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