“Here she comes,” I hear someone say, and I turn my attention to the stairs—only to feel my heart stop in my chest.
It’s not her. It can’t be.
I’m seeing things. Seeing the girl I wish was here. But as she freezes at the very top, her wide brown doe eyes meeting mine, I know I’m not hallucinating.
The girl at the top of the stairs is dressed in a striking, frothing red gown that sparkles from every angle—but I remember her in a different red dress. One that stopped at her thighs instead of above her fancy shoes, one held on with thin straps instead of none at all, one that could come off with a thought.
The girl at the top of the stairs is Gabriela—and not, all at the same time.
Our eyes meet, and I see the shock in hers—mine reflected back at me. She stays there for a moment, frozen in place, and then she starts to walk down, one step at a time, tearing her gaze away. I can see the rise and fall of her chest—god, I’ve seen it so many fucking times before I ought to have it bloody memorized by now, but it’s for all the wrong reasons.
I shouldn’t be here. I know she doesn’t want me here.
Because now I know she lied to me. Not just about her virginity, but about so much more.
Fuck!
My heart is racing. I force myself not to stare as she pauses at the bottom of the stairs and then moves into the crowd. I can hear her soft voice greeting the guests, thanking them for coming along with her mother, a voice I know so well that it cuts straight to the bone. Another girl is coming down the stairs too, in a pink dress, and the moment I see her, I know she must be the sister that Gabriela—Isabella—mentioned. She’s a younger, spitting image of her older sister, but the sight of her just makes me seethe inwardly.
So there’s one thing Gabriela didn’t lie to me about.
Shit.I toss back the remainder of my drink, realizing that I’ve got to stop thinking of her as Gabriela. It’s not her name, never fucking has been, and everything in me wants to push through the guests and grab her by the elbow, drag her away and demand to know what thefuckis going on.
“Here, let me introduce you.” I hear Ángel’s voice at my side as I lower my glass, my head pounding. “You haven’t met my sisters yet. Isabella especially is quite the personality.”
Actually, I bloody well fucking have. I was in her arse just a week ago, isn’t that fucking crazy? I came on her face that night. The eldest Santiago daughter in my bed, taking my cock in her mouth. And she was bloody good at it too. Best piece of ass I’ve had—
I shut off the thoughts, shoving them down as fast as possible before I either blurt out some of it or let them go down a crueler path. I’ve never been a hateful man, not even when it came to Saoirse. Still, there’s got to be a fucking limit on how many times a man is expected to have his heart torn out by a woman before he’s permitted a few cruel thoughts without being a bastard.
Right now, I feel like being a bastard. I feel like shouting in Isabella’s face, asking her what the fuck she was thinking, but I know it’s not all her fault. She lied—but I had a feeling something was wrong. From the moment I met her in theSangre de Ángel,my gut told me something was off. I’d just wanted her too fucking badly, listened to my dick instead of my instincts, and now I’m here, being urged towards the same girl by her older brother under the idea of “introductions.”
I don’t want to meet her all over again. I don’t want to fucking speak to her, unless it’s to have it out. But Ángel is intent on introducing me, which makes sense considering the alliance I’ve just fostered between the Kings and Isabella’s family. I can’t get out of it without making a scene. If I do, it’ll raise suspicion, and it won’t just be Isabella that gets in trouble if it’s discovered what she and I did.
It’ll be my fucking head pushed down for the ax, too.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I deflowered the fucking eldest daughter of Ricardo Santiago. A goddamn cartel princess.I’ve gotten into some trouble on account of my dick before, most notably with Saoirse, but it’s never been this fucking bad. I know as well as any man in this world what the virginity of a girl like Isabella is worth, and I took hers by fucking accident. The daughter of the most powerful cartel boss in Mexico right now—and the second most feared.
Not to mention the one who agreed to an alliance with the Kings, an alliance that will be very much in danger if this is found out. Not that I’d find out how that works itself out—I’m pretty sure it’d end up with me on my knees behind a building this time, eating a bullet.
“Isabella! Sister!” Ángel pushes through the guests, motioning for her, and she turns just in time to see me. I see her face pale slightly, but she plays it off, forcing a smile onto her face.
“Ángel! Who is this?”
The words come out tight, clipped, but anyone who didn’t know the situation could mistake them for nerves over what’s happening for her tonight. Her eyes flick to mine and away just as quickly, going to her brother instead. Her hands are twisted in front of her, and up close, it’s like looking at an entirely different person. If I didn’t know her so intimately—
It’s her, though. I know it is. Gabriela Rodriguez and Isabella Santiago are one and the same—I’d know her voice anywhere, if nothing else, and her reaction to seeing me just confirms it. But it’s hard to reconcile the sweet, seductive girl in the tight, short dresses with this princess in front of me. Up close, I can see that the shimmering quality of her dress is due to what must be hundreds, if not thousands, of pearls and diamond-like jewels sewn individually into the tulle, a process that must have taken a bloody age, and I suspect they’re all real. The jewelry she’s wearing certainly is—huge pigeon’s blood rubies set in gold with diamonds encrusted around them, dangling teardrop earrings to match haloed in more diamonds. I feel like a bloody fucking fool as I look at the riches swathed across her body. I remember how I handed her a fucking topaz necklace out in the desert like I was gifting her something special.
It makes me feel even worse to remember how she looked at it, how she reacted, and try to reconcile that with what I see now. It had to be a lie, fake, all of it, but why?Why did she keep fucking coming back? Why did she look like she was about to cry when she took the necklace?She must have been slumming it, getting her rocks off with the lower class before being handed off to whatever rich sonofabitch daddy Santiago is gifting her to—and that makes me grit my teeth, forcing back the rage that threatens to well up inside me.
I’ve been angry, truly angry, a handful of times in my life. Not just meting out the rage of others, but angry for my own sake—and this is one of those times.
“Niall Flanagan.” Ángel introduces me, pulling me back to the here and now. “He’s been here quite a bit; I’m surprised you haven’t seen him before. He’s been orchestrating the alliance between us and the Irish faction back in the States that our father will be announcing tonight.”
“Well, of course, I wouldn’t haveseenhim,” Isabella returns crisply, “since Papá always insists I’m locked up in my room whenever these big meetings are happening. Can’t have the strange men seeing his little bird.”
Her voice is cutting and sharp, and I know why as her eyes slide back to me. If she’d seen me here, that first day that I came to meet with Ricardo, this never would have happened. She would have seen me in that bar and known who I was, and some other man would have had her instead.
That thought enrages me for a different reason, the idea of some other man with his hands on her, but that’s fucking ridiculous. Some other manwill, very soon, and I shouldn’t fucking care. What Ishouldcare about is getting out of here alive, since I’ve clearly fucked up so thoroughly.