I thought back on what they must have seen when they walked up and knew without question that I would have never orchestrated something so humiliating. My original plan of revenge was still weighing on me, no matter how accidental this was. It was all I had wanted, but everything had changed.
“When mother finds out about this, she’ll disown you,” Jorge barked to Leo. “She’ll make sure you’re left penniless. And you!” He stabbed his finger in the air towards me. “Everyone will know how you shamed our family and seduced all of us. They’ll all see you for the whore you are, and if your own mother and sisters don’t toss you out on the street, everyone else will run you out of town!”
I imagined the rumors and how they’d spread, and immediately thought of Elaina. I couldn’t let my own soiled reputation drag her down. What if the gossip turned on her, and people caught on to her relationship with both Perez brothers? It would ruin us all and Jada’s marriage would be brought to a dead halt. No one would want her after that. No one would want any of us.
At some point in the middle of my mental panic attack, Jorge and Dario had turned to go back to their house, intent on telling their mother everything. I watched as Leo chased after them, demanding that they let us be. Everything escalated so fast, and before I knew it I saw him clock Jorge square in the face. The blow sent him tumbling down to the ground, but he quickly sprang up again and set off back towards the house - now even more determined than before.
Leo came running back to me. “Are you okay?”
“No, of course I’m not okay!” I cried.
His face tightened as more of everything that just happened sank in rapidly. He kneeled down beside me, but had nothing he could say beyond, “I have to follow them back to the house.”
“I know,” I sighed. “What will you say?”
He looked completely lost as his eyes pierced mine. He looked hurt and confused, and I didn’t know what I could possibly say to make any of it any better. Instead, I tried asking, “When will I see you again?”
My heart shattered when he didn’t answer. He just kept giving me the same pained stare until he finally stood up again.
“I really have to go,” he repeated, slowly turning to follow behind Jorge and Dario.
He walked so slowly at first that I was certain he would turn back around. He would come back and say something, anything, to make this right or to at least give me some hope that everything would be okay. Whatever was growing between us had felt oddly impenetrable, but that peace of mind was suddenly gone - ripped away from us all in a matter of seconds.
Once Leo was far out of sight, I fell back down to the ground and sobbed. I barely bothered covering myself up anymore now that I was alone again. I was naked, ashamed, and positive that I had just lost Leo...the man that I loved. It was the first time I had allowed myself to think about it. I had been actively avoiding it altogether. But now that I was left with nothing but my own regrets and humiliation, there was no denying it. I loved Leo, and I would never have him.
19
Leonardo
My heart was racing as I ran behind Jorge and Dario back to the house. I knew I should care about the kiss between Lucia and Dario. I should have cared about Jorge’s accusations about Lucia’s revenge plot against us. That was the logical conclusion. I could march into our house and admit that I was guilty to everything - that I had been tempted and fooled. We all had. But that Lucia and her family were done for, and we would stay the hell away from them. I could let her suffer the fate of how this scandal would destroy them. I could plead for my mother’s forgiveness, and she would soon put the whole thing behind us. I would be free of any consequence, and Lucia would finally get what I used to think she deserved.
My mind kept going through it all over and over, telling me those were the next steps to take. But beneath our reputations and how deserved what and everything else that had happened...there was one clear, resounding fact that could not be ignored. All of that would rip Lucia from my arms for good, and somehow that seemed too impossible to bear.
I didn’t have any shred of conclusion I felt good about as I stormed into the house behind Jorge and Dario. They found mother in the parlor and both started shouting all at once. She jumped and dropped her needlepoint to the floor and tried to make sense of their ranting and raving.
“Enough!” she cried finally. “What is going on!? What are you two on about!? What’s happened!?”
“It’s Lucia Chavez,” Jorge told her with a disdainful sneer. “She’s been toying with all of us. She tempted me into a dinner date while making promises to Dario. And just now...we found her ass naked with Leo! I’ll spare you the details of exactly what they were doing, but it was...ungodly to say the least.”
Her face was frozen with wide eyes and her mouth gaping. She was glued still like that for a long time until finally, I could see her eye start to twitch.
“Lucia Chavez,” she repeated under her breath. But by the second and third time she said her name, she shouted it loud. “Lucia Chavez!?”
She hurled up onto her feet and marched over to me. I had never seen such a hateful, enraged look on her before, and it was soon backed up by a swift smack across my cheek.
“You have shamed us horribly and irreparably,” she seethed. “How could you!? She’ll tell everyone about this! I’ll never be able to show my face around our friends and the other landowners again!”
“What’s going on in here!?” Don German’s voice boomed as his new caregiver rolled him into the room.
Mother kept her eyes pinned to me as she answered with heavy shame. “Your grandson had disgraced our family. He’s been fornicating with that Lucia Chavez girl, and now she will surely use it to destroy us. She’s been tempting Dario and Jorge, too.” Her words trailed off into sobs as she imagined the fate before our family.
