She didn’t want to leave him, not now. Not when he was in such a strange space. He hadn’t said anything but she could feel it. Being here was hurting him. She wanted desperately to fix that.
“Will you dance with me first?” she asked.
He looked at her, his expression unreadable. “You want to dance with me?”
“Yes. I don’t know how to dance, though,” she said. “You’ll have to teach me. Like you’ve taught me to do...other things.”
Her words seemed to propel him forward, and he took her into his arms, holding her close as he led her to the dance floor.
His hold was firm and sure as he wrapped his arms around her and led her in time to the music coming from the band on the stage. He spun her in a circle beneath the lights, a blur of glitter above her head. She felt like she was flying. And when she landed, she was safe in his arms.
When he drew her back to his chest, she pressed her hand over his heart. It was racing, like it always did when they made love.
Like just touching was an echo of that intimacy. She carried it with her—there was no denying it. It made her feel linked to him in a way she’d never felt linked to another person. Ever. Not by friendship, not by blood.
It was the same for him. She knew it was.
The song ended and she could sense that people were staring at them. He released his hold on her, and she slowly let go of him, looking around with a growing sense of disquiet.
Several of the older villagers were giving Diego exceedingly hard glares, and then moving to her with looks of pity. She couldn’t fathom why anyone would pity her. She was with the most beautiful man here. She stared right back, hoping her expression said exactly that as she allowed Diego to lead her back to a table.
“Get your cake, querida,” he said, his eyes focused somewhere past her.
She nodded and moved away from him, feeling strange to be so far from his side after weeks of isolation with him.
She had felt that way when he had gone off to wherever he’d gone before the wedding ceremony. She wondered what he’d been up to. If he had gone to see his brother. And if so... What words had the two men exchanged? Diego was in such a strange headspace, she had no idea exactly what his goal was for being here. To show his grandfather that he was married, perhaps. To prove that she was real.
Maybe he had gone out searching for his grandfather. But she hadn’t seen a man she thought could be Matías and Diego’s grandfather anywhere in attendance anyway.
She chewed her lip as she wandered over to the cake table.
“Señora Navarro.”
Liliana looked toward the sound of her name and saw a small woman dressed in black, a severe expression on her face. Maria. The housekeeper. She had gotten to know her over the course of her stay with Matías.
“Hello, Maria,” she said.
Maria shook her head. “I cannot believe you married him.”
“I...I’m sorry for any pain I might have caused Matías,” she said. “I am. But Diego...”
“He’s a murderer,” Maria said. “I doubt your darling new husband has confessed that to you.”
The air rushed from Liliana’s lungs, leaving her dizzy. “He is not,” she said, feeling rage sparking her blood. How dare she say such a thing about Diego? He had been a victim of his father’s horrific darkness when he had been a boy. And to tar him with the same brush...
“He is,” the older woman insisted.
“How dare you say such a thing about my husband,” Liliana said, her voice trembling. “This is his home as much as Matías’s and he should not be insulted here.”
“He killed his first wife,” Maria continued, ignoring Liliana’s tirade. “Everyone here knows it. I hope that you are entertaining him in his bed, or you will likely meet the same fate.”
A wife? Diego had never mentioned having a wife before.
They say worse things about me.
Feel free to peruse the internet.
Those words came back, echoing in her mind. It didn’t matter what this woman thought. She knew Diego. She knew that wasn’t true.
“Do you know where he was before the wedding? He was menacing the bride just before she prepared to walk down the aisle. He mentioned you, of course. He says you’re a means to an end. If his end is money, then perhaps you are safe. But if there is something else that he has his mind set on, then if I were you I should be concerned. He is a very bad man. A diablito from the beginning. The staff who have been here from the beginning have all said this. Matías is good. He has defied all expectation, everything his father taught him, and he is a good man. He is like his mother. Diego is his father. He is the devil. He was then—he is now. And everyone in this village knows it. They all remember. They know that he is responsible for the death of Karina Navarro as certain as his father is responsible for the death of Elizabeth Navarro. Ask him. Ask him and see what your husband tells you. But perhaps make sure there are witnesses when you do.”
Liliana’s head was spinning. She felt dizzy. She felt ill. She couldn’t imagine Diego harming anyone, least of all a woman. Which seemed insane considering that he had kidnapped her, but she knew him. She knew him intimately. Had felt his body move inside hers more times now than she could count. She cared for him. She cared so very much. And she could not imagine that she might have come to care for a murderer. Or a man who saw her simply as a means to an end.
But why had he gone to talk to Camilla, Matías’s wife? What had he been thinking doing that? What was the point?
She didn’t want cake. She wanted answers. And she had a feeling she wasn’t going to get them easily.
Her husband wasn’t a devil. At least, she didn’t think he was. But he was a brick wall.
She walked across the dark garden area, beneath the string of lights that hung like a glittering web overhead. And she went to find her husband. “I want to go,” she said.
His dark eyes flashed. “Why the sudden change of heart?”
“We need to talk.”
One corner of his mouth tipped up into a rueful smile. “I see. Perhaps one of the villagers has come to set you straight about the manner of man you married?”
“Something like that.”
“We can talk here.” He spread his hands wide.
“No. We’re not going to talk here. We’re not going to make a scene.”
“Why not? I live for a spectacle.”
“I don’t,” she said. “I don’t, Diego. And this is our marriage. Our business. I will not trot it out for all the world to gawk at.” Their relationship was private and special. It wasn’t about what other people saw or thought. At least, it hadn’t been on the island. That had mattered to her. As a woman who had been raised to care more about appearances than anything else, that they’d built a relationship in the dark, with only each other as witnesses, meant more than just about anything.
“That is the entire point of us attending the wedding today, tesoro,” he said. “To cause a spectacle.”
Of course. He had wanted to come to his brother’s wedding with the woman who would have been the bride. And Liliana had been foolish enough to not realize that. She had let go of Matías completely and utterly. Simple for her, since she’d never truly cared about him.
Their marriage was about two people: Liliana and Diego.
It was so strong inside of her that she had imagined it had to be the same for him.
She was a fool.
“Yes. Perhaps for you it was about creating a spectacle,” she choked out. “But not for me. I wanted to attend a wedding with my husband.”
“We do not have a real marriage,” he said softly. “And that is because of you.”
“Nevertheless. Whatever our marriage, however long it lasts, is our business. It was just you and me on the island, Diego. Just you and me.” No past. No Matías. No Camilla
. No angry housemaids intent on spoiling the fantasy that Liliana had built up of her husband.
She had known. While she had been there, something in her had known. The moment the rest of the world was invited into their union, it would introduce ugly, hard reality. Reality she did not want to cope with. Oh, as silly as it seemed, she preferred the fantasy.
“Then we will go,” he said, his voice hard. She didn’t know why he had decided to agree. Maybe what Maria had said was true. Maybe he was, after all, a stone-cold murderer intent on destroying her the moment they were in private. But she didn’t believe that. Not really. Her sense of self-preservation was strong enough that if she felt that were true on any level she would not go off with him. But she didn’t believe it. Not really.
He took her arm, and the two of them walked away from the revelry, waiting until Diego’s impossibly ostentatious sports car was delivered to them. He got into the driver’s seat, and the engine roared as he sped toward the roadway. And she had to wonder if he intended to kill them both with the way he was driving.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve done a bit of racing in my day.”
“Not on a public road, I should think.” She sniffed.
“All kinds of places.” He laughed. “You are truly so sheltered, Liliana. You have no idea what kind of man I am. Or maybe you do, and you don’t want to know.”
Those words stung. Because they were true.