Beautiful Dangerous

by Michelle Betham

  I drop my head again, running a hand along the back of my neck as another wave of exhaustion washes over me. “You said you’d help us.” I look up, and I think I believe this man when he tells me I can trust him. It’s too late anyway, even if I felt like that trust wasn’t there, he already knows our secret. But if Olivia believes she can trust him then maybe it’s okay. I’m just going to have to go with that.

  “Seriously, brother. Anything you need.”

  “Right now, I just need to sleep,” I sigh, setting the bottle of whiskey down on the table, I’ve had enough. More than enough.

  “You can crash here tonight, in one of the rooms out back.”

  “Thanks, Angel. I might just do that.” Because I don’t want to go back to the house. Back to where Javier and Olivia are… are what, exactly? I don’t know. I don’t even want to think about it.

  I get up, taking the remains of the steak sandwich Angel gave me earlier with me. I might be tired but my appetite has suddenly reappeared, and even though it’s cold now I want to finish this sandwich. Food and sleep, two things I never paid all that much attention to before are now suddenly right there at the top of my list of things I really need right now.

  “See you in the morning.” Angel raises his beer and shoots me a knowing look, and I hope to God our secret really is safe with him.

  “Yeah. You will.”

  Today, the earth shifted a little bit more beneath me, but I’m ready. For whatever the fuck is about to come next. I’m ready…

  Javier

  Feeling her warm skin next to mine; being inside her again, it’s the release I need, I have waited so long for this moment. And as I hold her close, feel her come in my arms, her quiet moans are like the sweetest music.

  Her soft breasts push against me as I thrust into her, seeking my own pleasure, the build-up already beginning like a ticking timebomb about to go off, it’s that fast as a wave of spasms take over my body, her fingers intertwining with mine, almost crushing them as she takes me deep, and I flood out into her, her legs wrapped around me, keeping me right where I want to be. With her. My beautiful queen.

  Her legs loosen their grip and fall away from me, and I roll onto my back and stare up at the stark, white ceiling. I feel her move beside me as she raises herself up, turns onto her side, resting up on one elbow, and I look at her. She smiles at me, and it reminds me of our very first night together, how beautiful she’d looked. How happy she’d been. But she isn’t that naïve young girl anymore, she’s still beautiful – even more beautiful, if that’s possible, but she isn’t happy anymore. There’s a sadness behind her eyes, and it tears at my soul, but I always knew that leaving her the way I did, it came with risks. And I just wasn’t ready to face the consequences it’s created.

  “I love you so much, mi amor,” I whisper, reaching up to tuck a strand of hair back behind her ear. “So much.”

  She smiles, her fingertips trailing lazily over my chest, her eyes following their every move. But the fact that she doesn’t tell me she loves me too, it’s another stab in the heart for me. Another painful realization that the risk I had to take, it might not have been worth it. But I’m not done fighting, she just needs more time; more reminders of how our life used to be, how good we were together.

  “Everything is going to be alright, Olivia. I promise you that. Everything will be fine.”

  She looks at me, but even though her eyes are staring into mine, her mind is elsewhere. It’s so obvious, and I’m sure she isn’t aware of it, that I can see that she isn’t completely with me, but it’s true. And I wonder if that place she’s gone to – I wonder if she’s there with someone else. Another man. Someone who’s already taken my place… She thought I was dead. Maybe she moved on more than I thought she would. Thought she could. And all of a sudden the most brutal wave of exhaustion swamps me, the events of the past few days – the past couple of years – I think they’re finally catching up with me. Catching up with all of us.

  The secrets.

  The lies.

  The betrayal…?

  It’s all surging forward, ready to bring to an end this chapter, and signal the beginning of the next one. A new one. And for many of us, I feel it may be a very different story we’re about to tell…

  Seventeen

  Olivia

  He wasn’t there when I woke up, and I found myself breathing a sigh of relief. I showered for what felt like an eternity, washing him off of me, memories of the sex last night filling my head, my heart breaking, because I never thought I’d feel this way about a man I once worshipped. I’d loved Javier, so much, but I couldn’t grieve forever. Is that what he’d wanted me to do? Grieve for him, constantly, because he knew he was always going to come back…?