“The girl who poisoned me!?” he asked.
Dario, Jorge, and I all shot each other a terrifying glare. For all the time we had managed to keep that secret from my mother, it just had to come out in that moment. I had no choice but to correct him and face her wrath. Otherwise, she’d use the threat of criminal charges against Lucia as a way to mitigate the damages of our scandal.
“She wasn’t the one who poisoned you,” I told him. “It was the cook. That’s why we fired her, remember? Dario found proof. We know it wasn’t Lucia.”
“Someone better tell me what you’re talking about...right now,” mother said sternly.
The playing field was leveled at least a little by Dario and Jorge’s own guilt in our lie to her about what happened while she was out of town. It calmed them down enough to sit down with me and Mother to explain everything. I couldn’t help but notice how pleased she looked as we told her how I treated Lucia when we thought she was to blame, even though I cringed to relive it all again. It only made my tenderness for her grow as I recalled it. No wonder she hated me so viciously, and to know she had given herself over to me even after all of that...It made my heart and my head feel that much clearer about what I wanted. She deserved to be protected and treated well, and for once I finally accepted that I was the only one who could do that.
“I have failed all of you,” Mother decided after we had come clean. “I knew turning a blind eye to all of your flings and drinking and wildness would come back to haunt me. I just never thought you could shame me so greatly.”
“It’s all Lucia’s fault,” Jorge argued. “I’ll go back to the auction. I’ll threaten to sue them for unleashing that devil of a woman onto this house.”
“You didn’t seem to think she was so devilish when you were trying to force yourself on her,” I growled.
Mother let out a dramatic wail and started sobbing again. I didn’t know if I wanted to taunt her for being so ridiculous or continue dragging Jorge and Dario down for starting this whole mess. My mind cleared and focused back on what I knew what was most important...What I knew I needed to do.
I scooted my chair over to my mother and
took her hands in mine. It was a good sign that she didn’t immediately jerk them away, or maybe she was just too hysterical to bother.
“I have fallen in love with Lucia,” I explained gently, ignoring the way Jorge and Dario winced. “We treated her terribly and she carried a grudge against us. Rightly so. But somewhere in the middle of all of that...I grew very real feelings for her. And I want to make an honest woman out of her.”
“Over my dead body!” she fired back. “I have never approved of that wench! Even before all this came to light today. Honestly, how could you ever dream of marrying anyone who had made such promises to your cousin, Dario? And who tempted Jorge the way she did!”
“The fence,” Don German nodded in agreement. “She was trying to pull one over on us by stealing away our land, even if only by a few inches at a time. It’s the principle of it. It’s despicable. To even think of dividing the properties after all these years! She meant to call us out publicly! She wanted to destroy our reputations the whole time.”
That sent Jorge and Dario back to bickering and doing all they could to drag Lucia and her family’s name through the mud as thoroughly as possible. I sat back in silence as they ranted and raved, all determined to hate the Chavez sisters no matter what.
When they had calmed down enough to give me any room to speak, I held fast to what I wanted.
“I will marry Lucia Chavez,” I announced again, with more confidence and determination. “I am in love with her and there’s nothing you can do to change that.”
Mother scowled as her rage reached new heights. “You will do no such thing. We’ll disown you before we ever submit to you giving that wretched woman our family’s name.”
“Then I’ll take her name. We’ll find our own way together, completely penniless if we have to. There’s nothing you can say to talk me out of it.”
Mother erupted in another string of sobs while Don German let out a string of muffled expletives. Jorge and Dario continued their bitter sulking, probably only upset that they had gotten their hopes up for their own relationship with Lucia but had lost her to me.
“This doesn’t have to be so dire,” I suggested over their chaos. “We could have them over for dinner...make peace between our families. The youngest sister, Jada, has been promised into an arrangement that will elevate their family’s status. No one in our circles knows anything right now aside from a few rumors and gossip about Lucia’s former disdain for us. We could see to it that it ends there and publicly announce our union.”
Mother continued shaking her head, unconvinced. “If she’ll even have you! Oh, it’s just a nightmare to even think you’d put yourself in such a position to be refused by someone so beneath you. What if what Jorge and Dario said is true? What if this is all just a coo against us? She’s probably running her mouth to everyone now about how she tempted all three of you and made complete fools of you.”
I considered the possibility. I didn’t have time to stay with Lucia and ask all of the things I wanted to. But part of me felt like I didn’t have to ask. Maybe she had wanted to ruin our reputations and get revenge for everything. I knew she had toyed with each of us to the end of that goal. But I had also done far worse things to her that I regretted. And as I added up all of our moments of passion and the things we had said to each other...the looks of lust and longing and everything we hadn’t brought ourselves to say but could still sense bubbling up inside of one another...it all amounted to my own certainty that the feelings she had for me were real.
“We’ve all made mistakes. But I’m positive that Lucia is in love with me too.”
