She raised an eyebrow. “Okay. Hi, I’m Marianna. I just chased my teenage crush across the world and paid him to stay by my side, even though I was pretty sure he hate-fucked me last week.”
His face lit up with his laughter. “Hi. I’m Simon. And I’m lying naked with the woman I still get myself off to, even when I hated myself for it.”
“You still hated me for what happened? That my father made you choose?” Marianna’s smile faded.
Simon shook his head slowly. “No,Princesa. I tried, but I couldn’t hate you.”
Marianna’s heart thumped in her chest. “I couldn’t either. I love you, Simon.”
She needed to say it again and again.
He smiled and rolled over her, holding her face in his hands. “I’ll never get tired of hearing that, you know.”
“I like this getting-to-know-you game.” She slipped her hands into his hair. “Want to know something else about me? I learned a lot of Spanish as an adult, when I worked at the refugee center. For real, this time.”
Simon’s eyes widened. “So last night...?”
She laughed. “I didn’t understand everything you said, but I caught a few sentences.”
He closed his eyes and let out a sigh. “Thank fuck you did.”
“What else should I know for our new start, Simon?” She played with the stubble on his cheeks.
His expression turned serious. “If our fathers were still alive, they’d both fight hard to keep us apart.”
She blinked at him. He wasn’t playing around anymore.
“Yours, too?” she asked softly. “Yours would keep us apart?”
“Mine, too,” he said. “Especially if he found out his eighteen-year-old son was going to leave everything behind for you. He’d do whatever it took, including convincing me that you and I would never last, that you’d rip our family apart. And he’d truly believe it was for the best.”
She swallowed hard, fighting the tears that she had held back for days. Years, really. Because Simon’s cold, hard expression when she’d showed up in front of his house eleven years ago was still clear in her mind.
The message he had left her with was too unbelievable to be true—he didn’t want to see her again, no explanation? But the moment he walked out of his house and asked her to leave, every one of the doubts her father had planted, long ago, roared to life.
Everyone you meet will want something from you. Men will use you for what you can give them. Trust no one. Protect yourself.
“I’m so sorry I just sent you away that last day,” said Simon softly. “I was hurting so badly that I was willing to do anything to stop that feeling. Even hurt you for making me fall in love with you. That was selfish and wrong.”
“You let me think the worst of you,” she whispered. “You let me believe that none of what we had together was real.”
He winced. “It was real, Mari. So real.”
“But your father was right. It wouldn’t have lasted, would it?”
Simon hesitated. “It doesn’t matter. Because here we are. It’s different but better.”
No more hanging on to the past. They were getting a second chance.
She studied his face, the newer creases in the corners of his familiar green eyes. Her fingers traced his sharper cheekbones, the day’s worth of stubble that showed much sooner now, the faint lines around his mouth, all evidence of the time that had passed. The years she had missed with him.
“Your beard is thicker now.”
“I guess it is.”
It was so good to touch him. No holding back, just like it was eleven years ago. No, not just like eleven years ago. Simon was right. This was different. Better.
She brought his hand to one of her breasts. “They grew a size larger in college. Did you notice? I guess I was a late bloomer.”