  Downstairs, there’s still no sign of Javier, so I head into the kitchen, where Celine is busy preparing a mountain of toast and eggs.

  “Have you seen Javier this morning?” I ask, taking a jug of orange juice from the fridge and pouring myself a glass.

  “He’s in his office,” Celine replies as she whisks more eggs up in a bowl before tipping them into the pan. “He said he had some calls to make. I made sure he took some food in with him, though. These men, they forget to eat sometimes.”

  I can’t help smiling at the way Celine looks after these dangerous men like they were schoolboys. She keeps them on track better than anyone else I know, they love and respect her, and not just because she’s constantly cooking up heaps of delicious food for them. For us. I should really spend more time in the kitchen myself, there’s no need for her to be doing everything.

  “Are you hungry? What would you like me to make you?” Celine asks, without waiting for me to tell her whether I’m hungry or not. But I am, a little. And those eggs smell delicious!

  “Eggs will be fine. Thanks, Celine.” I take a sip of orange juice and glance around the kitchen. “Is Lucca about?”

  She sidles up next to me, leaning in and lowering her voice to almost a whisper. “He didn’t come home last night. His bed hasn’t been slept in.”

  I frown, because that isn’t unusual, he rarely sleeps in his bed as it is. “Why is that strange?”

  Celine shrugs and returns her focus to the eggs cooking away on the stove. “Now Javier is back, it seems odd that Lucca would stay out all night, it isn’t like him. What if Javier had needed him?”

  But Javier didn’t need him, and Lucca knew that. “He hasn’t come back to the house yet?”

  Celine shrugs and empties the scrambled eggs into a huge bowl. “I don’t know.” She picks up the bowl and a couple of plates, grabs a serving spoon, and puts them on a small trolley along with a plate piled high with toast, mugs and a pot of coffee. “I’ll just take these to Jorge and the boys outside. Then I’ll start your breakfast.”

  “No, Celine, let me cook my own breakfast. Please.”

  She cocks her head, but she’s smiling. “Okay. But you know you’ll never make eggs as good as mine.”

  I laugh as I start to crack some into a mixing bowl. “Maybe not. But I really would like to do a little bit of cooking for myself today. It can be quite therapeutic sometimes. You go and concentrate on the men.”

  “Alright, but don’t you go messing up my kitchen now.”

  She says that with her tongue very firmly in her cheek, and I laugh again. It might be our house – mine and Javier’s – but this kitchen is very much Celine’s. She just lets us use it every now and again.

  The second I’m alone, I no longer feel hungry. Lucca didn’t come home last night? I didn’t even know he’d left the estate. Where did he go? Who was he with? All kinds of thoughts start to form in my already messed-up head, but I can’t let them win over. I can’t let those feelings show.

  Leaving the eggs uncooked I go out onto the terrace. Celine’s already tidied up the dinner debris from last night, everything’s back to normal now. And I glance over at Javier’s chair underneath the tree, there’s a ne
wspaper on the arm, and an empty coffee mug on the ground. He’s already been out here this morning, doing what he used to do most mornings before he “disappeared”. I used to love watching him sit there, reading his paper and sipping his coffee, those brief moments of normality that made it feel like we were just another ordinary couple.

  You were never just an ordinary couple.

  You never will be…

  I leave everything as it is and go over to the wall that snakes around the edge of the terrace. I look out over the ocean, it’s another beautiful day. The sun’s shining, the sky’s bright blue and almost cloud-free, and even though it’s still relatively early there’s a gentle heat already hitting the back of my neck.

  “You alright?”

  I spin around at the sound of his voice, just the sight of him both excites me and terrifies me. He’s a risk I should never have taken, but I’m all in now. I can’t get out of this fucked-up mess we’re creating.

