Liliana clenched her hands into fists, and the damned ring was there, catching against the skin of her finger and digging into her flesh. She didn’t glance down at it, and not only because it was hypnotizing. But because she knew it would be burned into her brain forever. Not just the ring itself, but that look on his face when he’d held it out in front of him. And that hard, almost terrifying flush of emotion she was sure she’d seen move over him when she’d said yes.
But she couldn’t think about that now. Her heart was pounding and she was dizzy and she knew one thing and one thing only: she had to get away. She had to run. Every day she’d spent here with him was a betrayal of herself.
That she was pregnant only proved that.
“Did you plan this?” Her voice was low. Harsh. “Did you do this deliberately?”
He stopped at the foot of the bed and thrust his hands into his pockets, still holding himself with a certain stillness that Liliana didn’t like at all. What was he hiding? Why was he holding himself back?
“I was a virgin,” she reminded him tersely. “You should have taken care of this. You should have taken care of me.”
Liliana told herself that if she pretended her voice hadn’t cracked on that last word, it hadn’t. And though that same, telling muscle jumped in Izar’s jaw, he only watched her for another taut moment.
“I did not plan this,” he said when she thought her head might explode with waiting. His voice was very precise—and she might have wondered about that if she’d been able to think. He paused. “But I cannot be upset about it, either. I told you what I wanted on the plane.”
“Heirs,” she bit out. “You wanted two, but no more. And behold, once again, you get what you want. You always get what you want.”
That muscle flexed in his jaw again.
“I grant you that this is sooner than planned,” he said. She had the dizzying notion that this was Izar being careful. “But it makes no difference, surely. The end result remains the same.”
Liliana couldn’t sit anymore. She threw herself off the bed and onto her feet, rocking with the force of her own momentum. Izar reached out a hand as if to steady her and she flinched away from him, then watched as his black eyes flashed.
She told herself she didn’t care.
“I’m not going to marry you.” She hadn’t said it in what felt like years. And she didn’t want to think about how wrong it felt coming out, especially when Izar’s gaze was black and unreadable. But she pushed on. “I was never going to marry you.”
“You are pregnant,” Izar said, continuing in that still, careful, frozen way. “I am afraid, gatita, that the debate about whether or not you will marry me is over.”
“Because you say so.” She could hardly hear herself over the pounding of her heart. “But I think there’s a great deal left to debate, as a matter of fact.”
“You are distraught,” Izar said, as if he was unfamiliar with the concept. “I understand.”
He ran his hand over his hair, the gesture so familiar that it took her breath away. Then she remembered. That night in her apartment. When she’d gotten under his skin. But that was what had gotten them into this mess.
“You don’t understand,” she seethed at him. “You can never understand.”
“Liliana.”
But she didn’t want to hear him say her name, and certainly not in that tone. It reminded her of all those cold, brutal letters. It reminded her of those few phone calls, all directives and commands.
It reminded her that even here and now, when he’d taken her virginity and gotten her pregnant besides, he still thought he was in charge of her.
Something flipped inside of her, like a switch. It was that stark, that complete. And if there was a great hollow mess beneath her sudden resolve, Liliana ignored it.
“You,” she said, very distinctly, “can go to hell.”
And she punctuated that by wrenching his beautiful ring from her finger and hurling it. Straight at him, in the hope it would hit him in his eye.
But he was Izar Agustin so, instead, he reached out and plucked it from the air, as if they’d choreographed it.
Liliana felt that as yet one more betrayal, deep and terrible.
“If I were you, Liliana,” he said, in that dark, stirring voice of his that surged through her like thick electricity, “I would think very carefully about what you do next.”
She didn’t want to think. She didn’t want to stand there any longer. If she didn’t escape this place—and him—Liliana had no idea what would happen to her. She felt that like hands around her throat, choking the life and air right out of her.
So she didn’t bother to argue with him any further. She gave him a wide berth as she skirted the edge of the bed, then walked straight into her dressing room. She half expected him to follow her, but he didn’t. Liliana breathed in as deep as she could and then let it out, but her heart didn’t slow down at all. She still felt too flushed, half-choked and desperate.
As if she was nothing but a sob waiting to happen.
Hardly paying attention to what she was doing, she yanked out a bag from one of the shelves and then threw some clothes into it. A couple of pairs of shoes. The wallet she hadn’t touched since she’d left New York—and didn’t that say something about her current situation? She’d let him lock her away in this place. She’d let him, and now she was pregnant and lost.
For the first time since she’d stood in the foyer of her parents’ house at twelve years old and listened to Izar take over her life, Liliana felt entirely lost at sea. Like it or not, distant for years or in the next room, Izar had been the center of her life for a long time.
Did she even know who she was without this man as her dark, true north?
“Anything else I can buy,” she muttered out loud when she found she’d gone still. She shrugged into one of her jackets, threw a scarf around her neck and then stamped her feet into a pair of lace-up boots with a thicker tread.
