by Maya Blake
‘Didn’t want to worry me. I know.’ She paused a beat. ‘So what’s wrong?’
‘I’m in love with him and I’m not sure he feels the same way.’
Her mother’s eyes narrowed. ‘And?’
The stern voice of the mother who’d taught her self-worth even before she’d learnt to walk straightened Suki’s spine. ‘And I owe it to myself to make sure I don’t settle for less than I’m worth?’
Moira smiled and rested her head on the pillow. ‘If nothing else goes right, at least I know I’ve done all right with you,’ she murmured, then closed her eyes.
They had snippets of conversation over the next three days as Moira battled her infection. By Thursday night, Suki was struggling not to show her anxiety.
Ramon had stuck to his guns and given her the breathing room she’d demanded. But it was time to take control of her future once more.
The moment her mother was given the all-clear on Friday morning, Suki kissed her goodbye and summoned a taxi. She toyed with the idea of heading to Ramon’s hotel before she discarded it. For one thing, she needed a shower and a few hours’ sleep before she could function properly. Turning up at Acosta Hotel London dishevelled and with bags under her eyes would probably get her thrown out before she walked through the revolving doors.
Suki didn’t know how sound the decision to go home was until she stopped at the corner shop to buy a pint of milk.
The sense of déjà vu that engulfed her felt like a tsunami sucking her under as she plucked the newspaper from the stand and stared at the front-page picture.
He was shirtless, the grimy towel he used when he sculpted hanging from the back pocket of his low-riding chinos. She was wearing the kind of long-sleeved male dress shirt that strongly hinted at nothing else underneath. Svetlana’s miles-long legs were wrapped tight around his waist, her white-blonde hair tumbled in sexy disarray down her back.
And worst of all, they were standing on the terrace of the villa Suki had had the audacity to hope would be her home one day.
The shopkeeper’s ever-increasing demand for payment snapped her out of her shock long enough to hand over the appropriate change before she was stumbling down the pavement and into her house.
Lurching into the kitchen, she discarded everything, raced upstairs, flung herself on the bed and pulled the covers over her head.
The thumping came not five minutes later. Or perhaps it was five hours. She didn’t know or care. Nor did she acknowledge it.
Next, her phone began to ring. She ignored that too.
Then the banging started again. ‘Open the door, Suki. I know you’re in there.’
‘Go away,’ she screamed.
He went away. Then somehow materialised at the bottom of her bed. ‘Get up, Suki. Now,’ he growled.
She lurched upright in bed. ‘Oh, my God! How did you get in here?’
‘I climbed in through the goddamn kitchen window! We’re going to have a serious talk about your security when we’re done talking about us,’ he snapped.
Her world lit on fire and turned to ash again in the blink of an eye. ‘There is no us, Ramon. I was delusional in thinking there was a possibility. Trust me, I’m fully awake now to the type of man you are.’
His face paled a little before his mouth thinned into a flat line. ‘Because you let that bitch feed you poison or because you’ve read the tabloids and tried and found me guilty? Yes, I found out she was in the suite. Why didn’t you tell me?’
Hot, angry tears prickled her eyes. Snapping back the duvet, she surged to her feet. ‘Because she was there on your behalf. And it wasn’t poison if it was true! And don’t forget your back-stairwell tryst as well! Did it give you a little thrill to grope her like that while she moaned in your ear? God, I love it when you’re so bossy. I’ve missed the way you say my name, Ramon. So much.’
His mouth actually dropped open in shock before he raked his fingers through his hair. ‘Santa Cielo, you heard that?’
She wrapped her hands around her arms. ‘I didn’t stay for the full performance, if that’s what you’re asking.’
‘Pity. If you’d stayed you would’ve got the whole picture, instead of the half-baked conclusions you’re letting hurt you now. And let’s get one thing clear: she wasn’t there on my behalf!’
‘Don’t you dare turn this back on me. You lied to me upstairs when you said you had business to take care of. You lied again when you came back into the gallery, looking as guilty as hell.’
‘She was business, because she turned up uninvited making a nuisance of herself. I didn’t want you stressed so I went down there to deal with her. Somehow she slipped past Security and made her way up to the suite. And I felt guilty afterward for neglecting you for so long.’
‘Wow, and you rail me about my security?’ she snapped.
He paced in a tight back and forth at the end of her bed. ‘She’s...cunning.’
‘You mean she’s good at getting men to do what she wants, you included?’
‘No. I told you, we’re over. We’ve been over for a very long time.’
‘There’s a newspaper photo and article that says something very different. And don’t tell me the picture is false because I recognised the decorator’s scaffolding still on the south wall.’
He let out an exasperated breath. ‘It wasn’t false. She was at the villa two days ago.’
She’d thought the picture that had torn the bottom out of her world had done all the damage she could sustain. She was wrong.
His words sapped the last strength from her legs. Ramon caught her as she swayed. She fought him as he carried her over to the bed.
‘Madre de Dios, stop this!’
‘No. What about you neglecting to tell me she was the one who did the appalling redecoration? Or that she was pregnant with your baby, too? You know what? I don’t want to do this. Just...just get out of my house!’
