Spanish Escape: The Playboy of Puerto Banús / A Game of Vows / For the Sake of Their Son

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

IT WAS A life she could never have imagined.

Raúl worked harder than anyone she knew.

His punishing day started at six, but rather than coming in drained at the end of it he would have a quick swim in the pool, or they’d make love—or rather they’d have sex. Because the Raúl from the yacht was gone now. A quick shower after that and then they’d get changed for dinner. Meals were always eaten out, and then they would hit the pulsing nightlife, dancing and partying into the early hours.

Estelle couldn’t believe this was the toned-down version of Raúl.

‘I can cook,’ Estelle said, and smiled one night as they sat at Sol’s and waited for their dishes to be served. ‘It might be a novelty…’

‘Why would you cook when a few steps away you can have whatever you choose?’

It was how he lived: life was a smorgasbord of pleasure. But six weeks married to Raúl, even with a week off to visit her family, was proving exhausting for Estelle—and she wasn’t the one working. Or rather, she corrected herself as the waiter brought her a drink, she was working, twenty-four-seven, because no way would she be dining out every night, no way would she be wandering along streets that still pumped with music well after midnight on a Tuesday.

It had been Cecelia’s cardiology appointment today, and Estelle was worried sick and doing her best not to show it. But she kept glancing at her phone, willing it to ring, wondering when she’d hear.

‘How’s your new PA?’ Estelle asked as she bit into the most gorgeous braised beef, which had been cooked over an open fire.

‘Okay.’ Raúl shrugged. ‘Angela trained her well…’

He looked down at her plate, stabbed a piece of beef with a fork and helped himself. Estelle was getting used to the way they shared their meals; it was the norm here.

‘It is much more difficult without Angela,’ Raúl admitted. ‘Only now she is gone are we seeing how much she did around the place.’

‘When will she be back?’

‘She won’t,’ Raúl said. ‘She is taking long service leave to nurse my father. Once he dies and it gets out about her she won’t be welcome there.’

‘Oh, well, you’ll only have to see her at the funeral, then.’

Raúl glanced up. He could never be sure if she was being flip or serious. ‘When are you going to see your father?’ she asked him.

She was being serious, Raúl quickly found out.

‘He chose to live in the north—he chose to end his days with his other family. Why should I….?’ He closed his tense lips. ‘I do not want to discuss it.’

‘Angela called again today.’

‘I told you not answer to her.’

‘I was waiting for my brother to ring,’ Estelle said. ‘It was Cecelia’s cardiology appointment today. I didn’t think to look when I picked up.’ Estelle could not finish her dinner and pushed the plate away.

‘You’re not hungry?’

‘Just full.’

‘I was thinking…’ Raúl said. ‘There is a show premiering in Barcelona at the weekend. I think it might be something we would enjoy.’

‘Raúl…’ She just could not sit and say nothing—could not lie beside him at night and sleep with him without caring even a bit, without having an opinion. Surely he could understand that? ‘I was riddled with guilt when my parents died.’

‘Why?’

‘For every row, for every argument—for all the things we beat ourselves up about when someone dies. Guilt happens whatever you do. Why not make it about something you couldn’t have changed, instead of something you can?’ On instinct she went to take his hand, but he pulled it back.

‘You’re starting to sound like a wife.’

She looked at him.

‘Believe me, I don’t feel like one.’

Estelle pounced on her phone when it rang.

‘I need to take this.’

‘Of course.’

It was Amanda, doing her best, as always, to sound upbeat. ‘They’re going to keep Cecelia in for a few nights. She’s a bit dehydrated…’

‘Any idea when she’s going to have surgery?’

‘She’s too small,’ Amanda said. ‘They’ve put a tube in, and we’re going to be feeding her through that. She might come home on oxygen…’

Raúl watched Estelle’s eyes filling with tears but she turned her shoulders and hunched into the phone in an effort to hide them. He heard her attempt to be positive even while she was twisting her hair around and around her finger.

‘She’s a fighter,’ Estelle said, but as she did so she closed her eyes.

‘How is your niece?’ Raúl asked as she rang off.

‘Much the same.’ She didn’t want to discuss it for fear she might break down—Raúl would be horrified! Seeing that he’d finished eating, Estelle gave him a bright smile. ‘Where do you want to go next?’

‘Where do you want to go?’ Raúl offered.