When she shoved her way back out into the bedroom, Izar was still there. He was leaning back against the curved foot of the bed, his legs crossed at the ankles and his gaze dark and furious on hers the moment she emerged from the dressing room.
“Let me guess,” he said, and his voice was rougher than she’d ever heard it before. If it made something inside her ache, she ignored it. “This is the part where you remind me that you are my ward and attempt to run away.”
“I am your ward.” She adjusted the strap of the bag she carried, moving it higher on her shoulder. “And I’m not running. I’m going to walk out of this villa. Then, if necessary, I will also walk down the damned mountain.”
“And the child?” He sounded...polite, she realized in some confusion. Almost as if he really didn’t care either way. How could she be so furious with him and still feel hurt by him? “My child, to be more accurate?”
Liliana waved a hand in the air as if any part of this would ever be breezy. “I don’t need your money. You can pretend it never happened. Or I can send you pictures while you carry on wading about hip-deep in pools of Eastern European models, whichever works.”
It wasn’t wise to think about Izar and any models, Eastern European or otherwise. It made her pulse skyrocket. It made her start conjuring up all sorts of images from last night that she didn’t want to deal with just then, especially not when she imagined him doing all those things with someone else.
It made her feel something more than simply sick.
Just get out of here, she ordered herself, and she started for the door.
“‘Whichever works,’” Izar echoed, as if he was sounding out unfamiliar words. As if there was no translation in any of the languages he spoke. “Is that what you just said to me? Whichever works?”
Liliana knew she should keep going. She knew she should charge through the door, down the stairs and march all the way down the mountain. That no good could possibly come from this conversation and that she would regret it, utterly, if she turned back arou
nd to face him.
She knew it. But she turned around anyway.
“Please, Izar,” she said, her voice harsh. “It’s not as if you care. Stop pretending otherwise.”
And Izar exploded.
He surged off the bed and came at her, something black and tortured on his hard face and sheer torment in his black eyes. Liliana didn’t realize she’d moved until she found herself with her back against the wall and Izar towering over her.
“I swore to myself that I would never bring a bastard into this world,” he bit out at her, his face in hers, though he didn’t touch her. Liliana had the strangest notion that he didn’t dare. That he was deliberately not touching her. “And yet you stand here before me and dare to tell me—with offensive nonchalance—that not only do you plan to make that happen against my will, but you will further render me nothing more than a sperm donor like my own father. This is what you think of me.”
Something dark and ugly twisted inside of Liliana then, but she couldn’t give in to it. She didn’t dare so much as acknowledge it. Because she had the sinking sensation that if she did, it would swallow her whole.
“This has nothing to do with you!” she threw at him. “This is about me, for a change—”
“We are discussing a child.” He cut her off, and Liliana understood that there was something wrong with her that she found the sight of him losing his usual control almost...exhilarating. Even now. “My child, as well as yours. This is not about your identity crisis.”
Whatever hold Liliana thought she had on herself, she lost it then. Perhaps she lost her mind right along with it. She surged up on her toes, put her face as close to his as she dared and then made it worse by thumping her hand against his hard, unyielding chest.
He looked astonished. And lethal.
“Have you ever not gotten your way?” she demanded. “Or would the world collapse all around you at the very idea that someone might go against your wishes?”
His eyes were so black they burned.
“I get my way because I earn it,” he bit out.
“Is that what you call it? You didn’t earn me, Izar.” She only realized her voice was too loud and much too rough when she felt her throat ache, but she was too far gone to care. “You kidnapped me and hauled me here and had every intention of keeping me locked up until you forced me into a wedding I never wanted. That isn’t earning anything.”
“I must have exerted a tremendous amount of force to accomplish all that.” Izar didn’t give an inch. If anything, his chest got harder beneath her hand. “When, precisely, did I bind and gag you and throw you in the cargo hold of my airplane? When did I lock you in this house?” He shook his head, his black gaze boring into hers. “You never so much as tried the front door. You could have left at any time. But you didn’t.”
That seemed to roar through her, simple and terrible. He was right. She hadn’t done a single thing to leave here. She hadn’t even known there was a plowed driveway because she hadn’t looked. But she couldn’t think about that now.
“I didn’t want to come here.”
She was still holding her palm there against his chest. She couldn’t seem to drop it.
“And yet here you are,” Izar retorted, his voice a low growl.
“I don’t want to marry you.” Liliana knew that was true, if nothing else. So why was it so hard to say?
“And yet the wedding is in a few days.” His gaze was terrible on hers, his mouth grim, and it made her feel torn apart. Shredded into pieces. “You have the dress. You have a ring.”
She shook her head, and though she ordered herself to pull her hand away from his granite chest, she didn’t. “You forced the issue. I didn’t want the dress—”
“That is why you stood for the fittings so quietly, I imagine.”
