Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 108405 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 542(@200wpm)___ 434(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108405 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 542(@200wpm)___ 434(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
My mouth fell open as the chandelier’s faint, warm glow blurred. Pilar had mentioned supporting Nessa through that. “That’s why you did it?”
“Costa didn’t give me permission to kill him, even though I disagreed and told him so,” Cristiano said. “Instead, I left him lacking in the one place that matters.”
I shuddered. “You mean you . . .”
“No, but I’d be surprised if the thing between his legs could even twitch on its own.”
“Oh my God.”
“So about the ex-fiancé,” he said almost cheerfully, ignoring the fact that he’d probably just scarred me with that mental image.
“Ex?” I asked, wrinkling my nose. “She won’t leave him.”
“Then he’ll have to leave her.”
I fell silent. I had some idea of what that meant, but I was afraid to ask for clarification. I wasn’t sure it mattered what Cristiano intended to do to Manu, only that it would be bad enough to keep him away.
“It seems we don’t even have to be in the same room for me to scare you,” Cristiano said.
Manu deserved whatever was coming to him. All I had to do was order the punishment, and my husband would enforce it. Cristiano could deliver justice when everyone else Pilar cared about had failed her—but to feel pride over that posed a question I wasn’t sure how to answer.
Did I belong in this world as Cristiano kept suggesting? Had I ever really left? Just because I’d been deaf, dumb, and blind to my father’s business while in California didn’t mean I could erase the years I’d been raised in the middle of it. It didn’t mean I wasn’t my father—or my mother’s—daughter. Papá served justice, as Mamá had.
“I’m not afraid. But why would you do all that for Pilar?”
“She needs someone stronger than him in her corner. Now she has an army of us. But that’s not what you’re asking.” With a shuffling on the line, it got even quieter. “You’re wondering why I should help her when you feel I’ve done the opposite for you.”
My stomach rose with a deep inhale. Who was in my corner? Who was stronger than Cristiano? Perhaps I could be. I was learning the ropes from the master himself, after all. “You can see why I’d think that.”
He didn’t respond right away, and when he did, I had to listen hard to catch his words. “I’ve asked myself the same.” He cleared his throat. “All I can tell you is that I’d help Pilar regardless of your association with her, but the fact that she’s your friend makes it all the more personal. I will handle this, Natalia. And I will take her under my protection if that’s what she wants.”
I shook my head, gratitude for his help and contempt for my situation warring inside me. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say nothing. In any case, Alejo will be happy to handle this while I’m away. He seems overly concerned for a girl he hardly knows. Perhaps he’s got a thing for her.”
“It might be mutual,” I said, allowing a small smile. “Although . . . she did speak about him the same way she did Barto.”
“Barto?” Cristiano sounded annoyed. “What’s he got to do with anything?”
“He helped her, too, after the wedding.” I reached up and played with one of the bed’s gauzy, white curtains. “I can’t really blame her. They’re both handsome men, Barto and Alejandro.”
Cristiano growled. “You’d call them handsome, but your own husband, you treat like Quasimodo.”
I laughed. Cristiano was the last man on Earth I’d think of as insecure, and perhaps the last man who had reason to be. He was beautiful in a way normal men could never touch. His own brother was strikingly handsome with clear green eyes, high cheekbones, and hair that begged to be touched. But there was still no comparison. Paired with a face and body right from Mount Olympus, Cristiano’s darkness devastated.
And I’d die before I admitted that to him, I thought willfully.
“Speaking of Alejandro, you need to let him spar with me.”
“No.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“He could hurt you.”
“So let me get hurt, Cristiano. You let me fight with Solomon. Is it because Alejandro’s good-looking?”
“You’re not helping your case.”
I sighed. “If I don’t practice what I’m learning, I’ll be useless in a real fight.”
“You’re my wife, and I don’t want him putting his hands on you.” His anger fizzled with his words. Cristiano didn’t truly believe Alejo would try anything. “Fine,” he conceded. “I’ll talk to him before tomorrow’s lesson—but when I get back, you’d better be advanced enough to take me on.”
“Thank you,” I said, biting my lip as I tried not to entertain all the ways I could take him on. Silence settled over the line. “You should get back to your thing.”
“What thing?” he asked. “I’m talking to my wife. That’s my thing.”