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.
Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to speak calmly. ‘I hadn’t forgotten, Papá,’ he said slowly. ‘I just didn’t connect the dots.’ He frowned. ‘I get that the anniversary is a big deal, but Banco Osorio’s reputation is built on our discretion. We never talk to the media. So why go public now?’
‘It was my idea.’ His mother looked up at him, her face suddenly anxious. ‘Do you think I made a mistake, Luis?’
Damn right he did. He didn’t trust any journalists or photographers.
But he could hardly explain the reason for that to his parents.
His spine stiffened, his body tensing as memories filled his head. Memories of the night his brother had died.
He hadn’t even wanted to go to that party, only Bas had insisted and his mother had backed him up. She knew that Luis needed his big brother in order to socialise, and Bas needed Luis to rein in his excesses.
But the party had been so not his style. Wall-to-wall trust fund brats, drinking and whining about their parents.
Watching Bas work the party, Luis had felt one of his occasional twinges of envy. His brother was so charming. With Bas there he always felt like a spare part—particularly around women. Then, out of nowhere, he’d spotted her. And she had been looking at him.
Unlike all the other women in the room, she’d looked at ease with herself. Jeans, boots, hair loose to her shoulders. They had talked and talked, shouting at first, over the noise of the party, and then later more quietly out on the balcony. She had liked the same artists he did, hated parties, and had had an older sister who was much cooler than she was.
He had felt as though she knew him inside out.
It was only later that he’d realised why that was.
Much later.
After he’d slept with her.
After he’d learnt that she was a paparazza and after he’d accidentally let slip where Bas was going to be staying that night.
After her colleagues had chased his brother to his death.
Striving for calm, he looked up at his mother. ‘So when is this photo shoot happening?’
‘Next week. The day after you go back to California.’ Sofia bit her lip. ‘Your father wasn’t sure, but he’s worked so hard and I wanted to do something—’
He squeezed his mother’s hand gently. ‘It’s a lovely idea.’
He felt a fist of tension curl inside his stomach.
He couldn’t stay. It would be unbearable, and unfair to his parents, for he knew they would begin to talk wistfully of his moving back to Spain.
But how could he leave them to face some unscrupulous photographer alone? They were so otherworldly, so trusting.
‘I know you don’t like the press,’ his mother said tentatively. ‘But we’ll have final say over the photos. And your father made it clear that we won’t be answering personal questions.’
There was a knock on the door. It was Soledad.
‘The photographer is here, Señor Osorio. She’s waiting in the salón azul.’
‘Thank you, Soledad.’
Taking his mother’s hand, Luis helped her to her feet. ‘I feel bad about making such a fuss, Mamá. Let me come with you—please. I might even be some help. I deal with the media a lot back in California, so I’m pretty sure I can handle anything they throw at me.’
His words were still reverberating around his head as he followed his father into the salón azul and came face to face with Cristina.
*