“It’s not safe, no,” he said in a tone that was so grim, it lifted the hairs on the back of her neck. “Not until I’ve dealt with him once and for all.” He picked up his phone and walked to the door.
Her blood was congealing in her veins at how murderous he sounded. “What are you going to do?”
“Whatever I have to.”
“Joaquin, stop,” she cried, truly afraid he would do something he couldn’t undo. “How does leaving like this reassure me you’re in this relationship forme? I need to feel like I’m more than a means to an end, but you’re choosing hating him over loving me. Do you see that? He is not the one tearing us apart.Youare.”
“What do you want me to do?” His voice was tortured. “Tell you I love you and beg you to stay here until I get back?” He shook his head in a way that negated his thrown-away words. “You’re better off as far away from me as you can get.”
Her brittle heart cracked. “Then I won’t be here when you get back,” she warned.
His breath cut in as though her words had been a knife into his chest, but he only asked, “Where will you go? Your sister’s?”
“What do you care where I go?”
He didn’t even say,I care. He just left.
Chapter Seventeen
Siobhan didn’t letherself agonize over whether to leave. She knew she would always have doubts about Joaquin and his motives if she stayed.
So she left.
The safest thing would have been to go south, back to her sister’s, but she didn’t want to pretend for the children and everyone else that she was fine. She wasn’t fine. She was devastated. Brokenhearted.
She wanted to be alone. She felt foolish, exactly as she had after she had trusted Gilbert, so she went north. Home. To her mother’s empty house in London. Where she had gone the last time.
Her eyes stung the whole way, but she fought back the tears. She could accept that Joaquin wanted to vanquish his father, but why hadn’t he told her what he planned? She felt used again. Betrayed again.
And shut out. Why didn’t he askherto help? She was actually a very spicy bitch when crossed. Had he not seen how she had treated that man who had grabbed her?
That gauntlet of photographers had actually been really frightening. Once she was in the car, all she had wanted was to be home with Joaquin. Safe in his arms.
Hehadmade her feel safe. Until this.
Four hours after hastily packing, she arrived in Hertfordshire.
The house she had grown up in was an older home on a property of mature trees and well-tended flowerbeds. It hadbeen bordering on shabby when she’d been young. Their mother had barely been hanging on to it. They had all worked to keep things afloat. Cinnia had had her estate practice, the middle girls had worked in pubs and shops. Siobhan had shared a room with Cin so her mother could rent hers out. Aside from earning a few pounds babysitting, Siobhan had been too young to contribute, which had always made her feel like a liability.
Once Cinnia married Henri, everything changed, insisting the house receive a complete upgrade so it had top-notch security and a twelve-foot wall around the garden.
As she entered the code for the door, and Qahira moved into the shadows to ensure the house was empty, Siobhan thought of that old song that began,Hello, darkness. Except it wasn’t her friend. It just made her feel melancholy.
“Clear,” Qahira reported.
Siobhan thanked her and moved through the house, turning up the heat and putting on some lights.
The decor had also been refreshed in recent years. The floor was now a posh golden hardwood. There was a piano beneath the floating staircase, and the potting shed was a proper guest cottage where Qahira would stay.
Siobhan went upstairs to unpack, almost turning out of habit into the room she had once shared with Cinnia. Rather than two singles, it now held bunk beds for the twins to use when Cinnia visited their mother here.
That had Siobhan remembering Christmas and the fact Joaquin had attended the festivities with her. At the time, she had thought he had gone forher. Now she was questioning his motives. Had he been wanting to speak to Henri all along?
No. He could have talked to Ramon when Ramon was in Madrid. The fact was he didn’tneedher to use the Sauveterres. And Henri wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t allow himself to be used. He would have had his own reasons for helping Joaquin.
Even if Joaquin had gone there specifically to ask Henri for a favor, he had still helped her work through her anger at herself. He had helped her build memories she would cherish for a lifetime. He had restored her joy in the holiday.
She closed her eyes against emotive tears as she remembered the way he had brushed off Maya’s palm when she had stumbled.
