Page 1 of Shattered Hearts

PROLOGUE

Elena

"Ice!"

We don't have enough ice. I love my family, but they drive me crazy at times especially when it comes to hosting a party.

Drinks. Food. People. Cake. No ice.

It's nearly a hundred degrees which isn't unusual for this time of year in Spain, so we need to cool down especially because we can't fit the hundred people that will show up in my parent's house. They're traditional, then again they always have been. Even after Jorge, my husband offered to buy them a bigger house. Bigger didn’t mean better according to my Mama. They won't move.

Mama said they bought this house to raise their family. So now that we are older, and have no kids left, why do they need a bigger house?

True. They don't.

Maybe traveling and seeing other football players' family homes is what makes Jorge understand why both his and my parents don't want to be upgraded.

My parents love their three bedroom house, which is in the corner of the village. Who needs security surveillance cameras when my Mama can be on the roof, watching what goes on in the village, and dutifully speed dials the sheriff on her phone.

Sometimes he says that he may give up his title, to Mama. She does a better job. He doesn't mean it, but she loves the compliment.

"Okay, I'll go out and get the ice!" I declare to anyone who may be listening.

"Sis. We get it. We need ice. I can go if you like," my brother Pedro says. He says it, but I can tell by the way he's nursing the beer he's holding. It's just empty words.

"No worries. My car's parked in the drive. I'll get it."

"Bien!" he quickly says before draining the last drops of the beer. I don't blame him. Even in my yellow halterneck summer dress, I'm sweating. Like a lot.

The house smells of sofrito and garlic that's been going since this morning, the sugary warmth of the cake on the counter, the sharp yeasty breath of opened beer bottles everywhere. It's airless in here. The kind of heat that sits on your shoulders.

"Okay, then," I say to myself but then as I turn around, the teens who are usually glued to their phones are just staring at me.

I smile at them. Acknowledging their stares, but then they look away. Not back at their phones, but at the floor or anywhere apart from me.

Something prickles at the back of my neck. I ignore it.

"Has anyone seen my phone?" I ask, as I grab my purse and start searching for it.

"Nope," Mama says. As if I'm accusing her of something and then all the blood drains from her face.

My dad lifts up his hands and shakes them.

Not like him to be quiet.

"Here sis. Take this," Pedro gives me 50 euros and then nervously goes to get another beer.

"Slow down. You'll be drunk before Jorge gets here."

He puts the beer bottle back down.

Surprisingly, I told everyone to get here for one, thinking that they will be here by two for Jorge’s surprise birthday party. Jorge will be back from training then. He just signed one of the biggest deals with his dream team, Real Madrid. Ever since we were in high school that was all he ever talked about. One day, I'm going to play for Real Madrid.

My thing was to be a lawyer, my husband's was football. And it paid off. I gave up wanting to be a lawyer and just pursued his dream. It's just that I didn't expect to never get one of the things which I assumed would happen with married life, a baby.

I shake the idea out of my head as I see my sister who is older, weaning her third child. There's a tightness just below my ribs watching her, a dull and familiar ache I've gotten very good at swallowing down in rooms full of people. She's so fertile, and I'm sure if Pedro ever finds a girl to settle down with, she'll probably have a baby by the end of the first month they start trying.

It's weird. I remember thinking, we've just been married a year, now time to start. I didn't want to get pregnant until Jorge put the ring on my finger. As I cross through the living room, I think about the morning I sat in a clinic that smelled of antiseptic and fresh coffee and heard the word IVF for the first time, how Jorge's hand felt in mine, how I told myself it would be fine, we'd be fine. I stopped the pill within months only to discover I needed IVF. And although I was warned it could take several tries for it to work, each time my heart sinks at the disappointing news.