‘She’s lying, Suki. There was never a baby. And I’m not going anywhere. Not until you hear me out.’
Sitting down, he imprisoned her in his lap. Suki sat stiffly, her every cell fighting not to be consumed once again.
‘Think about it rationally. You lived in Cienfuegos for almost two months. In that time, did you ever spot a paparazzo there?’
Her mouth tightened but it was clear he wasn’t going to carry on until he had an answer. ‘No, but—’
‘So, why would they suddenly show up, if they hadn’t been fed that information?’
‘Ramon. It doesn’t matter—’
His hand tightened on her hip. ‘It matters because she orchestrated it all from start to finish.’
‘Because she wants you back that badly?’
He gave a very masculine, very arrogant shrug.
‘But that picture. It was...’
‘Nothing. Less than nothing,’ he insisted.
‘Was...was that your shirt she was wearing?’
‘I didn’t stop to check. It’s probably one she took from when we were together. Mario alerted me that there was someone on the premises insisting on seeing me. She launched herself at me out of nowhere.’
Suki shook her head, unable to stop the tears that brimmed her eyes. With another pithy curse, he took her face in his hands, tilted it up to his.
‘Don’t do this to yourself, mi amor. Can’t you see she’s not worth it?’ he demanded raggedly.
A wet sob bubbled up from her chest. ‘I can’t get that picture out of my mind.’
‘Try. She cheated on me, Suki. But even if she hadn’t I doubt that we would’ve made it to the altar.’
She wasn’t going to hope.
She wasn’t going to hope.
She...
Oh, hell. Hope bloomed bright and strong. ‘You wouldn’t?’
He shook his head. ‘The initial spark fizzled out very quickly. We both knew it. But she didn’t want to admit failure and I initially left it because I felt a little...guilty.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Guilty? Why?’
‘She overheard me asking Luis about you the day he brought you to the office summer party. Long before we broke up she had a bee in her bonnet about you. She suspected I had a thing for you and she was right. Someone took a picture of us at the Havana event and it made social media. That’s what triggered her nonsense.’
Her breath caught. ‘You had a thing for me?’
‘Each time we met I had a harder time getting you out of my head. I think it was partly why—’
‘You were so mean to me?’
His low chuckle reverberated through her. ‘I couldn’t exactly pull your hair.’
‘You never know. I might have liked it.’
The humorous moment lingered for a split second before it disappeared under the weight of heavier emotions. ‘Ramon—’
His hand tightened in her hair. ‘I would never cheat on you, Suki. I swear. I love you, only you.’
Her heart stopped, then raced wildly in her chest. Blinking tear-filled eyes, she pulled back, searched his face. ‘You love me?’
He squeezed his eyes shut for a second. ‘That night after we made love and I left, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I must have picked up the phone at least two dozen times every day to call you. Hell, I may have hated you a little for wrecking my workday for weeks on end. When Luis told me about the pregnancy, my first thought was that I finally had a reason to be in your life. A permanent reason.’
‘And then it went away?’ she whispered.
He leaned his forehead against hers. ‘That was one of the worst days of my life,’ he whispered back, his gruff voice thick with sorrow.
‘I’m so sorry. For both of us.’
‘No, I’m sorry. For the way I went about righting what I thought was wrong. You have every right to hate me for the things I said to you. Every right.’
‘I tried very hard to save her, Ramon.’
He held her tighter. ‘Dios, I know that now. But losing Luis and my parents on top of losing the baby...it drove me a little insane. I’m not asking you to forgive me now. Just that you’ll forgive me some day?’ he pleaded hoarsely.
‘No, promising to forgive you some day means hanging on to bad feeling now. I won’t do that. I forgave you the moment I agreed to have this baby with you.’
Sea-green eyes swimming with heavy, wild, unstoppable emotion met hers. ‘Belleza, I don’t deserve you.’
She slid her hands over his five o’clock shadow to cup his face. ‘No, you don’t, but I’m yours anyway.’
A deep shudder rippled through him. In the next instant, she was on her back, both her hands trapped above her head in one of his as he levered himself carefully over her.
‘Tell me again,’ he demanded, his mouth hovering a whisper above hers.
‘I’m yours,’ she whispered fervently.
His free hand trailed down her arm, over her waist to splay possessively over her belly. ‘Again,’ he growled.
She couldn’t stop the tears from filling her eyes again. ‘I love you. I’m yours. We’re yours.’
His own eyes misted as he sucked in a long, unsteady breath. His fingers were equally unsteady as he divested her of her clothes.
He paused when his fingers tangled in her panties. ‘The doctors said it was okay, didn’t they?’
‘They said it was okay weeks ago. But you decided to torture us both.’
He grimaced. ‘I will make up for that now, sí?’
She nodded eagerly. ‘Sí, mi amor. Now and for ever.’
EPILOGUE
Eight Months Later
‘CARIÑO, WE’RE GOING to be late.’
Ramon thought it wise not to raise his voice above a gentle murmur, seeing as, when it came to this particular subject, his wife was prone to falling apart at the slightest provocation.
That plan backfired spectacularly.
