The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes - 28

Margo walked into the restaurant five minutes early. Today, she wasn’t taking any chances. The sky was dark, a hint of snow in the air. She moved a bit more gingerly than normal, the enormous bruise on her hip twinging in the cold, the concussion she’d received from Natalia’s assault leaving her with periodic bouts of dizziness.

Still, the doctors had finally released her, and Margo wouldn’t have missed today for anything in the world.

Margo gave her name to the host, and he led her toward the back where Bennett Baskin sat waiting for her, Greer absent this time.

Bennett rose to greet her, his gaze running over her appearance. “How are you faring?”

“Well enough, thank you,” Margo replied, wincing slightly as she slid into the seat he held out for her.

He sat back down. “I’m sorry for what you went through, sorry for the injuries you suffered.”

“Thank you.”

“I had my eye on a pair of chairs. French. Eighteenth century. Reportedly belonged to Louis XIV. I promise it’ll be boring in comparison. When you’re back to work, we should discuss your fee—if you’re interested in helping me source them, that is.”

Margo smiled. Admittedly, Bennett Baskin was sort of growing on her—there was something about him. No doubt the fee for the Louis XIV chairs would be a bit higher than normal, his version of trying to make amends for all the trouble she’d gone through, not that it was his fault in the first place. When she’d woken up in the hospital after the attack, the largest bouquet of flowers on her nightstand had been from him. He meant well even if there was a brashness about him that seemed inclined to throw money at a problem. And still, it was clear how important it was to have this connection with his grandmother.

Margo smiled. “You must be very excited to finally have your grandmother’s book. And to meet your cousin.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“You have the look about you. The one my clients get when they’ve been searching for something for a very long time and now it’s theirs. It’s my favorite part of the job,” she confessed. “It doesn’t always happen, but sometimes it feels like there’s a bit of magic imbued in the objects I’m tasked to find, like they want to be found by the person who’s meant to have them. They have these histories, these incredible journeys that they’ve been on. Sometimes I think that if they could talk, well, what stories would they tell. Your grandmother’s novel was like that.”

The restaurant host led two women toward their table.

Margo and Bennett rose at the same time, their attention laser-focused on the newcomers.

One woman was petite, her hair a mix of black and gray. She wore a simple black dress and minimal jewelry, a thin gold wedding band on her finger. A stylish and whimsical pair of black glasses were perched on her face.

She held a book in her hands.

After their own investigation and Luke calling in some favors from some American agents he’d worked on an Interpol case with, they’d finally tracked the real Pilar Castillo to a home in Key West. When Margo had explained who she was and told Pilar the story of everything that had happened, she’d been eager to board a plane to London.

The woman beside Pilar was the one who held Bennett’s full attention.

Margo studied them for a moment, the resemblance in the shape of their faces undeniable.

Evita Alfonso—Eva’s granddaughter.

None of them spoke, and then it was Pilar who broke the ice.

“You have your grandmother’s eyes,” Pilar said to Bennett. Her gaze drifted from Bennett to her friend Evita and back again.

Pilar and Margo hung back a bit as Evita and Bennett greeted each other, as the cousins embraced.

One of the first calls Luke and Margo had placed after Margo was released from the hospital was to tell Adriana Josephs that the book had been found and would soon be reunited with Eva’s family. Adriana and Bennett had already connected and were making plans to see each other in Edinburgh. She couldn’t help but think that Adriana would have loved this moment, seeing her grandmother Zenaida’s promise played out in such an emotional fashion.

When Evita and Bennett stepped back, Pilar handed A Time for Forgetting to Bennett.

“Your grandmother would have wanted you to have this.”

If Margo were a more fanciful person, she would have said that it felt like the book heaved a sigh of relief, as though it knew that it had traveled a very long distance to end up where it was meant to be. For a moment, Eva Fuentes was there with them.

Margo stared down at the book, a wave of sadness filling her as she thought of Mr. Thornton. He would have loved this, would have been moved to see the power that this one book had on the lives of so many.

Bennett’s fingers trembled slightly as he reached out and touched his grandmother’s book, reverence in his motions.

“I’m so sorry about your friend,” Pilar said to Margo.

“Thank you.” Curiosity got the best of Margo. “If you don’t mind me asking, whatever happened with the list of books Natalia Evans was after? She kept insisting that you had hidden it in this copy of A Time for Forgetting .”

“It’s still there. When it became clear that I was under suspicion, I hid the books. Everything happened so quickly, and I needed a temporary solution considering I had one of Fidel’s men living next door to me. I put the list in A Time for Forgetting.

“I had to flee Cuba. I’m sure Natalia told you about what happened with her father.”

“She did.”

“I went to see Eva the night I left. I entrusted the list to her. I was afraid that if something happened to me on the journey, the list would be lost forever. Some of the women in my building helped smuggle me out on a boat. I arrived in Key West and decided to stay there. It was close enough to Cuba that I still felt a connection there, but I no longer had to live with the constant fear of Fidel’s regime.”

