‘You must,’ insisted Maria, patting her on the shoulder. ‘While you’re here, you are one of the family.’
Cristina reappeared. ‘Felipe will take us.’
There was a big kerfuffle as the two girls went running upstairs to get ready because apparently even in a market you needed to look your best.
‘Come on, Rebecca!’ called Cristina from the top of the stairs. ‘Felipe says if we’re not ready in ten minutes, he will not take us. He’s so bossy.’
Before, Rebecca would have taken his words at face value, but now she realised that his time was limited and he was doing his best to manage it as well as he could. She also realised that unless there was a very good reason, he would never say no tohis cousins’ demands on his time. He played father to the whole family.
Despite his ultimatum, Katerina was pushing her timing to the limit. Meanwhile, Ana, serene as ever, was waiting beside the car and Cristina sat in the middle of the backseat of the big Mercedes, bouncing up and down, impatient to be off.
Rebecca hadn’t seen Felipe since the early hours of the morning, and while there were still shadows under his eyes, he’d lost some of the world-weariness that had hung like a mantle around his shoulders.
He stood by the driver’s door and gave her a quick smile. ‘Morning, Rebecca.’
‘Morning. How are you today?’
‘Good.’ He gave her a perfunctory nod as if last night’s momentary weakness was a distant memory. ‘Now, where’s Katerina?’
It didn’t go unnoticed that he deliberately ignored the implicitHow are things this morning? Has payroll gone through smoothly? Have you caught up on some sleep?
He bobbed his head to talk to Cristina in the back of the car. Rebecca wondered if he was a little embarrassed that he’d admitted to her that he wasn’t in full control. Conversations in the dead of night were often best left there.
At last Katerina appeared, with a head of curls, cute eye make-up and a new outfit, and headed to the front seat next to Felipe.
‘Uh-nuh,’ he said. ‘In the back with your sister. The front seat is for grown-ups. Ana or Rebecca.’
‘You go, Rebecca. I can’t let you suffer in the back with these two savages,’ said Ana, with a gracious, Madonna-esque smile.
‘Sure?’
At her assent, Rebecca got into the passenger seat, moving Felipe’s laptop case into the footwell. ‘Planning on working in the car?’ she asked.
‘Not in the car but in the café. Saves time, otherwise it’s nearly an hour round trip– twice. This way, while you’re in the market, I can finish what I need to do and we can all go to lunch together later this afternoon.’
‘Very efficient,’ she observed, once again thinking how much she’d underestimated him. ‘When do you get a day off?’ Even when they were in Lisbon he’d had meetings, and to her knowledge he had only taken the one day away from his laptop and phone.
He shrugged. The three in the back were talking nineteen to the dozen about a boy in Cristina’s class who was related to someone famous.
‘When was the last time you took a holiday?’ she asked, for some reason wanting to push him into being honest with her. She was still unpicking the fabric of deceit he’d practised on her, intimating he was nothing more than an indolent playboy.
‘Holidays are overrated. Besides, I live by one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. I don’t need to go on holiday.’
‘There’s a difference between going on holiday and taking a holiday,’ Rebecca pointed out, her voice deceptively sweet.
‘Why? Are you worried about me,querida?’ asked Felipe with a flirtatious smile.
Rebecca paused, realising that he was deliberately deflecting. As if last night hadn’t happened. He was going back to being pretend Felipe. For a moment she argued with herself. What was it to her if he took a holiday? But something tugged at her. She wanted to know more about Felipe. Now she’d uncovered a small corner of him, she wanted to pull back the sheet and discover all of him.
Why did he hide who he really was? Surely he deserved more. Did his cousins and sisters have any idea what he did for them? Even today, dropping things to drive them to the shopping centre, again, when Cristina had asked.
She wanted to ask him that very question but knew he wouldn’t take kindly to it. She could see that he believed it was his job to protect them, to look after them and make sure they had everything they needed. But he needed to look after himself as well.
‘You’re not seeing Will today?’ he asked, glancing in the rear-view mirror as if to check that the cousins were otherwise occupied.
‘No, he’s busy, seeing some friends,’ she said. ‘But we’re going out to dinner on Tuesday.’
Felipe nodded but she could tell he wanted to say something.
