‘That he was unwell?’ Valentina asked, confused. ‘That he was going to die?’ She didn’t know what her mother was asking her. ‘If you’re asking whether I knew he might die, then of course the answer is no! But I begged him to see a doctor the day of the polo. Mama, I beggedyouto make him see a doctor, but you wouldn’t listen! No one would listen to me.’ She was breathless, her hand over her chest now as if her own heart might give out from the pain.
‘Valentina, I want to know why he did this. I want to know what sorcery you used to make your father do this to me!’
Tears began to slip down Valentina’s cheeks as she stared back at her mother, registering the coldness of her gaze. ‘Mama,I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Valentina whispered. ‘But Papa is dead, Papa?—’
‘Left you almost everything!’ her mother erupted, her cry echoing through the room, loud enough for anyone else in the house to hear. ‘Our home, the business, most of his fortune…everything! The only mention of me in his last will and testament is to ensure that I’m not left destitute by having a roof over my head and a monthly stipend, a request that he implores his beloved daughter to uphold. And my Bruno has received nothing more than a collection of watches and the house in Buenos Aires!’
Valentina swallowed, quickly wiping at her cheeks with her fingertips. But it didn’t help, because more only fell, making her skin slick with tears as she realised where her mother had been and why she hadn’t been there to sit with her father’s body. Why she had already left the house before the doctor arrived. Her father had been deeply in love, he’d told Valentina as much when they’d been together, recounting the story of how he met his wife and how he still adored her, but clearly the same could not be said for her mother.
‘You’ve already met with the lawyer?’ Valentina forced herself to ask.While he was lying here? While I was sitting with his still-warm body? Before the doctor even arrived?‘You were here when it happened, and instead of staying with him and waiting for the doctor, you just left? You thought it was more important to travel into town to discover the contents of his will than to stay with his body?’
Her mother stared back at her, her gaze still so cold that it sent a shiver through Valentina. And she couldn’t help but notice that her mother never even looked at Basilio’s body, not once—the man who’d been the heart and lifeblood of their family, who’d meant everything to her, suddenly seemed invisible to her mother. Valentina had expected her mother to be in floodsof tears, to appear broken; but instead, she was calculating how much money she expected.
‘I didn’t know, Mama. How would I have known something like that?’ she whispered.
‘All those hours you spent with him, the times he took you to the office and you had his ear,’ her mother said, ‘he must have said something. What did you do to make him turn on me like this? What kind of lies did you tell him?’
Valentina straightened her shoulders, hearing her father’s voice in her head, and suddenly knowing in her heart why he’d chosen her. It had always been her—she could see now that he’d been preparing her for this day her entire life—only she’d never expected her mother to be her enemy. And it was likely her father had never expected this day to come so soon, either. He would have thought he had years to prepare her for taking over the family business and managing their affairs, and instead here she was, a girl of only seventeen, facing the most difficult challenge of her life at the same time as grieving the one person in the world that she loved the most.
‘Papa wanted me to take over the family business,’ she said, forcing her voice to be clear and lifting her head, even though her throat was hoarse and her eyes were so gritty and sore that it hurt just opening them. ‘Papa said that I was like him, that I could continue to make our family business prosper, that he was teaching me so that I understood his way, and the way of his father before him. But he never told me that?—’
‘Bruno will run this family’s business!’ her mother snapped. ‘Your father indulged you your entire life, Valentina, making you believe that you could do anything. But this is a man’s world, no matter what he told you, and your brother will be managing our family’s affairs from now on. I don’t care what his will states, Bruno is the man of the family now that your father is gone, andyou will show him the respect he deserves. You’re not even an adult, so I’ll have no problem taking over from here.’
Valentina lowered her gaze, not about to fight with her mother when her father’s body lay behind them. He would not have wanted them to argue, but she also knew that he didn’t want her brother to be his successor, either. Basilio had been a wonderful stepfather to Bruno and cared deeply for him, but he’d wanted his own flesh and blood to take over what he’d built, to care for the people in his employ and grow their wealth for generations to come. Someone he trusted to uphold the traditions he’d instilled.