Home, her body begged as they walked along the crowded street. But that wasn’t what she was here for. She’d been transferring money over to Andrew since he’d gone back to England. The first time she’d told Andrew it was money she’d been saving to get a car. The second time she’d said it was a loan. Now she’d just given him a decent sum that would see them through the next few months, telling Andrew that she and Raúl simply wanted to help.

It was time to earn her keep.

They passed a club that was incredibly loud and very difficult to get into. It was a particular favourite of Raúl’s. ‘How about here?’

* * *

Estelle woke to silence. It was ten past ten and Raúl would long since have gone to work.

She sat up in bed and then, feeling dizzy, lay back down.

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 all want peace.’ He was a moment away from telling her the rest, but instead he stood and headed through the balcony door. ‘I’m going out.’

Estelle sat still.

‘Don’t wait up.’

‘I won’t.’

She didn’t want him going out in this mood, and she followed him into the lounge while knowing he wouldn’t welcome her advice. ‘Raúl, I don’t think—’

‘I don’t pay you to think.’

‘You’re upset.’

‘Now she tells me what I’m feeling!’

‘Now she reminds you that she read that contract before she signed it. If you think you’re going to go out clubbing and carrying on in your usual way I’ll be on the next plane home…’ she watched his shoulders stiffen ‘…with every last cent you agreed to pay me.’

He headed for the door.

‘Hope the music’s loud enough for you, Raúl!’ she called out to him.

‘It could never be loud enough.’

There was a crack from the storm and the balcony doors flew wide open. He turned then, and she glimpsed hell in his eyes. There was more than he was telling her, she knew that, and yet she did not need to know at this moment.

He was striding towards her and she understood for a moment his need for constant distraction, for she was craving distraction now. She was pregnant by the man she loved, who was incapable of loving her. How badly she didn’t want to think about it. How nice it would be for a moment to forget.

His mouth was, perhaps for the last time, welcome. The crush of his lips was so fierce he might have drawn blood. Yet it was still not enough. He wrestled her to the floor and it was still too slow.

Here beneath him there were no problems—just the weight of him on her.

He was pulling at his zipper and pressing up her skirt. She was kissing him as if his lips could save them both. The balcony doors were still wide open. It was raining on the inside, raining on them, yet it did not douse them.

He had taught her so much about her body, but she learned something new now—how fast her arousal could be.

He was coming even before he was inside her; she could feel the hot splash on her sex. Estelle was sobbing as he thrust inside her, holding onto him for dear life. Each thrust of his hips met with her own desperation. It was fast and it was brutal, and yet it was the closest they had ever been.

He was at her ear and breathing hard when he lifted his face. She opened her eyes to a different man.

‘Come with me to see them?’

He was asking, not telling.

‘Yes.’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘Yes.’

It felt terribly close to love.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THEY FLEW EARLY the next morning, over the lush hills of Spain to the north, and even as his jet made light work of the miles there was a mounting tension. Had they run out of time?

Far from anger from Raúl, there was relief when Angela came out of the door to greet them, a wary smile on her face.

‘Come in,’ she said. ‘Welcome.’

She gave Estelle a kiss on the cheek, and gave one too to Raúl. ‘We can do this,’ she said to him, even as he pulled back. ‘For your father. For one day…’

Raúl nodded and they headed through to the lounge.

If Estelle was shocked at the change in his father, it must be hell for Raúl.

‘Hey,’ he greeted his son. ‘You took your time.’

‘I’m here now,’ Raúl said. ‘Congratulations on your wedding.’ He handed Antonio a bottle of champagne as he kissed him on the cheek. ‘I thought we could have a toast to you both later.’

‘I finally make an honest woman of her,’ Antonio said.

Estelle watched as Raúl bit back a smart response. There really was no time for barbs.

‘Your brother is flying in from Bilbao tonight. Will you stay for dinner?’ Antonio’s eyes held a challenge.

‘I’m not sure that we can stay…’

‘A meeting between the two of you is inevitable,’ Antonio said. ‘Unless you boycott my funeral. I am to be buried here,’ he added.

She watched Raúl’s jaw tighten as he told his son that this was the home he loved. Yet he had denied his first son the chance of having a real home.

‘I will make a drink,’ Angela said to Estelle. ‘Perhaps you could help me?’

Estelle went into the kitchen with her. It was large and homely, and even though she was hoping to keep things calm for Raúl, Estelle was angry on his behalf.

