Cameron, though, was unusually determined. ‘Why can’t we get a picture, though? Like that other family before?’
‘Because we’re not a family.’ Santos’s words cut through them all, like the shockwave from an earthquake. His eyes met Amelia’s and held her startled gaze for a moment before he crouched in front of Cameron. ‘You and I are a family, Cameron.’ His words were throaty and guttural, filled with an emotion that surprised him with its strength. ‘Amelia is just a friend. It’s different.’
No one spoke for the rest of the short walk to his apartment. Even Cameron was quiet.
But Amelia’s mind had been flooded by his words. Amelia is just a friend. It’s different. We’re not a family.
The silence filled her with a sense that she was drowning.
She felt as if she was on the outside looking in on something incredibly beautiful and warm but being lashed by snow and ice. She was their ‘friend’, except she wasn’t. Her place in both of their lives was temporary.
They were a family. She didn’t belong.
The next day, she’d leave. Soon Cameron would start a new school, make new friends and have a different teacher; and, while he might—for a time—think of Miss Ashford, before l
ong she’d be a tiny figment of his imagination, slipping through the recesses of his mind until she was gone for ever. As for Santos?
At the door to the building that housed his penthouse, she looked at him without meaning to, only to find his eyes were resting on her face. Her heart stuttered. Would he think of her when she was gone? Would he miss her?
‘Let’s go upstairs.’
She nodded her agreement, but her insides were awash with doubts. She hadn’t been stupid enough to think saying goodbye would be easy but she’d had no concept of just how damned hard it would turn out to be.
* * *
He was used to Paris. Used to the Eiffel Tower, used to the city, used to its sounds and smells, but being here with Amelia on their last night together somehow made it different. New all over again, like the first time he’d come here.
‘You were annoyed by him?’ Her words reached across the room and he fixed his gaze on her face intently, as if committing it to memory. Maybe he should have let the artist draw the damned picture. He didn’t have a photo of himself with Amelia. What a childish thing to care about! Since when had he wanted photographs of his lovers? Boxing her neatly into that shelf filled him with satisfaction. Amelia was no different from anyone else he’d been with. Even as he told himself the comforting fact, he acknowledged it for the lie it was.
‘Who?’
She sipped her Scotch, her expression morphing into a grimace as the unfamiliar alcohol assaulted her. ‘The artist.’
He searched for the right words. He had been annoyed. Jealous? Excluded? Worried? None of those things particularly did him credit. He focussed on the small part of his response he could claim without a sense of shame. ‘I was annoyed for Cameron. He doesn’t need to hear that kind of thing—that we’re a family when it’s patently untrue.’
He shifted his gaze across the room, his eyes landing on the door that led to Cameron’s room. They’d left Talia on the island—it was just a short trip, and easy enough for Santos to manage Cameron on his own. Truth be told he was, in some ways, looking forward to being alone with the boy. It was a double-edged sword, though, because that would only happen once Amelia had left.
‘It was a natural assumption,’ Amelia murmured, but her eyes had fallen away, her expression frustratingly shuttered from his.
‘Just as it’s natural for Cameron to wish he were part of a family. It’s something he’s never known—even with his mother. But allowing him to indulge an illusion will only hurt him in the long run. We’re not a family and it felt important to explain that to Cameron. Do you disagree?’
It felt good to say the words, as though they were important somehow. Her expression flickered slightly but then she tersely moved her head sideways. Her dark hair was glossy in the evening light. ‘No. I...think you were right.’ But it was a soft statement, swallowed by swirling emotions. Her concern for Cameron was obvious.
‘He’ll be fine,’ Santos assured her after a quiet moment. ‘Don’t worry about him.’
‘I’ll always worry about him,’ she said simply, her smile melancholy.
‘You don’t trust me?’
‘I care for him,’ she clarified. ‘I think loving someone and worrying about them probably go hand in hand.’
He stiffened, her easy use of the word ‘love’ sparking inside him. She was talking about Cameron, not him, but it nonetheless felt as though danger were surrounding him.
‘I was a little...surprised too. I hadn’t realised what we would look like, from the outside.’ Her smile was awkward. ‘It’s been a long time since I’ve had anything even remotely resembling a family.’ Her cheeks flushed pink. ‘I know we’re not. I just meant what people might have thought...’
Her loneliness opened a huge hole in his chest. He tried to cover over it, to ignore it. He’d made a choice to stay single, to avoid emotional commitments, but she hadn’t. Not really. Her parents had devastated her, and she’d gone into a mode of self-protection ever since then, but she deserved to be a part of something; she deserved to be loved. The certainty rolled through his gut. She deserved to be loved. The idea of that stirred something uncomfortable within him but also brought him a wave of happiness because, more than anything, he wanted her to be happy.
He couldn’t make her happy.