by Maya Blake
When she’d finally reached acceptance, she’d cried for days. Those tears had sapped the last of her will to fight, dropped her to what she’d foolishly thought was rock bottom. Until Luis was also ripped from her. Then she’d known true devastation.
Devastation she’d had to deal with on her own, while grappling with her own loss and remaining strong for her mother. The multiple blows fate had dealt her still possessed the power to disrupt her sleep and trigger bouts of tearful sadness.
Like when she’d dissolved into floods of tears during her meeting with the head of HR at her workplace last week. Even before she’d finished the return-to-work interview, she knew things hadn’t gone well.
Her boss had insisted she take the full three months of her sick leave, the need to protect themselves from professional liability overshadowing her protests that, with only one month remaining, she was ready to return to work.
She’d petitioned. With her finances fast dwindling and her mother’s medical bills piling up, she’d appealed the decision and been granted the interview. Only for her overwhelmed state to get the better of her.
She hadn’t been surprised when her HR manager had sympathetically ended the interview and called a taxi to take Suki home. What she hadn’t expected was a letter a few days later stating that her sick leave had been extended by another month with half pay because she wasn’t deemed fit to deal with clients in her current state.
Suki had been too drained to fight the assessment. And deep down she knew that, as much as she loved her job as an interior designer for one of the most prestigious firms in London, her passion had been depleted.
She didn’t need a psychologist to tell her she needed to find closure before things got better. Or barring that, a different avenue for the cocktail of emotions bubbling beneath the surface of her heart.
Closing her laptop, she rose from her small desk and trudged to the kitchen to dispose of her barely touched cup of tea. Mechanically, she washed the mug and set it on the draining board.
Outside, birds chirped and wasps buzzed as Vauxhall basked in the August bank holiday sunshine.
Suki turned her back on it, her hand sliding as it so often, so painfully did to her stomach, to the child that had never managed to thrive there. The urge to walk upstairs to her bedroom, curl up under her duvet and slide into perpetual oblivion was almost catatonically irresistible.
She fought the temptation, her mind returning to the email and the airline ticket. Although she’d been prepared to dig into her meagre savings to pay her last respects to her best friend two months ago, her resources had dwindled even further owing to her mother being readmitted to hospital. With confirmation of her cancer, Suki had had to use almost all her remaining funds to keep her and her mother’s heads above water.
Travelling to Cuba had fast become a distant dream.
The arrival of the ticket, although it bruised her pride a little, wasn’t one she was about to refuse. For a chance to say goodbye to Luis, she would set aside her ego for the moment. Once she was back at work, she would pay Ramon Acosta back every penny she owed him for the ticket.
The decision eroded a little bit of her apathy, made her half turn back towards the window, allow the sunshine to touch her face. Warm her.
She wasn’t aware how long she stood there, making careful plans, her soul mourning the vibrant, charismatic man she’d been lucky enough to call her friend.
The soft beeping on her laptop, reminding her of the appointment at the hospital, finally roused her. On automatic, she dressed, left home and made the short drive to the hospital that held far too many harrowing memories.
Fighting the ravaging pain that attacked her, Suki blocked out the smell of disinfectant and death, forced a smile, and entered her mother’s ward.
Moira Langston was dozing lightly, her shrunken form lost in stark white sheets. Sensing Suki’s presence, she opened her eyes. For a second, they just stared at each other.
Then her mother gave a soft, shuddering exhalation. ‘I told you not to visit. I know how hard it is for you to come here.’
Suki laid her hand over her mother’s. ‘I’m okay, Mum. It’s not that bad,’ she lied.
Moira’s lips pursed. ‘Don’t lie. You know I can’t bear lies.’
Tension rippled in the air, twisting through pain churning inside them both. Broken trust fired by a thousand lies was what had shattered her mother’s heart long before Suki was born. It was the reason Moira Langston had never again let another man close enough to hurt her, the reason she’d drummed into Suki the need to protect her own heart at all costs.
It was the reason her mother had been bitterly angry with her when Suki had told her about her pregnancy. Her mother had come round eventually, even put aside her own health issues to support her after she lost the baby, but the look of mournful regret still lingered.
Suki swallowed, and tightened her grip on her mother’s hand. ‘I can’t not visit you, Mum.’
Moira sighed, her face softening. ‘I know. But I’m feeling better, so I should be home very soon.’
Suki didn’t argue, although her mother’s notable weight loss told a different story. They chatted about neutral subjects for a while, before her mother’s shrewd eyes settled on her one more time. ‘Something’s bothering you.’
She started to shake her head, but, not wanting to upset her mother, she took a deep breath. ‘I heard from Ra...from Luis’s brother’s lawyers.’
Moira’s eyes narrowed. ‘And? What did Ramon have to say for himself?’ she demanded sharply.
‘I...nothing. The lawyers sent me a ticket to Cuba. To attend Luis’s memorial.’
‘Are you going to accept it?’
Slowly, she nodded. ‘I want to say goodbye properly.’
