‘Not from my mother,’ he quips with a half-smile.
Sympathy stirs through me.
‘My first apartment was just above a market. I used to walk past in the evenings and see the tables groaning with fresh produce—seafood, meat, vegetables, cheeses. I began to experiment. I would try to recreate meals I’d eaten at restaurants—most were deceptively simple—and I found I enjoyed it.’
‘Like you do wine making,’ I say, lifting the glass.
‘Precisamente. It’s a pleasure to create something exactly to your taste, to experiment until you have it just right.’
I nod thoughtfully.
‘Do you cook?’
I grimace. ‘No. I can’t even make toast.’
He laughs, a rich sound that makes my stomach loop.
‘You should learn,’ he says after a beat. ‘I think you’d enjoy it.’
‘Oh? Why is that?’
He reaches across the table, lacing our fingers together. ‘Cooking is an act of meditation and control. It’s very satisfying. Besides, you need hobbies.’ He winks then, but my heart lurches. Santiago is the first person in my life to see me as a woman, to want to encourage me to be more than my title and expectations. His ability to see many facets of my being is addictive and comforting. I feel fully formed when I’m with him, more human than royal, just an ordinary woman with the potential to be and do anything I wish.
I don’t want the night to end.
I don’t want to leave here.
And yet I know I must. Even without my father’s voice and expectations constantly guiding my decision-making process, I understand what’s expected of me.
I attempt to smile, pulling my hand away, and focus on the view beyond us. The waves roll towards the shore, towards this great, ancient city, just as they always have done. They’ll continue rolling tomorrow, and the next day, when I’m no longer here to see them, just as Santiago will continue with his life once I’m gone.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be the same, though.
* * *
‘What time is your flight?’
His finger traces invisible patterns over my bare flesh, his touch possessive and natural, as though he has every right to touch me whenever and however he wishes; as though my body belongs to him, and his to me. Despite my wish for time to stand still, my last day has arrived.
‘Eleven.’
His finger pauses in its progress for a moment before re-starting the lazy exploration, charting across my stomach, towards my hip then back to circle my belly button. ‘So early.’
‘I have a state dinner at the palace tonight.’ It was the constraint I’d had to work around when booking this trip. All my other engagements had been easy to cancel, but not this one.
‘Back to being a princess?’
‘I never really stopped,’ I say with a lift of my shoulder.
‘Yes, you did. For these last few days, you’ve simply been Freja.’
After my parents died, my life became the furthest from private it’s ever been. My country was obsessed with how I was coping and, though their interest in me came from a good place, it was hard to bear. In order to cope with the burden I saw a therapist, and she told me to find one good thing every day and focus on that, to hold it tight to my chest in moments of panic and be grateful. Gratitude would save the day every time.
The idea of leaving Spain and Santiago stirs that same panic inside me, erupting out of nowhere and rising towards me like a dusk tide, so I grab hold of my gratitude. What I’ve experienced with this man is something I will always cherish. Even if leaving him is going to be so much harder than I’d anticipated.
And as for Santiago? Will he think of me when this ends? Or simply move on to the next woman who catches his eye? Ice chips through me and, like a glutton for punishment, I hear myself ask, ‘I suppose you’ll have forgotten all about me by nightfall?’
His features are mocking, reminding me of the first time we met. He is such a contradiction; we are a contradiction. I feel simultaneously closer to him than I ever have another soul, but at the same time he’s a constant enigma.