‘We will leave them to it,’ Angela said as Estelle sat at the table. ‘You look tired.’

‘Raúl doesn’t live a very quiet life.’

‘I know.’ Angela smiled and handed her a cup of hot chocolate and a plate of croissants.

Estelle took a sip of her chocolate, but it was far too sickly and she put the cup back down.

‘I can make you honey tea,’ Angela offered. ‘That is what I had when…’ Her voice trailed off as she saw the panic in Estelle’s eyes and realised she must not want anyone to know yet. To Angela it was obvious—she hadn’t seen Estelle since her wedding day, and despite the suntan her face was pale, and there were subtle changes that only a woman might notice. ‘Perhaps your stomach is upset from flying.’

‘I’m fine,’ Estelle said, deliberately taking another sip.

‘I am worried that when Antonio dies I will see no more of Raúl…’

Estelle bit her lip. Frankly she wouldn’t blame him. Because being here, seeing first-hand evidence of years of lies and deceit, she understood a little better the darkness of his pain.

‘He is like a son to me.’

Estelle simply couldn’t stay quiet. ‘From a distance?’ She repeated Angela’s own words from the wedding day and then looked around. There were pictures of Luka, who looked like a younger Raúl.

‘Raúl is here too.’ Angela pointed to a photo.

‘He wasn’t, though.’ Estelle could not stand the pretence. ‘You had a home here—whereas Raúl was being shuffled between his aunt and uncle, occasionally seeing his dad.’

‘It was more complicated than that.’

‘Not really.’ Estelle simply could not see it. ‘You say you think of him as a son, and yet…’

‘We did everything the doctor said,’ Angela wrung her hands. ‘I need to tell you this—because if Raúl refuses to speak with me ever again, then this much I would like you to know. The first two years of Luka’s life Antonio hardly saw him. He did everything to help Raúl get well, and that included keeping Luka a secret. The doctor said Raul needed his home, needed familiarity. How could we rip him away from his family and his house? How could we move him to a new town when the doctor insisted on keeping things as close to normal as possible?’

Estelle gave a small shrug. ‘It would have been hard on him, but surely no harder than losing his mother. He thought it was because of something he had said to her.’

‘How could we have known that?’

‘You could have spoken to him. You could have asked him about what happened. Instead you were up here, with his dad.’

There was a long stretch of silence, finally broken by Angela. ‘Raúl hasn’t told you, has he?’

‘He’s told me everything.’

‘Did Raúl tell you that he was silent for a year?’ She watched as Estelle’s already pale face drained of colour. ‘We did not know what happened that day, for Raúl could not tell us. The trauma of being trapped with his dead mother…’

‘How long were they trapped for?’

‘For the night,’ Angela said. ‘They went over a cliff. It would seem Gabriella died on impact. When the médicos got there he was still begging her to wake up. He kept telling her he was sorry. Once they released him he said nothing for more than a year. How could we take him from his home, from his bed? How could we tell him there was a brother?’

‘Excuse me—’

Estelle retched and cried into the toilet, and then tried to hold it together. Raúl did not need her drama today. So she rinsed her mouth and combed her hair, then headed back just as Raúl was coming out from the lounge.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Of course.’

‘My father is going to have a rest. As you heard, my brother is coming for dinner tonight. I have agreed that we will stay.’

Estelle nodded.

‘Somehow we will get through dinner without killing each other, and then,’ Raúl said, ‘as my reward for behaving…’ He smiled and pulled her in, whispered something crude in her ear.

Far from being offended, Estelle smiled and then whispered into his ear. ‘I can do it now if you want.’

She felt him smile on her cheek, a little shocked by her response.

‘It can wait.’ He kissed her cheek. ‘Thank you for today. Without you I would not be here.’

‘How is he?’

‘Frail…sick…’

‘He loves you.’

‘I know,’ Raúl said. ‘And because I love him also, we will get through tonight.’

* * *

She wasn’t so sure they’d get through it when she met Luka. He was clearly going through the motions just for the sake of his parents. Angela was setting up dinner in the garden and Antonio was sitting in the lounge. It was Estelle who got there first, and opened the door as Raúl walked down the hall.

The camera did not lie: he was a younger version of Raúl—and an angrier one too.

Luka barely offered a greeting, just walked into his family home where it seemed there were now two bulls in the same paddock. He refused Raúl’s hand when he held it out to him and cussed and then spoke in rapid Spanish.