A Beautiful Lie (Playing with Fire #1)(101)

Garrett disconnected the call and shoved the phone in his back pocket. He indicated with his hand that Margarita should take a seat at the end of the bed while he pulled a chair up close to her, his gun resting on his thigh, pointed in her direction.

“You understand why I can’t put my gun away,” Garrett told her as he watched her stare at the weapon nervously.

Margarita nodded, quickly moving her eyes away from the gun and onto Garrett’s face.

“Tell me what you’re doing here and why the entire U.S. government and this country think you don’t speak English,” Garrett demanded.

“It’s a long story,” she replied quietly.

“I’ve got time.”

Margarita cleared her throat nervously, her hands folding and unfolding in her lap, giving her something to do with them.

“My name hasn’t always been Margarita.”

Garrett raised his eyebrow. “I gathered that considering before you married Fernandez you didn’t exist.”

She smiled sadly. “Oh, I existed. If that’s what you want to call it. I was born and raised in the United States. When I was in my twenties, I worked for a large engineering company as a marketing assistant. I met a delivery man that came into the office several times a week. We fell in love and got married. A year or so later I was sent here to the Dominican for work. During one of the meetings, Emilio Fernandez joined us. He was in his first presidential term at that time. He was larger than life. So charismatic, charming, and sweet.”

Garrett rolled his eyes and sighed. “Yeah, he’s a real peach.”

Margarita nodded in understanding. “I was young. I made a mistake. My husband and I were having troubles. We had been trying to have a baby, and it just wasn’t working out for us. We got into a fight right before I left for the Dominican. I was confused and angry, then suddenly this man comes in. This figurehead of the country who could have any woman he wanted, but he chose me. He flattered me, took me to dinner, and bought me lavish gifts. We had an affair. I flew home two weeks later feeling ashamed of what I’d done. I never told my husband, but four weeks later I found out I was pregnant. He knew it wasn’t his. Aside from the fact that the dates corresponded to my time out of the country, he found out he was sterile while I was gone.”

Garrett listened to Margarita’s story quietly, processing everything she was telling him and trying not to judge her or jump to conclusions about why she was there telling him all this.

“He became enraged, understandably. The abuse started not long after that, verbal and physical. I didn’t know what to do. I was so lost and alone I did the only thing I could think of. I called Emilio,” she admitted, fidgeting in her seat nervously, her eyes never leaving the gun. “He felt awful for what I was going through, but he was in the middle of huge political campaign, and it wouldn’t have looked right to bring a married, pregnant woman from America into his home. He gave me encouragement and strength and talked me through the worst of it. He promised he would send for me and the baby as soon as it was safe and begged me to stay strong for him. For years I put up with my husband’s anger, just biding my time until I could be with Emilio again,” she continued to explain, wiping her sweaty palms on the top of her thighs. “We talked regularly and he sent me money that I kept in a secret account to use on the day I finally got away from my husband. And then one day the call came. Emilio was finally rescuing me. I was leaving the anger and the abuse behind, and we were going to be a family. My son would be able to have a real father who wouldn’t ignore him or push him around. He would have a man in his life he could respect and look up to.”

Garrett’s blood went cold at Margarita’s mention of the word son.

“But that wasn’t to be. Emilio explained I couldn’t take him with me. He told me I needed to come alone, just until he could come up with a plausible story for why he suddenly had a wife and child. He promised me I would only be apart from our son for a very short time, a few weeks at most,” Margarita explained as a tear rolled down her cheek. “I was immediately given a new identity and told that I could never speak English unless I was alone with him. He said it was the only way for the cover he’d crafted to work.”

Garrett’s mind filled with the things he knew from years past, along with information he’d uncovered recently. All of the pieces fell together in a neat, orderly fashion, leaving his hands shaking in fear.

“A few weeks turned into years, though, didn’t it?” Garrett asked.

Margarita nodded her head, the tears falling faster now.

“After months of begging and pleading, he became angry. He had a plan for our son, one that didn’t involve him being coddled by a woman. He wanted him to be raised in an environment that would teach him how to be strong. How to be a man he could one day be proud of and use for his gain. I found out about how he made his money that night. I also found out how imperative it was to never cross Emilio Fernandez. Myself along with twelve young girls were auctioned off to the highest bidders among several of his friends that evening. I spent twenty-four hours being used and degraded by the man who paid for me, fear and shame eating away at me, wondering what was happening to the girls who stood in the room with me earlier, being bet on like cattle at an auction.”

Her voice quivered and she took a tremulous breath as she told Garrett about her horrific ordeal. He couldn’t stand to hear the pain in her voice. He aimed his gun away from her and leaned forward resting his elbows on his thighs and gently patting one of her knees with his hand in comfort. “At least I was older, had experience so to speak. Some of those girls couldn’t have been more than thirteen,” she said with a sob. “When I was returned to Fernandez, he told me how I would continue the charade of being a dutiful wife, a woman that he rescued from poverty and devastation. I would stick by his side and support him like a loving wife should so the people of this country knew he was a man to be trusted. If I didn’t do exactly as he instructed, I would continue to attend the 'auctions', and I would never see my son again.”