The journalist’s voice cut into his circling thoughts. ‘You walked away from rugby after the tragic car accident involving Victor Sanchez and his wife. How much of a part did the accident play in your move back into the family business? And are you still in touch with Victor Sanchez?’
The question had the effect of a small but devastating bomb inside Sebastio. He had never spoken about the catastrophic accident that had claimed two lives, ruined a third and blighted his own for ever. And he certainly wasn’t about to start.
He stood up smoothly, buttoning his jacket as he did so. ‘If that’s all... I have a meeting to attend.’
The journalist stood up too, with a wry smile, and held out his hand. ‘I hope you don’t blame me for trying, Mr Rivas. My editor would never forgive me if I didn’t ask the question everyone wants answered most.’
Sebastio took the journalist’s hand and squeezed it firmly enough to make the man’s eyes water slightly. He bared his teeth in another cordial smile. ‘You can ask all you want—not that I’ll ever answer.’
He turned and walked out, trying to ignore the beat of anger pulsing in his blood that a stranger had opened this Pandora’s box of unwelcome memories. Memories of the worst night of his life.
The screeching tangle of metal on metal and the smell of leaking petrol was still vivid enough to make Sebastio break out in a cold sweat. And the image of his friend’s wife, thrown from the car and lying at an unnatural angle on the road, blood pooling around her head.
His mouth was a grim line as he pulled on his coat and exited the exclusive hotel in London’s Knightsbridge. He was thousands of miles from Buenos Aires and yet the past wouldn’t leave him in peace.
You don’t deserve it.
The line of his mouth got tighter. He didn’t deserve peace. So maybe he owed the journalist something for reminding him of that.
He saw his driver jump out of his waiting car and rush around to open the door and that feeling of constriction was back. He said, ‘It’s okay, Nick. I’m going to walk back to the office.’
The suited man inclined his head. ‘Very well, sir. Nice day for it.’
Was it a nice day for it? Sebastio watched as the driver pulled out smoothly into the snarl of London traffic. He supposed that yes, it was a nice day. It was one of those rare English winter days—bright and clear and dry. Frost was in the air, but not on the ground yet. Christmas was around the corner and the decorations were up in earnest.
Sebastio passed women in expensive furs and men in bespoke suits and overcoats, much like his own.
He pulled up his collar against the chill and was oblivious to the appreciative looks he drew from a group of women standing outside a shop. He crossed the street, avoiding a particularly garish Christmas tree surrounded by singers in period costume belting out tuneless carols.
He loathed Christmas for too many reasons to count, and for the past three years had escaped it by going to parts of the world where Christmas wasn’t celebrated so much. One year he’d gone to Africa, another year to India. Last year he’d spent it in Bangkok.
That first year—after the accident had happened—Christmas had been a blur of grief, guilt and pain so acute that Sebastio hadn’t been sure he would come out the other side.
But he had. And this year he was here in London, in the hub of Christmas mania. Because the truth was that he didn’t deserve a free pass to escape. And, more pertinently because the Rivas bank had just opened its European headquarters here. He had been advised to make the most of the festive season by hosting a series of important social functions which would secure his place in English and European society.
It had even been suggested that he should decorate his house, where he was intending hosting these seasonal social functions, but the thought of being surrounded by trees and baubles and blinking lights made him feel so claustrophobic that he’d tuned out that particular advice.
He was passing the windows of one of the most famous department stores in the world now, and an ornate sign hung in the window, in front of red velvet drapes.
The famous Marrotts festive windows
will be revealed this weekend!
Happy Christmas!
A couple of small children were trying to peer in between a small gap in the curtains, giggling before being led away by their parents.
Sebastio felt a shaft of pain so intense that he almost stopped dead in the street. If not for the accident, Victor and Maya’s daughter would now be...
He shook his head to dislodge the thought and instinctively moved away from the main thoroughfare, ducking down a side street. He cursed the reporter again for having precipitated this avalanche of memories.
At that moment Sebastio turned his head and realised he was passing another of those famous windows, but this time the red velvet drapes were partially open.
He came to a reluctant standstill on the quiet pavement as the scene in the window snagged his attention. It was a magical fairy forest, with branches opening into hidden worlds and little faces and eyes peeping out. Fairies, goblins...
In spite of himself, Sebastio was momentarily captivated. It was Christmassy, but...not. It tugged on a memory deep in the recesses of his mind. An uncomfortable reminder that he hadn’t always hated Christmas.
He’d had an English grandmother, and his parents had used to leave Sebastio with her every Christmas while they went on holiday. Those Christmases had been magical. His grandmother had taken him to West End shows. They’d decorated the house, watched movies, played games. All the things he’d never done with his parents because they had been too busy either having affairs, fighting or indulging in lavish reunion holidays.