‘I will appoint your brother to find a suitable husband for you in the interim, while I arrange everything with the lawyers. I’ll have the will overturned immediately, so that it remains a secret.’
‘Mama, no,’ Valentina said. ‘I want to know all the contents of Papa’s will. I intend on honouring whatever he?—’
‘Valentina, he wanted to gift hisstablehanda house, and all his employees thousands of pesos on his death! He was clearly not in his right mind, and any fool would be able to see that. I won’t be giving away any of our fortune to anyone, and if you think I’ll let you follow his wishes, then you are very, very wrong.’
No, you’re wrong, Mama. He knew exactly what he was doing. He wanted to reward those who’d worked hard for him, and Felipe’s father was more than just a stablehand, he was his right-hand man, the person he trusted with his most prized ponies. And he would never have called him his stablehand, either.
‘I will not marry,’ Valentina said, more boldly than she’d ever said anything to her mother before. ‘You cannot simply make me marry any man whom you or Bruno choose. My job?—’
‘Yourjob?’ Her mother laughed. ‘Yourjobis to be a respectable daughter, Valentina, who will appropriately mourn her father and then take a husband. You’re seventeen years old and I should have had a fiancé arranged for you months ago, instead of letting your father indulge you with his notions of a love match. You’ll be your husband’s problem after that, and whatever I do allow you to inherit will become his property, not yours.’
‘He wanted a love match for me, so that I could have what he had,’ she whispered.
‘You thought your father and I were a love match?’ her mother laughed again. ‘Oh, don’t get me wrong, I loved your father. But if he’d been penniless I wouldn’t have so much as cast an eye towards him. I loved him because of the life he could give Bruno and me, and I will mourn him with great love because of the fortune he has left behind.’
For me. He left that fortune for me!
Valentina tried not to cry, but it was impossible. She felt like a little girl again as she fell to her knees, her sobs uncontrollable as her shoulders shook, her face buried in her hands. Her papa had insisted that she could choose her own husband one day, that she would have choices in her life, that no one would ever force a Santiago to do anything against their will.How wrong you were. He’s not even cold in the ground and everything is being taken from me.
She took a deep breath and looked back at her mother, knowing that she couldn’t wait any longer to tell her the truth. If she was going to be left penniless, then she was at least going to marry the man she loved. ‘Mama, I already know whom I want to marry.’ Valentina paused. ‘I’m in love with Felipe, and I will leave with him and you’ll never have to so much as look at me ever again.’
‘Felipe?’ she repeated, before her eyes narrowed. ‘The stableboy?’
She wanted to tell her that Felipe wasn’t just a stableboy—he was the son of her father’s most trusted and loved employee—but she didn’t get the chance.
‘Valentina, your father told you fairy tales your entire life. But you listen to me, and you listen to me very, very carefully,’ her mother said, bending down and roughly forcing her fingers beneath Valentina’s chin, making her head jut up. ‘I make the rules now, and that means there will be no more riding, no more unaccompanied visits to the stables, and no more seeing that stableboy again. Do you hear me? You will marry a respectable young man of my choosing, and you will most certainly not be disappearing. We have a family name to uphold, after all.’
Valentina had never known hate before, but as she stared back into her mother’s cold eyes, she understood what it was to despise another human being. Her mother had often been aloof with her; it had always been her father who’d swept her into his arms and showed affection, but she understood now how much her mother had resented their closeness. That she’d never loved Valentina’s father so much as she’d loved the life he’d given her, that she’d chosen to bear his child to strengthen their marriage, to provide a life for the son she adored.
‘Yes, Mama,’ Valentina lied, her voice low, closing her eyes as her mother let go of her, the clack of her heels telling Valentina that she was walking away. There was no point in arguing with her, not now.
But once the room was silent, Valentina pushed herself to her feet and went to her father, bending low over the bed and pressing a final kiss to his cheek, lingering as she did so, inhaling the gentle scent of his cologne and committing the softness of his skin to memory. How such a strong, wonderful man could be taken from the world without warning was beyond her, and evenas she gazed down at him, it was almost impossible to believe that he was gone. But he was gone, and she was going to have to learn to live without him.