“The books are gone—the ones Natalia was searching for,” Evita interjected.

Pilar smiled beside her friend.

“Gone?” Margo asked.

Pilar nodded. “Yes. Returned to their owners. When I arrived in Key West, I started working as a librarian again. I knew that I would never remarry, would never have the life that I dreamed of when I was a young woman in Cuba. But I still needed a reason to go on, to endure. The books gave it to me. I made it my mission to reunite books with their exiled owners. There were others who were as passionate as I was. I had help—” Her gaze turned toward Bennett. “From Eva and Evita.”

“How?” he asked.

Evita smiled. “Our grandmother was the person I admired most in the world. She was a teacher in Cuba for all her life. She spoke fluent English, and she had spent some of her life in the United States. She taught me English. Back then—in the ’60s—Fidel was so concerned with courting international opinion, with highlighting Cuba’s position to give legitimacy to his regime. His arrogance was a flaw we were able to exploit. I traveled to the United States because I was a respected teacher, meant to represent the best of Cuba. Our grandmother inspired me. Her years living under Spanish rule taught her to subvert the regime without doing so overtly. And so, Pilar and I were able to meet, become friends, and I would bring books when I could. Pilar would then return them to their rightful owners who had fled Cuba. We did this for four years, until Eva died, until I decided to leave Cuba.”

“Eva’s book saved me. And then Eva and Evita helped save the books that were given to me for safekeeping,” Pilar said.

“That’s incredible,” Margo said. “All that you did. All that you risked.”

“Given the bravery of so many of my countrymen, I can’t say that it always felt like enough,” Pilar replied. “But we did what we could.”

“You did a great deal,” Bennett interjected.

“Natalia Evans was Cuban intelligence, wasn’t she?” Margo asked.

“She was,” Pilar confirmed. “She came to London to spy for the Cuban government and then married a British man. It sounds like there’s some diplomatic question about what to do with her. What she did—infiltrating the exile circles like that, pretending that her family had suffered losses when really she worked for the regime—

“It’s hard to know who you can trust anymore. It was like that in Cuba in those days. Worse. We constantly looked over our shoulder, spoke in whispers for fear that someone would betray us to the regime. They took my husband. Killed him.”

“I’m sorry.”

Pilar’s free hand drifted to the gold band on her ring finger. “That was around the time that your grandmother’s novel came to me,” she said to Bennett.

“Would you like me to tell you about her?” Evita asked.

Bennett’s eyes swam with unshed tears. “Please.”

Margo walked out of the restaurant, leaving Pilar, Evita, and Bennett still talking at the table.

She pulled out her phone, dying to tell Luke all about what had happened.

She stopped in her tracks.

Luke leaned against the metal railing. When he saw her, he smiled, his entire face lighting up with emotion, and something twisted itself up inside her as he pushed off from the railing and made his way toward her.

“How are you feeling? I talked to Bea, and she told me you were here. I wanted to come by and check on you.”

“I’m okay. My head hurts a bit, but it’s not too bad.”

“How did it go in there?”

“It was powerful to see them together like that. And the book with them. I think Eva would have been pleased.”

“You did good.”

She shook her head. “It feels rewarding to have helped, but in truth, I did very little. Pilar is the one who kept the novel safe this entire time, who risked so much. She’s an incredible woman. Pilar and Evita both are. Eva was, too. Bennett is incredibly proud of his grandmother as he should be. They’re all still in there talking. They sort of hit it off. Pilar and Evita are telling him all about Cuba, about Eva.”

“What are they going to do with the book?” Luke asked.

“They talked about the future Eva would have wanted for it. Bennett is going to find someone to publish it. He wants his grandmother’s words to be read and for the story to be heard. Pilar is going to write an introduction to the new edition. Both Bennett and Evita thought she was the right person to do it, to tell the rest of the story and the extraordinary part she played in it as well.”

“Bennett’s not worried about the publicity anymore?”

“He’s decided this is the best way to honor his grandmother. He suggested donating a portion of the proceeds from the book’s sales to a literacy foundation in honor of Mr. Thornton’s memory.” Margo smiled sadly. “I think he would have liked that.”

“I think so, too.” Luke cast a sidelong look her way. “Are you going to read it? I must admit, considering how much we’ve heard about it, I’m eager to check it out myself.”

“Right? I figured I’ll get a copy as soon as it’s published. It’s with Bennett and his family now. Where it belongs.” She studied him for a moment. “You could have come with me. You were with me every step of the way.”

Luke shook his head. “You know me—I’ve never been one to get as close to the clients as you have. I’m just glad that some semblance of justice was served.”

Margo wrapped her arms around her body, trying to stave off some of the cold. What happened now?

“Mr. Thornton’s memorial service is in a few days,” she said. “Will you come with me?”