They all cringed collectively, but at least they didn’t erupt back into more ranting and raving. I could tell the idea was slowly starting to settle in with them, no matter how much they hated it.
“You don’t have to like it,” I added. “But you will have to accept it. Even if it means disowning me.”
With that, I stood and left them alone to commiserate and decide the fate of our family and my place in it. I returned to my room which seemed brighter than it had in a long time. It no longer seemed burdened by my haunted longings for Lucia and all the sleepless nights I had spent aching for her so strongly that I thought it might kill me. I moved in her body over and over again, thinking my thirst might finally be quenched. But it seemed the only thing that could truly and finally satisfy me was to admit how I really felt. I loved her, and I would make her my wife...somehow. Even if it meant giving up everything.
I didn’t go to her that evening, and I didn’t join my family for dinner. I had the staff serve me in my room, and I did the same for breakfast and lunch. No one had come to offer their blessing, but no one had come to throw me out of the house either. Maybe they were hoping I would change my mind, but I had never been so certain of anything in my entire life. All I could do was wait and see what they would decide, and pray that by the time I went to Lucia again - I could knock on her door and see her respectively without hiding. And hopefully, I’d have my grandmother’s ring in my hands to offer her.
As I waited, I thought back on Lucia’s time with us. Even though I would have never admitted it, I knew there was something strong and solid about her from the moment I first laid eyes on her in the auction house. I was even more certain of it when she scolded me during her first days here, even if it was infuriating at the time. She crept in slowly and gnawed away at my resolve until that night when I heard Jorge had taken her off. Everything changed then as I had a reason to fight for something I cared about. I had never been more like my father than on that night. And whatever resolve washed over me then stuck with me ever since. I stood taller and spent less time bothering with all the stupid things my cousins and I used to waste our days away with. This whole time I wanted to believe that Lucia insulted my manhood that was why she bothered me so incessantly. But now I could see that she was responsible for turning me into the man I always thought I was.
Finally, after three days of hiding out in my room, a knock came to my door. One of the staff members informed me that my mother requested to see me in the parlor. I knew she had reached her decision. It was now a matter of if I would be asking for Lucia’s hand under her blessing, or tolerance at the least, or if I would go to her as a broke, completely disowned man - stripped of my family’s name and riches. Either way, the rest would be up to her. Would she love me in return and agree to be my wife? Or was my family right about her...Would she insist this was all out of vengeance and nothing she felt for me was ever real at all...
More By Hollie
More By Hollie
Bring your ♥ to my newest BadBoys!
Bullied Bride
Get It Here
HIS VENGEANCE WAS TO MAKE ME HIS BRIDE…
I made a mistake.
It was supposed to be a one-night stand.
I had no idea who he really was.
For as long as we’ve lived, we have hated each other.
Hartsons and Claymores are not meant to get on.
I’m not sure what came over me that night.
I went with my friend into neutral territory to have some fun.
It was the only place where we could hide our allegiance.
The man I met there was so charming, so devilishly handsome that it was almost unfair.
I left the next morning wanting more…
Even thinking he was someone worth knowing.
Right until I find out who he was.
A Claymore.
A murderer of my people.
A man I should have never touched.
My shame turns to anger when his people spread the tale of what happened.
Leaving me defiled.
Tarnishing my family’s reputation.
My punishment?
A forced marriage.
They turned me into a captive bride, a hostage.
I’m being bullied and humiliated.
All I get is resentment and aggression from the Claymores.
...And my ver
y own “husband”.
But if he has decided to make my life a burning hell,
I’ll make sure the devil burns up as well…
Epilogue
Epilogue Lucia
“Are you sure about this?” the construction lead asked me as I signed the papers to terminate the contract for the fence.
My lawyer stood over my shoulders, equally perplexed. But I smiled, nodded, and signed away. I was less concerned with what they thought of me, and more worried about Jada and Elaina who were waiting nearby. With the papers to cease construction signed, we sent the men away and that was that. I was left there to hang my head, hating what I had drug my family through.
“How are you feeling?” Elaina asked sympathetically, rubbing my shoulder while Jada did the same from the other side.
“Don’t pity me. That only makes me feel worse. I should have never risked so much money just to prove a point to the Valencias. I don’t know what I was thinking. As if that stupid fence would have done much of anything anyway other than cost too much money and be a minor annoyance to the cousins. And the rest of it..ugh,” I buried my face in my hands.
I had come clean to them about everything, and while it was nice to be able to talk to them about it, it didn’t do much to lessen the sting of my regrets.
“You were angry,” Jada offered.
“And maybe a little in love,” Elaina said with hope.
I turned to stomp back towards the house with them following behind. “It sure didn’t feel like love in the beginning. And by the time I did come around to what I might feel for Leonardo, he had already made his choice. I should have known all along he’d never grow up enough to...to...ah! I don’t even know what I expected...or what I wanted!”
Bullied Cinderella (Olive Skin Devils Book 2) Page 14
