Ari chewed on her lip again.
“Ari?” Luis reached for her hand. “What about Tom?”
“It’s just . . . I think I’ve found him.”
Luis blanched, his face falling. He looked behind Ari to the car, where Reine was happily munching on her snack.
“Seriously? You found him?”
Ari nodded mutely.
Luis took a deep breath. “He was supposed to find you though.”
“Yes,” Ari agreed. “Yes, he was.”
“But you found him instead?”
“Yes.”
Luis stood for a moment, regarding Ari with concern. “There’s something else, isn’t there?”
Ari nodded, bitterness flooding through her. “Yes, there’s something else.”
“What is it?”
“He’s getting married,” Ari said miserably, before taking a deep breath, “and I’m the one planning his wedding.”
* * *
They found a diner fifteen minutes away, where Luis and Reine ordered a late brunch.
“The man said there are waffles here,” Reine announced, “and they serve all kinds of sauces too. Chocolate, syrup...” Her little face frowned. “There was something else too, but I can’t remember.”
“What man?” Ari asked, but Luis gave a dismissive shrug.
“Some guy stopped to help us earlier. Let me use his phone to call Sebastian. Turned out to be a creep though, and took off in a hurry,” Luis rolled his eyes. “I think he was, how do you say it in English?” He turned to Reine. “Se le zafó el tornillo?”
Reine grinned. “He went nuts, Tío.”
Luis grinned back. “Yeah. Crazy. Like he’d seen a ghost or something.”
Ari sighed. “Okay, well, at least you’re both all right. And you can have the waffles another time, Reine. Something sensible today, all right my lovely?”
Reine frowned, but Ari remained firm.
Her daughter would be healthy, loved and strong. Her child would have the best. Though, at this diner, the best turned out to be an omelette with a few vegetables on the side, which Reine picked at unhappily.
“Haz feliz a tu mamá y cómetelo, mi sol,” Luis cajoled her, before looking at Ari. “And you should eat too.”
But Ari shook her head. Her stomach protested at the thought of food. Sebastian had thrust a single piece of toast at her earlier, and watched like a hawk as she swallowed every last crumb, each mouthful heavy and dry. Ari couldn’t bear the thought of having to eat anything else. Instead, she drank a black coffee, the liquid sitting greasily inside her queasy belly.
Tom had always drunk his coffee black, Ari remembered suddenly. Tom who wasn’t Tom Miller at all, but a different Tom. Tom Somerset.
She tried the name out in her head, trying to equate her memories of Tom — with his brown hair and brown eyes and plush lips — with what she knew of this Tom Somerset. But she couldn’t do it. All she knew of Tom Somerset was that he was a pilot who crashed his plane and was engaged to his — how had Sasha described it? — ah yes,childhood sweetheart. Ari cringed. If Sasha had been his childhood sweetheart, then whatdid that make her? Ari swallowed hard. She knew what it made her. It made her the other woman. True, it was inadvertent and unintentional, but still, that’s what she was.
Her eyes drifted to Reine. She took in her daughter, beautiful and intelligent and healthy, and realised that being Tom’s other woman made her daughter his lovechild.His bastard,Ari thought with a knot of pain. She wondered if that was what Sasha would call her. She wondered if that was what Marnie would think of her. She wondered if Tom would use that word. Wondered if he would berate the existence of his daughter to placate his fiancée. Wondered if he would dismiss and denounce her to save his relationship with Sasha.
With a clatter, Ari’s cup dropped to the table, spilling black coffee in all directions.