“I certainly didn’t want any ring—”
“Of course not. That is why, when I asked you to marry me, you laughed in my face and slapped the ring out of my hand. You did this, did you not? I find it so hard to think back that far. Less than twenty-four hours ago, in fact.”
“And most of all,” Liliana bit out, aware on some level that she was shaking deep inside though she couldn’t seem to do a thing to stop it, “I don’t want your baby!”
That seemed to fill the room. It was angry and awful. She wouldn’t have been at all surprised if it had shattered the windows, but somehow, they stood intact. Finally, Liliana dropped her hand back down to her side.
And that was when she realized that while the windows hadn’t shattered, Izar had.
She had never seen that look on his face before. Tormented. Ripped apart. Ruined. She couldn’t bear it.
It had never occurred to her that Izar could be hurt. That anyone could hurt him, much less her.
Liliana would have done anything to take back her words. Anything at all.
And that was when she understood what was happening. She was scared. So scared. Panicked beyond measure. Her whole life had been defined by the family she’d lost—how could she possibly think about creating a new one of her own?
Especially with a man who could never, ever love her. Even if he were capable of loving another person, he wouldn’t love her. She was his ward, that was all.
That unwieldy truth slammed into her, making her weave slightly on her feet and feel almost as ill as she had this morning. She shoved her back harder into the wall behind her and she made herself breathe through it.
And, finally, Liliana was brutally honest with herself.
She loved him. Of course she loved him. Why else would she have simply...pretended all this time? Who had she been trying to fool? Had she honestly believed that she could play along with him without risking her heart?
Why else would she have given the man her innocence in the first place after holding on to it for so long?
Liliana thought back, and she couldn’t think of a single moment in her life after the age of twelve that hadn’t had Izar all over it. Had she ever not been consumed with her remote, impossible guardian? She’d spent all these years either trying to be good enough to please him or telling herself she didn’t care what he thought about her each time she received another terse letter—but she’d never so much as thought of another man. At all.
Of course she was in love with him. And of course it was stormy and difficult and twisted inside out, because wasn’t that who they were?
“Izar...” she began, her voice faltering. “You should know—”
But he had moved back several steps and was running his hands over his face. She’d never seen him do such a thing before. Such a human gesture—so unlike him. When he dropped his hands away, she hardly recognized him.
“Your parents were more than my partners and they were more than friends,” he said, and his voice was so low it made her tremble. Then his gaze met hers, tormented and bleak, and Liliana thought it might tear her wide open. Maybe it already had. “They were my family.”
“Izar,” she tried again, but if he heard her, he gave no sign.
“I was little better than a street kid, but fútbol gave me money. More money than I knew what to do with.” He shook his head. “I was feral. Your mother took me under her wing. She taught me sophistication and class. She gave me the education I had never received. But your father, Liliana.” His dark eyes were a storm. “Your father taught me how to be a man.”
Liliana heard a low, pained noise. She hugged herself when she realized she’d made it.
“I never had a father,” he gritted out. “And I lost my mother when I was too young to know any different.” He shook his head as if to clear it. “You were not the only person who lost everything when that plane went down ten years ago.”
“You don’t have to tell me any of this,” she whispered. “I—”
But he didn’t let her finish.
“And then, worse than the fact they had died in the first place, they left me you.” The words were little more than a rough scrape of sound, but they burned do
wn deep into Liliana. They left deep, jagged scars as they landed. “How could I possibly be any kind of father figure to anyone? The very idea was insane. But how could I let down the only two people who had ever cared for me without expecting anything in return?” He let out a short, hard sound that was not any kind of laugh at all. “I could not. So instead, I resented a bereaved twelve-year-old girl. And I despised myself for it.”
“Izar, stop.” She lifted a hand as if she might reach out and touch him, but the harsh look on his face stopped her.
“I do not deserve a family,” he told her with absolute sincerity, breaking her heart in two. “I do not know why I imagined otherwise. I was ruined from the start, meant for jail cells and lost neighborhoods filled with horror and pain.” He shook his head. “But you are still my ward, Liliana. It is my duty to care for your needs even if—especially if—they are different from my wishes.” He studied her face with those black, broken eyes and she thought he might as well have reached inside her chest and torn out her heart. “I will support whatever decision you make about the child.”
He nodded to her then, in some painful parody of gentility when everything was broken and shattered all around them, and then he started for the door.
“Izar.” Liliana couldn’t help herself. She couldn’t let him leave like this. She knew that with every fiber in her being that she couldn’t let him walk out the door. “I love you.”
And he laughed.
It was a harsh, terrible laugh, but it was laughter all the same, and he didn’t seem to care that it wrecked whatever was left of them as it tore through the room.
“No,” Izar told her, the look he threw her as hard as if she was a stranger. It punched another great hole straight through her. “You do not. You pity me. And I may be a ruined creature, suitable only for the dire places I came from and the desolate things I know, but I am still a man, Liliana. I might want you. But I will not take your pity as a substitute.”
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