  “Celine said you didn’t come home last night.”

  Lucca moves out of the doorway and comes toward me, and with every step he takes I feel my heart start to beat that little bit faster, that fear in my belly intensifying. Javier is inside, and that’s too close for comfort.

  “I just needed some space. Seeing you and Javier…” He stops talking, drops his head, and drags a hand though his hair, his shoulders tensing. “I went to the clubhouse. Stayed there last night.” He raises his gaze and moves closer to me. Too close, probably, but I guess we’re taking more and more risks now. But we shouldn’t. We really shouldn’t. “I couldn’t be here, Liv. I just – I couldn’t.”

  I want to reach out and touch his rough jawline, cup his face, I want to kiss him until our mouths bleed, feel his arms wrap around me, but instead I cross my arms against my chest to stop me from doing any of that.

  “Last night, he wanted to talk about renewing our vows. Starting a new chapter. Having a baby…”

  I trail off, and Lucca’s expression, it breaks my heart, but I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how we can change what’s happening here.

  “I don’t want any of that, Lucca. Not with him, not anymore. And I’m scared.”

  Everything I once felt for Javier – an overwhelming love that’s all consuming – I’m now feeling for Lucca. It’s real and it’s terrifying and it isn’t going away.

  He sits down on the wall, turning his head to look out over the ocean. And for a few moments he says nothing. Neither of us do, but the silence hangs heavy in the air, and every inch of me is on red alert, waiting for Javier to appear, to sense that something isn’t right. All it’s going to take is one wrong move, one careless second, and everything changes. It’s over.

  “You spoke to Angel.”

  That isn’t a question, and he doesn’t look at me when he speaks, he keeps his eyes focused on the ocean.

  “I’m sorry, I just…”

  There’s no excuse, not really. Involving someone else, it wasn’t a good idea. But, technically, Angel involved himself. He brought the subject up.

  Yes, but you still should’ve shut him down…

  “You needed someone to talk to.” He looks at me, and my heart aches all over again, it’s a permanent feeling now, heartache, that fucker exists, believe me.

  I lean back against the tree, I’m trying to keep my distance, trying to make this all look and feel normal. If we get too close, I’m afraid I won’t be able to do that.

  “He wants to help us,” Lucca carries on, and I can see a weariness in his face that goes beyond the usual darkness. And then he bows his head, clasps his hands together, and once again his shoulders tense. As do mine, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to relax again. Not for a long time.

  Until you escape the life you chose to live?

  What if you can never do that?

  What then, huh?

  “We need to talk, Liv.”

  I know. We do. But the likelihood of us having any real time alone together is slim. “I just want to get out, Lucca. I want to go.”

  Those were words I never meant to say out loud, but I’m living on adrenaline and fear now, and it’s making me dangerously weak. Something I can’t afford to be.

  He stands up, comes over to me, and I let him. I stay where I am, and I look up into his eyes, feel his breath on my neck as he leans into me, his fingers dancing lightly over my collarbone. “Let me handle this,” he whispers before pulling away, that’s all he says before he lets go of me and goes back inside.

  I sit down, in Javier’s chair, the chair I vowed no-one but him would ever sit in. But all those rules, all those things I put in place while I created shrines and mourned memories of a man who’d never actually died, they’re dissipating by the second.

  “You look good in that chair.”

  I look up, and I smile at Javier, I’m finding it remarkably easy to switch to that role I need to play now. “No-one else ever sat in this chair, while you were gone. Not even me. Until today, obviously.” I get up and go over to him, tugging gently at his shirt collar as I tilt my head up to kiss him.

  You have to do this.

  You have to play the part…

  “I wouldn’t let them. I only wanted to remember you sitting there, reading your paper or your books, you always used to seem so at peace in that chair.”

  He smiles, his arm circling my waist, and the second his hand connects with my skin I feel my stomach jolt, and not in the way it used to. “There are some places where it feels like all the shit we get involved with, it doesn’t exist. Places where pockets of normality are created.”

