Smiling, Agusto nodded as the housekeeper arrived with a tray. ‘Yes, he does, querida! Ah, here’s the coffee. Gracias, Soledad. Just there will be perfect.’
Luis waited until they were alone again, and then, turning towards his mother, he smiled. ‘So, how many people are coming to the party?’
‘Sixty, of course—that’s why we had to arrange it for tomorrow. It was the only date everyone could make.’
Picking up his coffee cup, Agusto cleared his throat. ‘But we can always squeeze in one more if there’s someone special you’d like to bring along.’ He glanced over at his son. ‘We did wonder if you might bring Amy.’
Shaking his head, Luis met his father’s gaze with resignation. ‘That’s not going to happen, Papá. I haven’t dated her in about a year. We’re friends now—that’s all.’
His father frowned at him. ‘But you’re seeing someone else?’
‘No one serious.’
He held his breath, waiting for the conversation to continue as he knew it surely would. His parents had met at his mother’s quincañera. It had been love at first sight, and they had both believed—assumed, really—that their sons would find a partner just as effortlessly.
Only with Bas gone all their attention was now focused on him, so that every conversation, no matter how it started, always seemed to turn inevitably to Luis’s relationships. But he didn’t—couldn’t—trust his feelings. Believing that someone loved and desired you was stupid and dangerous. It lulled you into a dream state, made you careless.
And he was never careless. Never took risks. In fact he’d spent most of his adult life doing his damnedest to minimise risk, doing everything in his power to control the world around him. It was one of the reasons why he’d set up his business. Hedge funds were by definition speculative. However, by using algorithms to calculate the optimal probability of executing a profitable trade, he’d eliminated not just fear and greed but risk. Risks that were not worth taking—
His body stilled, his breath catching in his throat as he pictured Cristina, with those ludicrous heels dangling from her hand, as he’d kissed her up the stairs to her hotel room.
She’d been a risk worth taking.
He felt suddenly exhilarated,
and a flurry of anticipation rose up inside him.
A risk worth repeating.
He would call her hotel after lunch.
Feeling calmer, he glanced over at his father. ‘Life is different in California, Papá. The people are different there. They don’t care about—’
‘About what? Love? Commitment? Family?’
He could hear the confusion in his father’s voice, and the hurt. About everything that was left unspoken. The past. His brother. And, of course, the family business.
His father was coming up to seventy. He wanted to retire and he wanted Luis to take over from him. But he wasn’t going to. He couldn’t step in for his brother. Sit at the head of that massive oak table in the boardroom. It just wasn’t going to happen.
Glancing at his father expression of frustration and his mother’s stricken face, he wanted to apologise for letting them down. For not being the son they deserved. But to do so would mean having to explain his reasons, and that would mean losing their love for ever.
His father shook his head. ‘Thank goodness we’re only being photographed for this article,’ he muttered. ‘I can’t imagine how I’d explain the fact that my only son and heir has turned his back on his birthright.’
Luis felt his skin tighten across his face, his brain locking on to the one word in his father’s remark that was designed to trigger alarm bells in his head.
‘What article?’
Sofia leaned forward. ‘It’s for a magazine. We’re meeting the photographer before lunch, just to have a little chat. I have her CV here…’
Reaching across, she picked up a folder from the table, and handed it to Luis.
He didn’t open it.
‘But what’s the point of the article?’ He could feel his hackles rising.
His father raised an eyebrow. ‘I know you’re not interested in the family business, Luis. But I would have thought that even you might have remembered it’s the bank’s four hundredth anniversary this year.’
Luis cursed silently. Of course it was. Agusto had mentioned it to him several months back. Believing it to be some kind of entrée into discussing his return to the family business, he’d pushed it away.