‘I see,’ I say. ‘That must have been extremely confusing and difficult for you.’
She stares at me as if, again, I’ve said something surprising. Perhaps she wasn’t expecting me to be sympathetic. ‘You understand?’ she asks, as if she’s not really sure.
‘Obviously, I didn’t have the same experience as you,’ I say. ‘But I know what it’s like to feel as if you’re walking on shaky ground. For example, I don’t know why Antonio could never forgive me for telling my mother about his affairs. He was angry, yes, but he stayed angry for so long, and I was only a child at the time. Also, my mother’s mental health is not good, and that can be…challenging. I never know what’s going to tip her over the edge, even now.’
‘Oh, that sounds tough.’ There’s a crease between her brows, sympathy in her eyes. ‘I’m sorry you had to deal with that.’
Again, she’s completely genuine and the tightness in my chest gathers even tighter. It’s not a feeling I enjoy. The things I had to do to look after my mother were necessary. Someone had to do them for her and, since I was her son, the task fell to me. It’s not something that anyone has to apologise for.
‘I managed,’ I say, a little impatiently, since I’m not interested in talking about me. ‘So, you have no family at all?’
‘No,’ she says and I catch a slight hint of a husk in her voice. This hurts her, doesn’t it? ‘Apparently my mother died having me, and my father gave me immediately into foster care, since he was too grief-stricken to care for me. I don’t know who they were beyond that, and I don’t want to.’
A sweeping anger grips me at this, but it’s a different sort of anger this time. It’s not directed at her, but for her. Grief I understand intellectually, but everything in me rebels at the thought of a father who gives away his baby because he can’t deal with it. My own father did that, though his reasons were different and I was older, yet it only makes me even more sure that I will never do that to my own child.
In fact, looking into her blue eyes now, I see that same certainty reflected back. She won’t either. On this, we agree totally.
Our gazes lock and hold, and something charges in the air between us, that familiar electric current. But this time there’s a deeper element to it, as if the honesty of our conversation has added an understanding we didn’t have before, and somehow this makes that current more intense.
Slowly, the blue in her eyes turns violet as the air around us constricts, sparking and crackling with heat.
‘I’m not going to give you up,’ I tell her abruptly, clearly. ‘I want you in my bed and I want you now.’
Chapter Thirteen
Beatrix
The simple statementhits me like an arrow, piercing me entirely.
I’m not going to give you up.
He means it too, because that’s one thing I trust about Santiago. His honesty.
I wasn’t expecting him to say that. I wasn’t expecting to have this conversation at all. I was expecting more anger, more demands, more of him shoving his chair back and leaving, but, while he’s certainly been angry, especially with that conversation about his father, he didn’t leave.
Then he reconsidered my suggestion of us marrying, and that, too, I didn’t expect. Or how I’d ended up confessing to him that my feelings for him were overwhelming before sharing with him facts about my own childhood.
I don’t want to be vulnerable with him, though, which is why I chose anger, since it’s stronger, safer. Yet I can’t stay angry, not now. Not after catching a glimpse of the man behind the cold, furious scientist. The man formed from the child whose father didn’t want him, just like mine didn’t want me.
We have more common ground than I initially thought, which I hadn’t anticipated. It’s different, uncharted, and I don’t like not knowing what will happen with him, with us, because I can’t build a life on something as transient as physical hunger. At least with Antonio I knew from the first what kind of relationship it would be.
Then again, with the way Santiago is looking at me now and the things he’s just said, physical hunger is a truth we share, and no matter how fleeting it might be, it’s familiar. And given all the changes in my life so far, I need that familiarity. I crave it. It’s not enough to build a life on, no, but it’s a start.
You can’t resist him anyway.
No, I can’t.
I don’t speak, but he shoves back his chair and rises to his feet. Then he holds out his hand to me in wordless invitation, his black gaze burning.
My decision is already made as I rise from my chair, too, and take his hand. His fingers wrap around mine, warm and strong, the leashed strength of his grip making every muscle in my body tighten with need.
We say nothing as he leads me inside and down the hallway to the graceful staircase. He’s in no rush as he leads me up the stairs, slowly and with deliberation, and it winds my anticipation of what’s to come tighter and tighter, making my heartbeat accelerate.
As we get to the top of the stairs, he leads me down another hall, my mouth dry, my breathing short, and I let myself feel it. I let myself feel everything, the need, the craving. The desperation. The hunger.
It’s dangerous to allow these feelings in, because they have the potential to make me far too vulnerable for comfort. But I’m tired of fighting them. Tired of pretending. Tired of feeling angry, too. I just want to surrender and let myself have this, have him, without any self-recriminations.
He pushes open a door at the end of the hallway, and pulls me inside, shutting it firmly behind us. Letting go of my hand, he moves over to the huge bed against one wall and flicks a switch, and soft, muted light spills into the room