  But it’s all a façade, and he knows that.

  So do you. Now…

  “If we had a child, could we not create more of those moments? Allow a little normality into this crazy world?”

  Just the thought of using a child as something to help us forget the bad and pretend there’s even a modicum of normality in this life, it makes me sick. But that’s just another emotion – another feeling I have to keep to myself.

  His eyes are staring so deep into mine it’s making me nervous, and I don’t know how long I can keep this up. How long I can do this. How long it’s going to be until he realizes the truth…

  “We need to start making arrangements, Olivia. Organize our vow renewal ceremony.”

  “I have a meeting with Eddie today.”

  He smiles, but it almost feels like he’s, again, patronizing me in some way. “I know, mi amor. But you won’t be there all day, will you?”

  I’d like to be. I’m spending far more time at the compound than I ever used to, but I like it there. I feel free, over there, I don’t feel that so much here at home, now Javier’s back.

  Javier’s back…

  You still can’t get used to saying that, can you?

  “No, but, we don’t have to rush into anything, do we?”

  Should I have said that out loud? Should I have given him any indication that I’m trying to delay this from happening?

  While you plan your escape?

  Yes…

  Javier smiles again, his eyes still fixed on mine as he carefully pushes a lock of hair away from my face. “No, we don’t have to rush into anything. There’s plenty of time.”

  He says that as though he means it, but I’m not sure that he does.

  “Maybe talk to Celine though, hmm? You know she would love to help you organize something like this. Besides, she needs to be involved, she’ll be doing the food.”

  He drops a quick kiss on my forehead and lets go of me, checking his watch.

  “I have to go. Lucca’s getting the car ready, we have meetings in town all morning.” He slides his hands into his pockets and flashes me one last smile. Deep down inside I still love this man, I do, but I’m finding it so hard to see past the lies and the deceit and the fact that while he was away, I fell in love with another man.

  Lucca lied to you, too, remember?

 
; Lucca lied, too…

  “When I get home, we’ll talk. Okay? You can let me know how things are going.”

  And that’s it. He goes back inside; back to work like he didn’t fake his own death, leave me alone for two years, and even now, with all his promises of the two of us running this cartel together, he’s still the one calling the shots.

  This used to be my life.

  I used to love this life.

  Did you, really?

  You loved the man, the life was just something that came with him, something you got used to because you had to, if you wanted to be with him…

  I used to love Javier Delgado with every beat of my fucked-up heart.

  I used to…

  Lucca

  It’s only just gone eight-thirty in the morning but already the casino is busy with people who probably don’t even know what day it is, never mind what time. But it’s those poor bastards who keep us afloat. We need the weak and the vulnerable; the gamblers and the drinkers, it’s their money that helps us wash ours.

  Leaning back against the bar, I watch as Javier surveys the casino floor, his hands in his pockets, his air of authority unmistakable, it’s like he’s never been away. And there’s a part of me that wishes he hadn’t. If he’d stayed, I would’ve learnt to push those feelings I had – have – for Olivia away completely, forget they existed, I would’ve had no choice, if he’d been here. But instead I allowed them to grow. To become something more than they ever had any right to be, even when I knew he was always coming back. I was weak. I was so fucking weak…

  “After this I’d like to go to The Beach Bay Resort.”

  Javier’s voice pulls me back from my reverie, and I fall right back into faithful lieutenant mode.

  “I have a lunch meeting with the new mayor. Getting him on-side early can only benefit us. And him.”

  The Beach Bay Resort was the first hotel the Delgado cartel built this side of the border, right on the coast, with incredible views and a reputation for affordable luxury. It’s another one of our genuinely legitimate cartel businesses, but I know Javier’s looking to create more of those. Eventually. Maybe he has a plan to go completely legit, one day, I don’t know. Maybe this is his plan to try and create a more “normal” life for him, Olivia, and this child he wants to being into this fucked-up excuse of a world.