‘And whose fault is that?’ she snapped. ‘Just one picture, you said. No one will notice, you said.’
He winced. ‘I’m sorry your pictures turned out to be an international sensation, guapa.’
‘No, you’re not. You crow to everyone who comes within shouting distance that you’re my husband. That you’re the reason I look the way I look in those pictures.’
‘Well...to be fair—’
‘Don’t you dare. I don’t want to hear it. And I didn’t want to be the star of your silly gallery exhibit.’
‘Okay, then we’ll stay home.’
The door to the bathroom flew open. And Ramon was eternally glad he was leaning against the bed frame. Because like always, he struggled to catch his breath whenever he looked at her. The love of his life grew more beautiful each day. She’d become his everything. His wife. His muse. The mother of his child.
His most intense lover.
The sculpture he’d made from the sketches of her on the granite slab had turned out to be too intimate to share with the world, so he’d sculpted another, a mother-son one, which now resided in a special garden at their home in Cienfuegos.
Framed to perfection in the doorway, she flipped golden caramel hair over one shoulder. ‘No, you won’t cancel. I’ve already been called a diva for showing up five minutes late to the last exhibit.’
Ramon wisely stopped from pointing out that preventing tardiness was why they needed to leave now. Personally, he wouldn’t care if they turned up an hour late, or not at all. But Suki was unused to media scrutiny and still sensitive to being the centre of attention.
Sadly, she’d been thrown in the deep end when the semi-intimate black-and-white photos he’d taken of her with their son had taken the world by storm. Pictures where she’d been breastfeeding, bathing or just taking a nap with Lorenzo. The purity of her beauty had publishing houses clamouring to sign her up to coffee-table portrait book deals.
So far she’d resisted all offers, choosing to only exhibit at Piedra’s Havana gallery. Even then, she tore strips off him each time she had to appear in public. But as always, Ramon knew he only needed to get her there. Because the moment she saw the super-sized pictures of their son, her heart melted.
He witnessed that transformation forty-five minutes later as she stood in front of the second to largest picture of all. It was another black-and-white print where she was watching Lorenzo sleep. The awe and love on her face was a shining beacon that was impossible to look away from.
He approached her from behind, admiring her post-pregnancy body draped in a white sleeveless floor-length gown. Sliding his arm around her waist, he breathed in her perfume as she leaned back against him.
‘He really is a gorgeous baby, isn’t he?’ she sighed happily.
‘Of course. He’s my son.’
She rolled her eyes but turned to bestow a kiss on him. One that lingered and lingered some more until a throat cleared loudly nearby.
Ramon smiled indulgently as his mother-in-law joined them with his nine-week-old son cradled in her arms.
The second star of the show was asleep and gently snoring. But his grandmother couldn’t keep her eyes off him. ‘He really is a gorgeous baby, isn’t he?’ she sighed.
They all laughed, Suki’s eyes shining extra brightly as they lit on her mother. Moira had come through the cutting-edge treatment with flying colours and been given the all-clear six months ago. With a new lease on life, she’d ditched her job in favour of solo world travel four months ago, only taking a hiatus when her grandson had been born. She was headed to Australia in two weeks and was getting as much time with her grandchild as possible.
Ramon didn’t mind. He welcomed the extra time he got with his
wife. Moira drifted away to show Lorenzo off to guests, and, almost by telepathy, he and Suki drifted to the largest picture of the exhibit.
Luis was smiling at someone off camera, his young vibrant face turned up to the sun. The teasing twinkle in his eyes was captured for all eternity, something Ramon would be grateful for for ever.
‘I miss him,’ he admitted gruffly, the pain now dulled with happier memories but never forgotten.
Suki turned from her best friend’s image and looked into her husband’s eyes. ‘Me too,’ she murmured. ‘I’m so grateful to have known him, albeit too briefly. For the beautiful soul that he was and also because he brought you to me.’
He leaned down, rested his forehead against hers as he was wont to do when emotion got too much for him. When the moment subsided, they walked on, hand in hand, stopping to talk about paintings or conversing with guests.
The sudden clink of glasses stopped her in her tracks. A prominent curator and art columnist whose name she couldn’t quite remember was smiling at the gathering guests.
‘We’ve been keeping it under wraps, but, since it’ll be in the papers tomorrow, we wanted to formally take the opportunity to announce the formation of the new charity for children’s art. It’s in honour of Ramon’s brother and will be named the Luis Acosta Foundation for Children’s Art. Suki Acosta will be its leading patron and has already donated a staggering quarter of a million pounds.’
Rousing applause went through the large crowd. Then she clinked her glass again. ‘We also have a special surprise this evening, again, to be announced tomorrow, but I do love letting the cat out of the bag.’ She paused for laughter before continuing, ‘Anyway, it’s my pleasure to announce that the prestigious White Palm Photography Award this year goes to our dear Ramon for the simply named but utterly divine photo known as Suki & Lorenzo.’
An image of the very first picture Ramon had taken of her son and her was projected onto the large screen. She’d woken up from a wonderful dream just as Lorenzo too had opened his eyes. They’d been captured staring at each other with eyes full of transcendental wonder and magical hope.