Felipe frowned, still lost. ‘He sang to her?’
‘No! That’s what I’m telling you. He said it as if he’d made it up, like he was telling her something important. Like he was a poet.’ Cristina glowered so hard her dark eyebrows almost met in the middle.
‘What a loser,’ said Felipe, smirking, amused as much by her disgust as by the feeling that he had some kind of moral superiority over Will.
‘He’s a liar,’ said Katerina. ‘So I think we should tell her.’
‘It would be unkind,’ said Ana. ‘We shouldn’t interfere.’
Felipe looked between them, seeing the mutinous expressions on both Cristina and Katerina’s faces.
He sighed. Much as he’d love to call Will out, it would hurt Rebecca and he’d learned his lesson. He didn’t want to do that to her again. He wanted to make her happy, to see the carefree smile on her face every day. From her response in the Pilates class that morning, she was clearly pissed off with him, and he couldn’t blame her. What did it matter if Will had borrowed the words from a song? If she loved Will and Will loved her back, that was going to make her happy in the long run, wasn’t it? So where did that leave him? It wasn’t his style to give up and walk away from something he wanted– but what did Rebecca want? Who knew it was so hard to be unselfish? So much for being upfront and honest with her from the start. How was he to know that his feelings for her would change so radically? Falling in love with her was his problem, not hers.
‘Ana’s right. It would be unkind.’
‘But he’s a liar,’ insisted Cristina.
‘It’s not for us to get involved.’
‘Why not?’ asked the younger girl.
‘Because she doesn’t need to hear it from us,’ said Felipe firmly. ‘She has to decide for herself. I can’t be responsible for her as well.’ The minute he said it, he could have bitten his tongue off. Ana’s luminous eyes turned on him, widening, not quite accusing but assessing.
‘I thought you liked her,’ said Cristina with a pout.
‘I do.’ The quiet admission dropped as loud into the room as a rock down a well. ‘I like her a lot. But telling her this, if she’s happy, would be cruel and unkind.’
All three women stared at him. He met their gazes and lifted his chin slightly.
Ana lifted an eyebrow in question, her penetrating gaze looking right into the heart of things. He nodded.
‘Oh my goodness,’ whispered Ana.
‘What?’ asked Cristina, looking from one to the other.
Katerina studied Felipe’s face and then her eyes widened.
‘Felipe’s in love,’ she said.
A slow smile of delight spread across Ana’s face, her eyes lighting up with pleasure.
‘With Rebecca?’ screeched Cristina, jumping up and down on the spot. ‘Are you going to marry her? Can you? We really like her. She’s so fun.’
A blush heated Felipe’s cheeks. ‘I didn’t say I loved her.’
‘But you do,’ said Cristina, giving him an enthusiastic hug. ‘I’m so happy for you.’
They crowded round him beaming and it felt churlish to deny it. In fact, it was a relief to actually admit it, to them as well as himself.
He held up a hand. ‘She has no idea, and she’s in love with Will. You can’t say anything. It’s not fair. And I’m not the right man for her.’
‘But Will!’ Cristina screwed up her face. ‘He’s nowhere near as nice as you.’
‘She definitely likes you,’ said Ana thoughtfully. ‘I’ve seen the way she looks at you.’
‘I’m not about to mess up things for her. She’s wanted Will for a long time.’ Felipe was trying to say the right things even though it wasn’t what he wanted. But doing the right thing sucked, and for once, he forgot to be guarded. ‘Besides, I’ve got enough…’ He bit the sentence off. Again, Ana, like a deer sensing trouble, lifted her head and looked straight at him.
All three of them glared at him. Then whirled when they heard footsteps coming down the stairs.
