Happy for ever?
The question hovered tantalisingly, wonderingly. Dared he ask it?
Dared he answer it?
He stared ahead of him, unseeing of the wide expanse of his office, the high vista out over the City beyond that had taken him so many years of dogged work to achieve. He was seeing only Flavia, smiling at him, with all the warmth in her gaze that he could dream of. Holding out her arms for him …
With a start, he got to his feet. What was the point of him hanging around here in London any more? Out in Palma Flavia was waiting for him, and that was all he cared about. He would head back to Majorca, to Flavia, without delay. Waste not one more moment without her. And as for that question—the o
ne he longed to answer—well, there would be time. All the time they needed together to answer it. There was no rush, no urgency. They would take as much time as they needed, being with each other, learning all there was to know about each other, finding all the happiness that lay between them.
His spirits high, on a rush of anticipation to be with Flavia again that very day, he went through to his PA’s office and let her know he was leaving again. Would she book the earliest Palma flight possible for him? Then, taking his leave, he headed to the lift, phoning Flavia’s mobile as he went. He couldn’t wait to tell her he was on his way back to her. Couldn’t wait to be with her again—take her in his arms again!
Impatiently, standing by the lift doors, he waited for her to pick up.
But instead the call went through to voicemail. Frowning momentarily, he stepped into the lift as the doors opened, and redialled once he was in the lobby downstairs.
Yet again it went to voicemail. Well, maybe she was in the hotel pool. He tried one more time, still got voicemail, and left a message, duplicating it in a text as well. Then, to be on the safe side, as he settled himself in the car taking him to the airport he phoned the Palma hotel direct.
‘Phone up to Señorita Lassiter’s room, please,’ he instructed the desk clerk.
Her answer was apologetic. ‘I’m so sorry, Señor Maranz, but Señorita Lassiter checked out of the hotel last night.’ She paused, then said enquiringly, ‘Will you be settling her bill?’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
RAIN was beating on the windowpanes, rattling the frame. Flavia had drawn the curtains; the bedside light was low. Her heart was gripped by a vice.
I should have been here—I should have been here.
The words of condemning reproach went round and round in her head as she sat by her grandmother’s bed. The nurse had gone an hour ago, saying she would be on call to come back ‘at any time’ as she’d said tactfully to Flavia.
Flavia knew what that meant. Had known the moment she’d arrived, forcing herself to drive the strange hire-car from Exeter airport through the driving rain eastwards along the A30 into Dorset.
Had known the moment she’d phoned Mrs Stephens back from Palma.
‘It’s your grandmother …’
Guilt had struck instantly.
I should never have left her—never!
With her head she could tell herself all she liked that she might just as well have been in London, dancing attendance on her father, as out in a paradise she had never dreamt of—but guilt still clawed at her with pitiless talons.
To have been so selfish! To have thought nothing at all of simply disappearing off with Leon! Living out some kind of self-indulgent idyll just because … just because …
She felt the words twist inside her, trying to get out even as she tried to crush them back in. But she couldn’t hold them back.
Just because I’ve fallen in love with him …
The words sheered across her mind, forcing themselves into her consciousness, jolting through her like an electric shock. But it was a shock that she had to disconnect at the mains—right away. Now. It wasn’t something she could give any time to at all! Not now—not now! Guilt stabbed at her yet again. Worse than ever.
How can I be thinking of myself now? How can it matter a jot, an iota, what my feelings for Leon are when I’m sitting by my grandmother’s bed?
Watching her dying …
The vice clamped tighter around her heart, and she could feel her body rock slightly to and fro with anguish. Her hands were clasped around one of her grandmother’s hands—hers so strong and firm, her grandmother’s so thin and weak. Unmoving.
The pulse at her grandmother’s wrist was barely palpable, her breathing light and shallow. The palliative care nurse who had been there when Flavia had arrived, breathless and stricken, had talked her through how the end would come, though she had not been able to say just when it would come.