For a long moment, Moira remained silent. ‘Luis was a good man. That’s the only reason I won’t tell you not to go. But, be careful, Suki. Stay away from his brother. He’s caused you enough grief as it is.’
Her mother had been quick to lay the blame for everything at Ramon’s feet when she found out Suki was pregnant and alone. Ravaging pain and the need to mourn her lost baby in isolation had made her hold her tongue against telling her mother that Ramon had no knowledge that he’d fathered a baby. That was an assumption she would rectify in the future, when her heart didn’t shred every time she thought of her baby.
‘Mrs Baron will visit you every day, and I’ll be back before you know it.’
As if conjured up, their next-door neighbour walked into the ward. The widow, easily fifteen years older than her mother, was nevertheless spry and full of life. Her cheery demeanour was infectious, and her mother was soon chuckling.
An hour later, Suki left the two women chatting, and returned home, thoughts of the email and of Luis darkening her spirits as she opened her front door.
The sight of mail on her doormat roused her from her blanketing sadness. Welcoming the tiny distraction, she walked through to the kitchen.
Two of the three pieces of post were junk mail. The stamp on the third envelope shot her heart into her throat, and her hand was trembling as she ripped the letter open.
Frantically, her gaze flew over the words. Her shocked, tearful gasp echoed through her small hallway. Forcing herself to calm down, she read them again.
You’ve been accepted...first appointment 15th September...
Folding the paper, she pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. Seriously, she needed to stop crying. Tears didn’t solve problems. Besides, things were beginning to look up. In the last few hours she’d been given a chance to say a proper goodbye to Luis, and granted a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Losing her baby after months of frantically trying to sustain her pregnancy had wrecked her. When the discharge nurse had given her the packet of leaflets the day she’d left hospital
, Suki had almost thrown them away. It’d been days before she’d bothered to sift through the brightly coloured pamphlets prescribing various ways to move on from a loss she knew she would never get over.
At first, she’d dismissed the charity offering women in her situation a new alternative. She hadn’t planned to get pregnant, nor had she imagined that her one night with Ramon would result in such a staggering roller coaster of joy and turmoil.
All she’d craved was solitude to mourn her lost child and lick her wounds. But those wounds had grown larger every day, with the hole in her heart widening until she feared it would swallow her whole. When she woke up one morning clutching the leaflet, she chose to believe the same fate that had ripped her child from her was offering her a way to heal. Her child would never draw breath, but she had more of the joy she’d felt for that child to give to another.
She hadn’t planned on motherhood the first time round. But this time, she would do things her way, without the fear of a man who wouldn’t stick around, as her own mother had experienced from her father, or, even worse, infidelity from someone she opened her heart to.
It had been a long shot because the charity accepted only twenty-five non-paying cases a year, so, although she’d secretly hoped, she’d been prepared for a rejection.
She opened the letter again, her mouth slowly curving in a whisper of a smile as she absorbed the soul-saving words.
She retrieved her laptop from the dark nook and took it into the kitchen. Fully immersed in the brilliant sunshine, she first answered Ramon’s lawyers giving the time and date of her arrival in Havana, then sent an email confirming the appointment at the fertility clinic.
Then with the hopeful smile on her face, Suki flew up the stairs to her room, dragged the suitcase from her closet, and began to pack.
* * *
Havana in early September was a sweltering vision of vibrant colour. The brief rain shower that had engulfed the plane as they came in to land had already disappeared by the time Suki retrieved her suitcase and made her way through Immigration. Travelling first class had been a singularly unique experience, one she would’ve appreciated even better had the purpose of this trip not weighed so heavily on her heart. She was thankful that for the most part she’d been left alone to grab what sleep she could, which meant she arrived a lot more refreshed than she had on any other previous plane trip.
Spotting her name on a whiteboard held by a sharply suited chauffeur further hammered home the fact that she was in Luis’s homeland. That she was about to come face-to-face with Ramon, the man she’d shared a torrid night with only to wake up alone with no inkling as to the devastating trail of consequences of her actions. The man who still had no clue what had happened to her after he’d walked away in the early hours of the morning.
As she often did when thoughts of Ramon surged, she shoved them back into the box labelled out of bounds.
She stood by the decisions she’d made regarding her pregnancy, even the ones involving swearing Luis to secrecy about the fact that she was carrying his brother’s child. He hadn’t been pleased, but he’d respected her wish to inform Ramon at a time of her own choosing, once she’d come to terms with the new direction her life had taken.
As it turned out, there’d been no need to involve Ramon because fate had had other ideas...
Following the chauffeur who had taken control of her case, Suki emerged into blinding late afternoon sunshine and a cacophony of Spanish and blaring horns.
Outside José Martí International Airport, the iconic brightly painted nineteen fifties’ style taxis lined up in rows next to buses and private cars. Sliding on her sunglasses, she hitched her handbag onto her shoulder and summoned a smile as the driver held open the back door of a stretch limo.
Unlike the luxury car she and Ramon had shared that night a lifetime ago, this car was a silver affair, gleaming in the sunlight and catching the eyes of passers-by. Fighting the strange urge to refuse the ride and find her own, she slid into the car. The tinted windows and the bench seats were identical, the scent of leather engulfing her and catapulting memories she didn’t want to remember straight to the forefront of her mind.
