unless you called hatred a connection, because he would hate her. After what had happened, after what she had done to him.
Suddenly exhausted, she sank into one of the kitchen chairs and dropped her head in her hands for a few moments, just wanting to block everything out. The past, her memories, the present, their problems. Everything.
‘He says he’ll think about helping.’
‘What?’ Appalled, she stared at him.
‘He seemed very sympathetic when I explained the situation.’
‘Sympathetic.’ Sophie laughed shortly. The last thing Javier Vasquez would be was sympathetic. As though it had happened yesterday, she remembered how he had looked when she had told him that she was breaking up with him, that it was over between them, that he wasn’t the man for her after all. She remembered the coldness in his eyes as the shutters had dropped down. She remembered the way he had sounded when he had told her, his voice flat and hard, that if he ever clapped eyes on her again it would be too soon... That if their paths were ever to cross again she should remember that he would never forget and he would never forgive...
She shivered and licked her lips, resisting the urge to sneak a glance over her shoulder just to make sure that he wasn’t looming behind her like an avenging angel.
‘What exactly did you tell him, Ollie?’
‘The truth.’ He looked at his twin defensively. ‘I told him that the company hit the buffers and we’re struggling to make ends meet, what with all the money that ex of yours blew on stupid ventures that crashed and burned. He bankrupted the company and took us all down with him.’
‘Dad allowed him to make those investments, Oliver.’
‘Dad...’ His voice softened. ‘Dad wasn’t in the right place to stop him, sis. We both know that. Roger got away with everything because Dad was sick and getting sicker, even if we didn’t know it at the time, even if we were all thinking that Mum was the one we had to worry about.’
Tears instantly sprang to Sophie’s eyes. Whatever had happened, she still found it hard to blame either of her parents for the course her life had eventually taken.
Predictably, when her parents had found out about Javier, they had been horrified. They had point-blank refused to meet him at all. As far as they were concerned, he could have stepped straight out of a leper colony.
Their appalled disapproval would have been bad enough but, in the wake of their discovery, far more than Sophie had ever expected had come to the surface, rising to the top like scum to smother the comfortable, predictable lifestyle she had always taken for granted.
Financial troubles. The company had failed to move with the times. The procedures employed by the company were cumbersome and time-consuming but the financial investment required to bring everything up to date was too costly. The bank had been sympathetic over the years as things had deteriorated but their patience was wearing thin. They wanted their money returned to them.
Her father, whom she had adored, had actually buried his head in his hands and cried.
At the back of her mind, Sophie had stifled a spurt of anger at the unfairness of being the one lumbered with these confidences while her brother had continued to enjoy himself on the other side of the world in cheerful, ignorant bliss. But then Oliver had never been as serious as her, had never really been quite as responsible.
She had always been her father’s ‘right-hand man’.
Both her parents had told her that some foreigner blown in from foreign shores, without a penny to his name, wasn’t going to do. They were dealing with enough stress, enough financial problems, without her taking up with someone who will end up being a sponge, because you know what these foreigners can be like... The man probably figures he’s onto a good thing...
Roger was eager to join the company and he had inherited a great deal of money when his dear parents had passed away. And hadn’t they been dating? Wasn’t he already like a member of the family?
Sophie had been dumbstruck as her life had been sorted out for her.
Yes, she had known Roger for ever. Yes, he was a perfectly okay guy and, sure, they had gone out for five minutes. But he wasn’t the one for her and she’d broken it off even before Javier had appeared on the scene!
But her father had cried and she’d never seen her dad in tears before.
She had been so confused, torn between the surging power of young love and a debt of duty towards her parents.
Surely they wouldn’t expect her to quit university when she was only in her first year and loving it?
But no. She’d been able to stay on, although they hoped that she would take over the company alongside Roger, who would be brought on board should they cement a union he had already intimated he was keen on.
He was three years older than her and had experience of working for a company. He would sink money into the company, take his place on the board of directors...
And she, Sophie had read between the lines, would have to fulfil her obligations and walk up the aisle with him.
She hadn’t been able to credit what she had been hearing, but seeing her distraught parents, seeing their shame at having to let her down and destroy her illusions, had spoken so much more loudly and had said so much more than mere words could convey.
Had Roger even known about any of these plans? Was that why he’d been refusing to call it quits between them even though they’d been seeing one another for only less than eight months before she had left for university? Had he already been looking to a future that involved her parents’ company?
She had called him, arranged to see him, and had been aghast when he had told her that he knew all about her parents’ situation and was keen to do the right thing. He was in love with
