He nodded. ‘What about your things? On the island?’
She shrugged. ‘Throw them away. I have everything I want.’
It was a lie. The thought of walking away, of leaving Luis behind for ever, was like staring into a star as it exploded. She knew that afterwards she would be left blind and broken, but there was no alternative—or none that she could imagine. It was like trying to picture what lay beyond the horizon.
To stay would only prolong the agony.
There was nothing left to say.
As she lifted her bag and walked towards the door Luis watched, his body frozen, his brain silently pleading with her to stop and turn around. His heart aching for her to change her mind.
But she didn’t so much as hesitate, and he was still standing there when he heard the door close behind her and felt the silence of the empty apartment rise up around him.
CHAPTER TEN
SCOOPING HER HAIR up into a ponytail-cum-bun, Cristina sat down on the bed in her Madrid hotel room and breathed out slowly, trying to control the irregular beat of her heart as she looked down at her phone.
She scrolled slowly through the messages and missed calls. She’d already checked twice that morning, and she knew—knew—that there was no point, but she couldn’t stop herself from doing it.
Just in case by some miracle Luis had texted or called her.
Don’t cry, she told herself. You promised that today you wouldn’t cry.
She blinked furiously.
Switc
hing off her phone, she swallowed past the lump of misery wedged in her throat. It had been the same every day since she’d walked out of the Osorios’ apartment. No text, no message. Nothing.
That had been a month ago.
A month spent trying not to think about Luis.
Trying and failing not to think about Luis.
Her chest felt heavy and tight. Even now she could remember that look on his face as she’d left, his hurt and confusion as he’d tried to hold himself together.
Suddenly she was fighting to catch her breath, fighting not to give in to the tears that had fallen ceaselessly since that last day with him. She’d even woken at night and found her face wet and her pillow damp.
She had never felt more miserable and desperate, and the fact that her misery was self-imposed was no consolation at all. Life—hers and other people’s—had just stopped mattering, and she wanted to do nothing but lie in bed in her pyjamas with the curtains drawn.
It was Laura who had helped her. Her half-sister and now her friend. It had been Laura who had booked her into the same hotel as her. Laura who had fed her and forced her to get dressed, listened to her talk and cry—sometimes both at the same time.
She breathed in shakily. At least she had been able to support her half-sister when their father had died quietly in his sleep ten days ago. It was the main reason she had chosen to stay in Spain. And even though she hadn’t gone back to see Enrique again Laura had understood. Just as she had understood Laura’s need to be by his bedside.
Since his death Laura had been tied up with arrangements for the funeral, but they met for breakfast or lunch most days, and supper every evening, and Laura had already begged Cristina to come and stay with her in America.
America.
She stared lethargically across the room. Six weeks ago she would have killed to do something as glamorous and exciting as go to New York. And she was excited about going, but also a little nervous too—for Laura wanted to introduce her to her mother, Nina, the woman who had been her father’s wife and then ex-wife.
Cristina had been shocked to learn that Nina and Enrique had been divorced for seven years. Shocked too by how that made her feel. Given everything that had happened with her father, it would have been logical and completely understandable for her to feel that he’d got his comeuppance. Instead, though, she simply felt sad.
But it was a sadness that she could contain, for Enrique had been absent from her for so long that it felt as though she’d already spent almost half her life grieving for him.
In contrast, Luis’s absence felt like a raw wound, an ache that would never heal. How could it? He had been a part of her, and without him she would never feel whole again.
She felt the sting of tears and, brushing at her eyes, stood up quickly and looked round for her handbag. As she did so she caught sight of her reflection in one of the gilt-framed mirrors on the wall and, pausing, reached up and touched her hair.