LITMIR.BIZ

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it hit me that I didn’t love him. I liked him well enough but not enough to ever, ever consider marrying. I told him that but he wasn’t happy and then I met you and... I stopped caring whether he was happy or not. I stopped caring about anyone or anything but you.’

      ‘And yet you ended up marrying him. Doesn’t make sense.’

      ‘You promised you wouldn’t interrupt.’

      Javier raised both his hands in agreement. In truth, he was too intrigued by this tale to ask too many questions.

      ‘My father summoned me back home,’ she said. ‘I went immediately. I knew it had to be important and I was worried that it was Mum. Her health hadn’t been good and we were all worried for her. I never expected to be told that the family was facing bankruptcy.’ She took a deep breath, eyes clouded. ‘Suddenly it was like every bad thing that could happen at once had happened. Not only was the company on the verge of collapse but my father admitted that he had been ill—cancer—and it was terminal. Roger was presented to me as the only solution, given the circumstances.’

      ‘Why didn’t you come to me?’

      ‘I wanted to but it was hard enough just fighting your corner without presenting you to my parents. They wanted nothing to do with you. They said that Roger would bring much-needed money to the table, money that would revitalise the company and drag it out of the red. Dad was worried sick that he wouldn’t be around long enough to do anything about saving the company. He was broken with guilt that he had allowed things to go down the pan but I think his own personal worries, which he had kept to himself, must have been enormous.

      ‘They told me that what I felt for you was...infatuation. That I was young and bowled over by someone who would be no good for me in the long run. You weren’t in my social class and you were a foreigner. Those two things would have been enough to condemn you but, had it not been for what was happening in the company, I don’t think they would have dreamt of forcing my hand.’

      ‘But they persuaded you that marrying Roger was vital to keep the family business afloat,’ Javier recapped slowly. ‘And, with your father facing death, there wasn’t time for long debates...’

      ‘I still wouldn’t have,’ Sophie whispered. ‘I was so head over heels in love with you, and I told Roger that. Pleaded with him to see it from my point of view. I knew that if he backed me up, Mum and Dad might lay off the whole convenient marriage thing, but of course he didn’t back me up. He was red with anger and jealousy. He stormed off. At the time, he had a little red sports car...’

      ‘He crashed, didn’t he?’

      Sophie nodded and Javier picked up the story.

      ‘And you felt...guilty.’

      ‘Yes. I did. Especially because it was a very bad accident. Roger was in hospital for nearly two months and, by the time he was ready to come out, I had resigned myself to doing what had to be done. I’d even come to half believe that perhaps Mum and Dad were right—perhaps what I felt for you was a flash in the pan, whereas my relationship with Roger had the weight of shared history, which would prove a lot more powerful in the long run.’

      Javier was seeing what life must have been like for her. In a matter of a few disastrous weeks, her entire future and a lot of her past had been changed for ever. She hadn’t used him. He had simply been a casualty of events that had been far too powerful for her to do anything about but bow her head and follow the path she had been instructed to follow.

      Not old enough to know her own mind, and too attached to her parents to rebel, she had simply obeyed them.

      ‘But it didn’t go according to plan...’ he encouraged.

      ‘How did you guess? It was a disaster from the very start. We married but the accident had changed Roger. Maybe, like me, he went into it thinking that we could give it a shot, but there was too much water under the bridge. And there had been after-effects from the accident. He very quickly became addicted to painkillers. He used to play a lot of football but he no longer could. Our marriage became a battleground. He blamed me, and the more he blamed me, the guiltier I felt. He had affairs, which he proudly told me about. He wreaked havoc with the company. He gambled. There was nothing I could do because he could quickly turn violent. By the time he died, I’d...I’d grown up for ever.’

      Javier looked at her long and hard. ‘Why did you let me believe that he was gay?’

      ‘Because...’ She took a deep breath. ‘I thought that if you knew the whole story, you would know how much you meant to me then and you would quickly work out how much you mean to me now.’ She laughed sadly. ‘And, besides that, I’ve always felt ashamed—ashamed that I let myself be persuaded into doing something I really didn’t want to do.’

      ‘When you say that I mean something to you now...’

      ‘I know what this is for you, Javier. You believed that I ran out on you, and when you had the chance, you figured you would take what should have been yours all those years ago.’

      Javier had the grace to flush. What else could he do?

      ‘And, for a while, I kidded myself that that was what it was for me too. I’d dreamt about you for seven years and I’d been given the chance to turn those dreams into reality, except for me it was much more than that. You won’t want to hear this but I’ll tell you anyway. I never stopped loving you. You were the real thing, Javier. You’ll always be the main event in my life.’

      ‘Sophie...’ He closed the distance between them but only so that he could sit closer to her, close enough to thread his fingers through hers. His throat ached. ‘I’ve missed you so much. I thought I could walk away, just like I thought that sleeping with you would be a simple solution to sorting out the problem of you being on my mind all the time through the years. There, at the back of my mind like a ghost that refused to go away. You’d dumped me and married someone else. It didn’t matter how many times I told myself that I was well rid of someone who used me for a bit of fun until she got her head together and realised that the person she really wanted to be with wasn’t me... I still couldn’t forget you.’

      Sophie thought that this was one of those conversations she never wanted to end. She just wanted to keep repeating it on a loop, over and over and over.

      ‘We slept together, Sophie, and just like that my life changed. Not having you in it was unthinkable. I didn’t even register that consciously until you presented me with that picture and I suddenly realised that I had succumbed to all the things I’d thought I’d ruled out of my life. You’d domesticated me to the point where I didn’t want to be anywhere unless you were there, and I hadn’t even realised it. I took fright, Soph. I suddenly felt the walls closing in and I reacted on instinct and scarpered.’

      ‘And now that you’re back...’ She had to say this. ‘I can’t have a relationship with you, Javier. I can’t go back to living from one day to the next, not knowing whether you’ll decide that you’re bored and that you have to take off.’

      ‘How could I ever get bored with you, Sophie?’ He lightly touched her cheek with his fingers and realised that he was trembling. ‘And how can you not see what I need to tell you? I don’t just want you, but I need you. I can’t live without you, Sophie. I fell in love with you all those years ago and, yes, you’re the main event in my life as well and always will be. Why do you think I came here? I came because I had to. I just couldn’t stand not being with you any longer.’

      Sophie flung herself at him and he caught her in his arms, laughing because the chair very nearly toppled over.

      ‘So, will you marry me?’ he whispered into her hair and she pulled back, smiling, wanting to laugh and shout all at the same time.

      ‘You mean it?’

      ‘With every drop of blood that flows through my veins. Let me show you how great marriage can be.’ He laughed. ‘I never thought I’d hear myself say that.’

      ‘Nor did I.’ She kissed him softly and drew back.

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