“I suppose we will find out how much it matters in the end,” he murmured, taking my hand and guiding me toward the door of the bedroom without another word. While his mood had improved with whatever terrible plan he’d concocted to torment me, I grumbled at his heels as I followed. Knowing that Chloe was at least safe, Hugo was in the front of my mind. My concern for him grew, knowing that he lived close enough to be readily within Rafael’s grasp should I disobey him in a severe enough way to make him follow through on his threat to my friends.
I’d pressed enough for one conversation, but I’d need to ask after Hugo and his brothers soon enough, though part of me wondered if Hugo might be better off if I never mentioned him and hoped Rafael simply forgot he existed.
That didn’t seem likely for the man who saw everything and used it to his advantage.
As we moved through the halls, the house seemed different in the light of day. The shadows of the corners weren't ominous, but brightly lit with the Mediterranean sun. He turned to stare at me as we emerged from the labyrinth of halls, waiting until I stepped into the open space where he'd reminded me of the consequences for failing to escape him.
I'd never stood a chance against Rafael. I'd never had a hope of protecting my heart from him, of keeping him out of my soul. He'd claimed it as his. Even as I stared up into his dangerous eyes, I knew that no matter what he'd done, I would never get it back.
We all lived with formative events in our lives, moments that defined us as people. The day I'd placed my hand in Rafael's and let him take me to bed had been the day that would define me as a woman for the rest of my life. For better or worse, he’d stained my soul with his darkness, tangling it with my own until I couldn't deny what stared back at me from the shadows.
I'd never been meant for the light.
He wrapped his arm around my waist as I jolted in his touch, guiding me toward the kitchen and the woman who faced away from us. Stirring something on the stove, she spun slowly as we approached and Rafael pulled me forward with gentle hands. "Regina, this is my Isa," he said as her warm brown eyes dropped to mine. So like my mother's, the immediate comfort in them made tears burn the back of my throat irrationally, even as my irrational heart swelled at hearing Rafael call me his.
I missed my family in a way I'd never thought to experience, something that only came with the knowledge that I might never see them again. That they may never know what had happened to me. Forcing a smile to my face and resisting the tears that threatened at my eyes, I nodded to her in greeting. "It's nice to meet you."
"Oh,mi hija," she said softly, patting her hands on the dish towel she’d grabbed off the island in front of her and stepping around to meet us on the other side. Rafael's eyes were heavy on my face, his stare weighted by the confused furrow to his brow. She reached out a hand to slip a gentle finger beneath my chin and tilt it up to look at her. "She's so beautiful," she said warmly, turning a proud smile to Rafael. He never looked away from me, staring at my face as I turned my gaze away in a hurry to escape the questions in his eyes. "His mother would have loved you."
"You don't even know me," I said, whispering as I sniffled. The last thing I needed was for Rafael's mother to approve of me, but I still couldn't help the irrational grief I felt for a woman I'd never known.
For the closeness I felt to a ghost.
"It's in the eyes,reinita," she said, cupping my face in her hands. "You are everything she would have wanted in a daughter, and you wear that in them like a window to your soul." The words reminded me of my grandmother, of her assertions that you could tell everything you needed to know about a person with one search in their eyes.
The mouth could lie, but the eyes only ever spoke the truth of our souls.
If it was true, I wondered what she would see if she looked at Rafael. I'd seen the darkness in him that first night, but I'd thought it something I could withstand and then walk away. I hadn't seen the truth, but I wondered how much of that was because of my own desirenotto see it.
"Go and work,El Diablo,"Regina said teasingly as she waved him off. "I will take care of your Isa for now."
"Are you alright?" he asked me, ignoring her attempt to shoo him away. I turned my gaze to his finally, nodding my head even if the movement felt fragile. I wanted nothing more than to break down into tears, and I knew that point would come.
Every day, every second felt like another revelation. Another strike against the walls of my sanity, and there was only so much more I could take before it crumbled.
"I'll be fine," I said shortly, not trusting whatever words I might speak. He leaned down to kiss me, not seeming to mind in the slightest that his step-mother watched the interaction with a happy smile on her face.
"Behave," he murmured against my mouth, reaching up a hand to tangle in the damp hair at the back of my head. The warning was clear as he held my eyes while he kissed me gently, defying the sweetness of the kiss itself by tugging just enough to make me inhale sharply.
As quickly as he'd touched me, he disappeared down a separate hallway from the labyrinth we'd emerged from. This one went off the kitchen, ending in only two doors a short way down.
Regina cleared her throat, moving to the stove to turn back to whatever she'd been cooking. She hummed as she stirred, filling the space with the comforting and smooth sound of her song. I took a seat at the island, fiddling with my hands and glancing around the space. “How long have you known Rafael?”
“Since he was born,” she said, smiling at me over her shoulder. “He was such a happy baby, though you would never guess that now. Very close with his mother, which his father hated of course. Men like Miguel thought the boys belonged with men, not attached to their mother’s hip.” My hand went to my own stomach, to the memory of Rafael’s proclamation that his child would soon occupy the space within me.
I couldn’t let that happen. Not while I had any chance of finding a path to freedom and a life without Rafael Ibarra breathing down my neck.
“He wants me pregnant,” I whispered, leaning across the island counter with a glance toward the hallway where Rafael had retreated. “I don’t want that. Please.” I didn’t know how to voice the request, and the words felt too dangerous to speak even if I had been able to find a way.
She turned off the stove, stepping around the island and standing next to me. “Such things are beyond my control,mi hija. Just as they are now beyond yours.”
“But it’s my body. If I don’t want a child, I should have access to birth control,” I whispered back, furrowing my brow at her in frustration.
“Itwasyour body, but that is not how things work in Rafael’s world. It is his now, and he will do whatever he pleases with it. Far easier to accept it than to fight the inevitable,” she murmured, stroking a hand over the top of my hair and then stepping back. “Come. You look like you could use some fresh air. We'll just go out by the pool. The sun heals all wounds." She winked as she glanced toward the hallway Rafael had disappeared.
I nodded despite the sinking feeling that Rafael wouldn't like it, letting her guide me to the French doors that led to the infinity pool. The pavers of the deck felt hot through the bandages on my feet as we stepped outside, staring out at the Mediterranean as I tipped my face up to the sun. It felt like it had been a lifetime since I'd been outside in the day.
Like the time we'd spent in the sun in Ibiza was nothing but a distant memory.