Except this time she was alone, reliving every single moment of that night. Just as she’d been alone when she’d learned that her baby would most likely not survive.
Resolutely, Suki turned her thoughts outside, looking out of the window as Havana unveiled itself. It was just as Luis had described often and passionately. Most of the buildings were stuck in their pre-Communism era, with many severely dilapidating as a result of a less than thriving economy. But at every corner there were signs of restoration, pride in a rich heritage exhibited in statues, mosaic-tiled squares, a baroque cathedral and even in the graffiti that littered centuries-old buildings tucked between narrow lanes.
The two-line response from Ramon’s lawyers to her email had informed her she would be staying at one of the Acosta hotels in the city. Suki wasn’t ashamed to admit to her relief when she’d read the email.
She welcomed the chance to arm herself thoroughly for the next meeting with Ramon.
Traffic was light, and the limo slid beneath the porticoed entrance of the hotel a little over half an hour later.
The Acosta Hotel Havana was a stunning ten-storey building holding pride of place on a palm-tree-lined street that dissected modern Havana City from the world-renowned Old Havana. Straddling the best of both worlds, the six-star hotel had been painstakingly converted from a baroque palace, the designers having retained as many of its original breathtaking features as possible.
Inside, a stunning gold-leaf ceiling depicting an intricate map of the world was highlighted by huge, staggeringly beautiful half-century-old crystal chandeliers, while across the potted-palm foyer, several groupings of stylish leather chairs invited guests to sit and enjoy the formidable architecture.
Suki dragged her avidly exploring gaze away long enough to cross gleaming black and white mosaic tiles to the intricately carved wooden reception desk where a petite, dark-haired receptionist smiled in welcome.
‘Miss Langston, welcome to Havana. We hope you will enjoy your stay with us.’ She waved over a middle-aged man dressed in burgundy and gold monogrammed uniform and handed him the plastic room card. ‘This is Pedro, he’ll be your personal butler for the duration of your stay. If you need anything else, please let us know.’
She didn’t ask how the receptionist knew her by sight. On the few occasions she’d ventured into Luis’s world while he’d been alive, she’d quickly realised that the wealthy and powerful led very different lifestyles. One she got a taster of when, upon arrival in the luxury suite, two additional members of staff unpacked her clothes and a light lunch was set out on a sun-drenched private terrace within minutes.
Suki refused the welcome champagne and mostly picked at her grilled seafood salad. The preoccupation of readying herself for the trip to Cuba had briefly suppressed the jangling nerves that the thought of meeting Ramon again awakened.
They clanged harder now, questions she’d resolutely driven out of her thoughts resurging with brutal force. No matter how many times she tried to tell herself what happened that night had been on equal terms, she still couldn’t understand why he’d left her without a word. Was that the done thing? Had she misstepped somehow?
Was that why he’d fast-tracked Luis into moving to New York?
But one question burned most of all, one question she knew deep in her heart had informed some of the decisions she’d made regarding her pregnancy.
Why had he lied about no longer being engaged?
Finding out that Ramon was still engaged to Svetlana after their night together had filled her with numbing disbelief, then horror when Luis had confirmed it. The shock and resulting bitterness at being made an accomplice to infidelity had stayed with her for a long time, and even risked her
friendship with Luis. Only her confession about her pregnancy and the associated problems with it had brought a much-needed perspective and support from her best friend.
But now those questions, and more, crowded her brain.
Although her butler spoke perfect English, Suki was reluctant to ask him anything about his employer. The fact that Ramon was choosing to deal with her through his lawyers also indicated that he wished to maintain a distance.
That was fine by her. It should make the decision to tell him about the child they’d lost much easier.
Abandoning her meal, she retreated into the cool suite. A quick check of her emails showed another message from Ramon’s lawyers, telling her she would be picked up at nine a.m. for the memorial.
Suki spent the rest of the evening laying out her clothes and taking a bath, after which she slid into bed for an early night.
The soft knock on her door came seconds before her phone’s alarm went off at eight the next morning. After trying and failing to swallow more than a bite of the scrambled eggs and toast or stop the ever growing butterflies in her stomach, she took a quick shower and donned her simple black dress and heels. Tying her hair in a knot, she picked up her black clutch just as another knock came on her door.
The butler beat her to it. Which was just as well because the sight of Ramon Acosta filling the doorway wasn’t one she could’ve withstood well up close. Because even across the vast distance of the living room, every single particle in her body clenched tight on seeing him.
He prowled into the room, tall and powerful, his strides measured and predatory. Eyes that had never been soft were now even harsher as they mercilessly raked over her. His mouth, still sensual, still unsmiling, had developed a layer of cruelty and, almost impossibly, his shoulders seemed broader, as if they’d had to expand to accommodate the harrowing circumstances thrown at him.
Even though a part of her heart went out to him for the unthinkable loss he’d suffered, Suki was too busy building the foundation of her own self-preservation as the ground beneath her feet tilted crazily.