“Of course.” He hesitated. “What’s your week like with work?”

She’d taken a couple days off after the attack, but she was already antsy to get back to it, her email piling up with clients she needed to respond to. “I have a painting I need to track down, a family heirloom that went missing sometime in the early twentieth century. Oh, and Bennett has talked about some other projects for me. Something about Louis XIV chairs.”

“You’re going to keep working with him?”

“I am.”

“You like him.”

Margo smiled. “I think I do. I certainly wouldn’t have predicted that at the start, but he’s grown on me. He seems to care about his family a great deal, seems proud of his legacy—well, besides James Webber. No one seems to think anything of him, rightfully so.

“Oh! I forgot to tell you. I emailed Oliver Reston and called him off the search. He was thoroughly delighted to hear that his family’s publishing house played a role in all of this. While we were emailing back and forth, he mentioned that there’s a locket that was his mother’s that she had to sell when the family was in dire straits—”

“You’re going to be busy with all these upcoming projects,” Luke mused, a smile playing at his lips.

“It looks like it. Maybe I’ll finally pay off my student loans,” she joked. “It’s good, though. The work is good.” She turned back, glancing at the restaurant. “When I saw Pilar hand the book to Bennett, when I saw how much it meant to him, how much history was contained there, I remembered why I got into this job in the first place. It felt like what I do matters in whatever small way.”

“You’re amazing,” Luke said.

Margo flushed.

“No, really. You are. I know you’re going to be busy with all these items you’re hunting down, but do you think you’d have a free night to go to dinner with me?” Luke asked.

Something fluttered in the vicinity of her chest. “Are you asking me on a date?”

Luke laughed, the sound rich and full, wafting over her. “Yes—I’m asking you out on a date. I thought I’d take you to dinner—you pick, whatever you like. And then, in the interest of full transparency, I must admit that I’ll probably try to convince you to come back to my place.”

“It won’t take much convincing,” she admitted.

“No?”

Margo shook her head.

“Good.”

“Are we really doing this again?” she asked. “After everything? We’re divorced.”

“We are. Although I doubt we’re the only divorced couple to give it a go again.”

“How can we expect different results this time? We’ve been through this before, and we know where it ends up.”

“Maybe,” Luke replied. “Maybe we’ll find ourselves running into the same problems we faced the first time. But we’re older now. Wiser, I hope. More experienced, certainly.”

“I don’t know that I’ll ever be the kind of wife who cooks dinners and does laundry. I’m a domestic disaster.”

He laughed. “I can do my own laundry. And I don’t mind doing the cooking sometimes. There’s always delivery and takeout.”

“I don’t know that I ever want to be a mother. And my job—my job matters to me. I’m proud of the company I’ve built.”

“I know that, too,” Luke replied. “And I understand now. When we first got married, I thought there was some sort of blueprint we needed to follow, a series of steps that we would climb through life. And I didn’t consider the fact that those steps might not be right for us . We don’t need to worry about being someone else’s image of what marriage should look like. We’ll just agree to do what works for us.”

“This time I know what’s on the other side if this doesn’t work, know what it feels like to lose you,” Margo said, her heart thundering wildly. “Can I survive it? Yes. But I don’t want to. I don’t want to spend another day of my life without you in it, and I don’t think you do, either. So, I’d like to try. To work on the parts of our relationship that didn’t work before, to find a middle ground between us. To fit our lives together. I love you. I’ve always loved you. I never stopped, not even for a moment.”

Those words still terrified her. Maybe they always would. But given the examples of bravery she’d just seen in these extraordinary women, it didn’t seem like a time for fear.

“I love you, too.” Luke grabbed her hand. “Can I walk you home?”

She nodded. He started walking, and then he stopped, placing his arms around her.

Something wet landed on her head.

Margo glanced up, just as the first few flurries of snow began to fall from the sky.

She laughed, pressing her lips to Luke’s, kissing him on the busy London sidewalk, and this time she didn’t mind the snow at all.

They walked on, past the shops decorated for Christmas, through the throngs of tourists and Londoners alike all trying to make their way in the city.

They turned the corner, a bookshop up ahead on the right.

Margo stopped, struck by the memory of Mr. Thornton handing her the mystery set in Barcelona, remembering how good it had felt that night to curl up in bed and read, to sink into a book that carried her away for a few hours.

The way Pilar had spoken about A Time for Forgetting …

Margo had never found a book like that, one that meant so much to her, the kind of read that she knew would stay with her for the rest of her life, but she wanted to.

She always did like a challenge.

“I want to stop in here for a moment,” she said to Luke.

He nodded, following her inside the shop.

Margo must have walked by this bookshop ten, twenty times, but she’d never come inside before. It was a cozy space, filled with customers perusing the books on tables, others reading in chairs positioned at various intervals in the shop.

A bookseller walked over to them, a wide, welcoming smile on her face.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“Yes, please,” Margo replied. “I’m looking for a book.”