and just said, “You should pack, Mama. Don’t keep them waiting.”
“Where is Ramon? I want to give him my love.” It was a twist of the knife her mother had plunged into her heart five years ago.
Isidora didn’t waste hatred on her own flesh and blood, though. She didn’t even bother speculating why her mother had taken Ramon to her bed when she had known how her daughter felt about him. She had processed long ago that her mother had an illness. An addiction. It looked like a dependence on sex, but it was actually a broken, empty soul starving for love and admiration. She was permanently an abandoned adolescent, like a broken runaway, with the same lack of judgment and gaping emotional needs.
Isidora would never feed in to that heartache by rejecting or reviling her. She did what she could to protect her. That’s why she held Ramon in such contempt. How could he take advantage of someone so vulnerable?
“Henri has spoken to both your parents. He’s bringing them to Sus Brazos for a few days while things blow over,” Ramon told her.
Don’t put them together, Isidora wanted to protest. Her parents were weak-willed where the other was concerned. It always ended the same, with her mother cheating and leaving for another man while her father nursed a freshly shattered heart. The hairline fracture left in Isidora’s heart pulsed with an old ache as she contemplated another round of emotional turmoil.
“Is that the doorbell, Mama?” Isidora broke in to her mother’s breathy ramblings. “Tell the staff to ask for identification. Call me when you’re settled. Te amo.”
Isidora ended the call and sent a text to her mother’s housekeeper with the same instruction about checking for identity.
“So,” Ramon said as their flurry of communication ended and they set aside their phones.
“Why?” she cried. “Why would you do that?”
Why had he said he loved her? It made it all the more hurtful. Thorny vines were tangled around her insides, squeezing and prickling. Half of it was self-recrimination. She would love to say she had gone along with it because she was a professional willing to sacrifice herself on the altar of her career. In truth, she had been so stunned, so appalled that he would exploit her old feelings in such a careless manner, she had been struck dumb.
“You know why. The retirement announcement wasn’t working.”
“Why me?” It was cruel. Her cheeks and throat and chest still burned, but when had he ever cared about hurting her?
“Was I supposed to come out as gay and propose to Etienne?” So blithe, shrugging off the damage he’d done. “I admit, that might have created a more effective stir, but maintaining that ruse for any length of time...?”
“Do you honestly think anyone is going to believe we’re a couple?” She wanted to kill him.
“That’s up to you, isn’t it? I’m serious about you working on looking more pleased about marrying a Sauveterre. We have an image to maintain,” he added with a disdainful tilt of his lips.
“Quit making jokes! This isn’t funny.” Her pulse raced like she was being chased through a dark forest by a pack of wolves. “I am not marrying you.”
“No,” he agreed, the single word dropping her old hopes like china on concrete. “But you will play the part of my fiancée until the attention on our family dies down.”
“Oh, right. When has that ever happened? No, Ramon. I refuse. Go ahead and fire me for insubordination. Make my day.”
He folded his arms and leaned his hips on the desk, his expression bored. “Are you done?”
“Are you implying I’m overreacting?” She was trembling, hands fisted at the ends of her tensed arms, entire body twitching with fight or flight. “You’re ruining my life.”
“Please,” he scoffed. “This is your job. You’re in front of the cameras all the time, standing next to one of us, making statements that say nothing. It’s more of the same.”
“It’s not. I’m fine as a Sauveterre minion, but I don’t want to be the main event!”
“You’re not a minion.” He drew back a little, sending her an annoyed frown. “You’re part of the inner circle. You know that.”
“Since when?” His siblings might treat her that way, but he certainly didn’t.
“I wouldn’t have gone down today’s route with anyone else, even if there had been other choices. We trust you. This is obvious by the position you hold. How is this news to you?”
“You trust me?” She refused to let herself believe it. Wouldn’t allow it to be important. “After what you said this morning about making my life difficult? Or was it miserable? Either way, you’re ticking all the boxes, aren’t you?”
He didn’t move, but his expression hardened. “Let’s talk about how I really ruined your life, shall we? Clearly we have to get that out of the way before you’ll be able to act like a grown-up.”
No. She felt her throat flex as it closed around a cry of pain, like an arrow speared into her windpipe. Without a word, she spun and headed for the door.
A snick sounded as she approached it. Oh, he had not just locked it. She gave the latch a furious wriggle and yanked on the door, but nothing happened. It was oddly frightening. She didn’t fear him exactly, but she was terrified of the feelings he provoked in her. They were always off the scale. And to lock her in and insist she talk about that?
No. Clammy sweat broke out on her forehead. Her hands and feet went icy cold.
She spun to see him behind his desk. His hand came away from a panel that he casually closed so the surface of his desk was smooth and unbroken once again.
“Why are you such a horrible person?”
“You know why. That is what I’ve been saying.” He spoke in a flat, implacable tone. The fact that he didn’t deny being reprehensible did nothing to reassure her. He moved to the wet bar near the sitting area and pulled out a bottle of anise. “Your preferred spirit, I believe?”
She didn’t answer, thinking it strange that he would know that. It was a common drink in Spain, though. It was probably a lucky guess. He poured them each a glass.
“You know our family history, Isidora. You played with my sisters when they had forgotten how. You visited Trella when she imprisoned herself in Sus Brazos. You showed a preference for me when every other girl on the planet couldn’t tell me apart from my brother and didn’t bother to try. Come. Sit.”
She stayed stubbornly by the locked door, arms folded, face on fire. She stood there and hated him for knowing how infatuated she had been. For talking about it like it was some cute, childish memory. Nostalgia for a first pet.
Most of all, she hated him for making her stand here and relive the morning when two of her most painful experiences collided and became an utterly unbearable one.
He leaned to set her drink on a side table and sipped his own, remaining standing, flinty gaze fixed on her resentful expression.
“I was flattered, but I
