‘I don’t care.’
‘I do, and so should you.’
‘Are you berating me?’ he growled.
‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ she flung back.
‘Are you at the ice rink?’
‘Sì...yes.’ The trepidation in her voice grew. ‘I’m laced up and ready to go.’
‘Querida?’
Her voice caught. ‘Yes?’
‘You’re perfect. You’ll be fine.’
A tiny broken sound escaped her. ‘Grazie. I... I needed that.’ Voices murmured in the background. ‘I have to go, Javier.’
The knot returned to his shoulder. Larger. Tighter. A similar one settled on his chest. ‘I’ll call you tonight.’ He paused. ‘Tell me you’ll miss me,’ he ordered softly.
A tiny sigh echoed in his ear, followed by taut silence. ‘Sì, I will miss you.’
The click of the line came far too soon. He wanted to call her back immediately. Wanted to hear her voice again.
Javier realised in the moment before he jumped to his feet and scooped up his laptop that he wanted a whole raft of things when it came to Carla Nardozzi. Things he had no right to demand but was going to anyway. As soon as he put his mother’s ethereal and corporeal remains to rest.
Halfway across the Atlantic, he finally clicked on the link.
Her short, gold-spangled dress hugged her hips then flared out mid-thigh. Her hair flowed freely, just the way he liked it. Among the extras hired for the shoot, she shone bright and vibrant. She swayed to salsa music, arms outstretched to embrace life or a lover lucky enough to be allowed into her orbit.
Then, staring straight into the camera, she spoke the words. ‘La Pasión. Taste the Edge. Live the Edge.’
He shut down the video, and the laptop, and swallowed hard as every ragged, unravelled sensation he’d felt around her finally made intense, mind-bending sense.
For three long years, she’d ruled his thoughts, peppered his every fleeting relationship. Not just because she had struck to the heart of his masculine pride. Sí, there had been that. He couldn’t deny it. But more than that, Carla had struck something deeper, more substantial. Only he’d failed to see it till now.
His hand jerked towards the phone. But he pulled back. What he needed to say to her couldn’t be done over the phone. He had to be there, in front of her, staring into her eyes.
He exhaled. A few days. A week, tops. Then this insanity would end.
* * *
Ten days later, Javier landed on the lawn of his Miami home and sprinted towards the house. The self-imposed radio silence from the moment he’d arrived in Menor Compostela had been hell itself, but he’d needed it to deal with the chaos he’d suddenly found himself embroiled in.
Vaulting up the shallow steps where the garden ended and the terrace began, he threw open the double doors and startled an advancing Constanza.
‘Where is she?’ he demanded as he crossed the room. His calls en route to the airport in Spain hadn’t been answered. Neither had the ones he’d made on his plane heading home.
‘Señor?’
‘Carla. Is she upstairs?’ he threw over his shoulder as he trotted into the hallway. He slowed as his housekeeper shook her head.
‘Lo siento, señor, but the señorita, she’s gone.’
His foot froze on the bottom step. ‘What do you mean, gone?’ Ice rolled down his spine even as he said the words. Because hadn’t a part of him known? Hadn’t a part of him suspected this would happen?
Futile anger congealed in his stomach as Constanza’s gaze turned to pity. ‘She left four days ago, señor.’