Maggie looked toward Fox, who hadn’t said a word. “Santos, will you give Fox a ride? I’m going to stay with Rafael. I’ll leave my number when we stop by the house for my things so you can give me the funeral details.”
Santos rose and stretched to his full height and found a slight smile for Fox. “I won’t forget you,” he promised.
“I’m all right on my own,” Fox replied with a stubborn grimace. He shoved himself out of his chair. “We better go out through the kitchen too, or we’ll again be tabloid fodder.”
He and Santos led the way, but when they exited through the kitchen’s loading dock, half a dozen reporters and photographers stood waiting. “What were your father’s last words?” someone called.
Santos shouldered by them, followed by Fox, but Rafael paused, and glared at them. “You soulless leeches aren’t worthy to speak his name.”
The reporters shrank away from them, and Maggie felt certain that line would make all the papers, but it would only add to a defiant Gypsy’s reputation and not harm him a bit.
Carmen and Cirilda had reached home and given everyone the news they had dreaded hearing. When Maggie and Rafael came through the rear door, they were surrounded by weeping servants. Tomas blew his nose and approached her. “We were all here, and no one saw you do anything to harm him. Señora Aragon is beside herself with grief. Do not listen to her accusations.”
“Thank you,” Maggie whispered. “But I’ll be staying with Rafael so she won’t be upset unnecessarily.” She and Rafael hurried up to her room. She removed her bag from the closet and tossed in her clothes while Rafael kept watch at the do
or. She didn’t want to wrinkle her beautiful flamenco dress and folded it over her arm. She collected her toiletries from the bathroom and was ready to leave within minutes.
Rafael raised his hand, and she waited until the hallway was clear. She wrote her telephone number on a notepad, and hoping it would be safe in the kitchen, she pinned it on the small bulletin board where Tomas posted his menus. She pointed it out to him as they left. They weren’t in the house more than ten minutes, but as they drove away, she felt as though she’d barely escaped a blistering confrontation with her grandmother. That she deserved whatever ugly accusations the woman threw at her intensified Maggie's anxiety tenfold.
“I could go to a hotel,” she offered, afraid she might break down in hysterics she didn’t want him to see.
“Why? Are you bored with me already?”
She wouldn’t grow bored with him in a lifetime. “No, not at all, but if it’s difficult for you to have me there…”
“No. This is too sad a time for either of us to be alone. Does your mother know you’re here in Spain?”
“No. I meant to tell her when I returned home. She’s told me very little about my father, but I should let her know he’s gone before she reads it in a magazine.”
“Yes, of course. We all knew he wasn’t well, but no one expected to lose him this soon.”
“I believe Dr. Moreno did.”
“I didn’t know my father, and Miguel was so kind to take an interest in me. Do you think your grandmother would let me speak at his funeral?”
Maggie felt sick to her stomach as she looked out at the passing scene. “Carmen is a bitter, vindictive woman, so I doubt it. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t write something for his children, and she need never know about it.”
“Maybe she’d rather I didn’t attend the funeral.”
“I doubt she’ll want me there, so let’s wait and see what’s planned. Santos will invite us if he can.”
He parked in front of his apartment. “This is a very sad way for your trip to end.”
She left the car rather than ask why he’d given up on convincing her to stay. If all he’d wanted was to become a matador de toros, he’d gotten all he needed from her. She wouldn’t ask that pointed question when the answer could hurt so badly to hear.
He carried her bag up the stairs while she still held the red dress. As they entered his apartment, it appeared even smaller than she’d remembered. “You can’t have a very big closet, but I don’t want to leave my things strewn about your home.”
“Strewn? That’s a good word. Put your things on the sofa for now. I have to get out of this suit; then we’ll decide what to do.”
He sloughed off the jacket and she caught it for him. “You looked absolutely magnificent when you entered the bullring.”
“Better than Santos?” He pulled off his black tie and unbuttoned his ruffled shirt.
“You’re both handsome men. Give up the competition, please.”
He kissed her cheek and went on into the bathroom. He did have a few extra hangars in his closet, and she hung up the red dress and the new green skirt. She hadn’t eaten all day and, feeling faint, went into the kitchen to look in the refrigerator. He had a jar of peanut butter and three apples. She took an apple, washed it at the sink with shaking hands and took a bite.
There was a copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone on the coffee table, and she nudged her bag over on the couch to have space to sit and opened it. She’d read all the Harry Potter books several years ago but couldn’t focus on the printed page now. Instead, she held the book in a tight grasp, as though it were a beloved keepsake. She looked up when Rafael left the bathroom in a lingering cloud of steam, his hair wet. He was clad in his usual black jeans and dark T-shirt. He looked as handsome as always, and she felt so strangely detached she wondered if she’d faded to a hazy outline.