“How many people know?” I ask no one in particular.
“A handful of staff, although for the most part that can be covered with a simple excuse, and a dire warning not to gossip. We don’t need to worry about Victor,” Cristiano adds. “There were a few people at the pier whose silence was easily bought, and the captain of the ship—who wouldn’t have had any idea who she was if she hadn’t told him.”
The captain of the ship. Our freighters are all at sea, and on short notice the best I could do was to borrow a docked ship. That sonofabitch captain is lucky he was nowhere to be found when I got there. Otherwise I’d have plunged a knife into his gut. He was told to scare her, but no one said one word about talking to her like she was a whore. Then, to make matters worse, he had the audacity to rub his cock as he left her room.
I have men scouring the docks for him. Eventually that fucker will show up, and when he does, he’s mine.
“The guards know,” I grumble. “She has to be punished.”
“She’s been punished enough,” Cristiano replies quietly. “But I don’t see any other way around it.” He says the words, and he knows it’s inevitable, but he saw what she went through today, especially once she got to the pier. Cristiano likes her. He was the one overseeing her safety while she was in the US. He’s always liked her.
Today hasn’t been easy on anyone.Especially me.As I watch the fight in her crushed—maybe beyond repair—I remember the fearless little girl on the spirited stallion, eyes twinkling at me from the saddle.
I’ve had enough.It’s time to end this.
“She’s sufficiently broken, and she’s had plenty of time to ponder her fate.”
The time also gave me an opportunity to take the edge off my anger. Two hours ago, I wouldn’t have trusted myself to punish her. I’m still not entirely sure if I’m ready—but she’s had enough of the waiting.
“It’s time to finish it.”
“Let someone else handle it,” Cristiano suggests warily. “It doesn’t matter who punishes her as long as it’s on your orders.”
Cristiano is right, but she’s my problem. And I won’t allow anyone to lay a finger on her.
“I’ll do it,” Lucas says, getting up.
“Sit down.” I glare at him.
Cristiano and Lucas know something that no one else does: I’m not giving her up.Ever.
Her life will not be what it could have been, because I’ll never trust her. But I made a promise to her father, and I intend to honor it. What my friends don’t know is that it’s about more than a promise.I want her.
Maybe I’ve always known it—at least since the morning I spent with her after Manuel died. But it became crystal-clear that first night we had dinner. When she turned up her nose at the inferior grapes, or the way her eyes lit up when she tasted the special young Port, or how her face glowed with excitement and happiness,genuine happiness, at the prospect of a vintage year for the entire valley—I knew then she was made for me. Her beauty and her good heart are a bonus.
But none of this gives her a free pass. Not in our world.
I look from Lucas to Cristiano. “She betrayed me, and I’ll exact the punishment.”
“Do you think you’re calm enough for this?”
After her reckless behavior, I don’t think I could be calm enough if I waited ten years. “She gets what she gets.” I turn off my screen.
“I want all surveillance shut down in the cave during the interrogation. Nothing is to be recorded.” I stand and push my chair in. “I’ll let you know when you can send a few guards in close enough so that they can hear the punishment. Send the ones more likely to spread the warning that no traitor is spared.”Not even a beautiful woman who will be my wife.“It was a public betrayal, and it will be a public punishment.”
I stop before the doorway and turn. “Do me a favor. Find out everything, and I meaneverything, you can about Isabel.”
“We’ve looked at her pretty close,” Lucas says, eyeing me.
“Not close enough. Comb through what we know about her relationship with the D’Sousas. Go back as far as you can into her family history. Something doesn’t add up. No one risks what Daniela risked today for a maid.”
“Antonio,” Cristiano pleads. “Let Lucas or me handle Daniela.”
I leave the room without another word.
53
Daniela