‘He must come,’ Señor Rodriguez said stiffly.
‘So how will you find him?’ Sofía muttered. ‘When he’s working in Bangladesh Ramón checks his mail, but for the rest of his life he’s around the world in that yacht of his, who knows where? Since his mother and sister died he lets the wind take him where it will. And, even if you do find him, how do you think he’ll react to being told he has to fix this mess?’
‘There won’t be a mess if he comes home. He’ll come, as you have come. He must see there’s no choice.’
‘And what of the little boy?’
‘Philippe will go into foster care. There’s no choice there, either. The child is nothing to do with Prince Ramón.’
‘Another child of no use to the Crown,’ Sofía whispered, and she dropped two stiches without noticing. ‘But Ramón has a heart. Oh, Ramón, if I were you I’d keep on sailing.’
CHAPTER ONE
‘JENNY, lose your muffins. Get a life!’
Gianetta Bertin, known to the Seaport locals as Jenny, gave her best friend a withering look and kept right on spooning double choc chip muffin mixture into pans. Seaport Coffee ’n’ Cakes had been crowded all morning, and her muffin tray was almost bare.
‘I don’t have time for lectures,’ she told her friend severely. ‘I’m busy.’
‘You need to have time for lectures. Honest, Jen.’ Cathy hitched herself up onto Jenny’s prep bench and grew earnest. ‘You can’t stay stuck in this hole for ever.’
‘There’s worse holes to be stuck in, and get off my bench. If Charlie comes in he’ll sack me, and I won’t have a hole at all.’
‘He won’t,’ Cathy declared. ‘You’re the best cook in Seaport. You hold this place up. Charlie’s treating you like dirt, Jen, just because you don’t have the energy to do anything about it. I know you owe him, but you could get a job and repay him some other way.’
‘Like how?’ Jenny shoved the tray into the oven, straightened and tucked an unruly curl behind her ear. Her cap was supposed to hold back her mass of dark curls, but they kept escaping. She knew she’d now have a streak of flour across her ear but did it matter what she looked like?