The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina (58)

One night, as they traveled along the French Riviera, she rode with Bolívar in his train compartment. The other performers were stuffed in cargo holds. He assured her she should not feel guilty. Her bare feet dug into the plush rugs and he filled her glass with champagne. He wanted nothing more than to kiss her. The want of it all was the biggest rush he’d felt next to performing, and he would wait. He let her ask everything her curious, clever mind wanted to know. It was like she could see through him. She knew Pedro Bolívar Londo?o Asturias was a ruse, a story he’d concocted because it was what people wanted to hear. He’d come up with the name Asturias after looking at a map of Spain. He’d added the name Pedro because it sounded old, established. He wove words together that turned into mirages, but only Orquídea seemed to recognize the truth behind it. She wanted to pull his curtains back and see the fibers of his being. She prodded at him with her questions. She’d never known her father’s name, and legacy made her curious. What happened to his mother? Did he ever wonder where she was? What did he love, truly love, about this life he’d built? And he felt, for the first time, that when he gave her the answers she asked for, he couldn’t lie.

Orquídea took in the gold painting trim, the prisms of the crystal glasses. She tucked her fine legs up on the settee. She’d begun the night on the other end, and she was slowly moving toward him like the tide.

“How did you attain all of this?” she asked.

“My father.” He told the story of his father and grandfather. He’d turned their misfortunes into something that could not be ignored. Something the public wanted to witness. And he’d done it all by the age of thirty. “I show people that there are true marvels in the world.”

“I’m a marvel?”

“No. You are divine. My Orquídea divina.”

With her, in the privacy of his room, he was just a man. There was nothing special about the silver buttons on his shirt, there was no wax in his beard or oil in his hair. It was as vulnerable as he allowed himself to be.

Then she closed the distance between them and kissed him. Bolívar had never been kissed this way. Slowly, carefully, as if he were the one who needed the soft touch. Like she had peered into his brittle heart and wanted to have care. She undid the silver buttons of his shirt that had always appeared like blinking stars when he was on stage. Her warm palm rested between his pectorals.

“What’s this star on your ring mean? It’s everywhere in the Spectacular.”

She ran her fingers along his bicep and forearm until she touched the signet ring snug on his finger. An eight-pointed star, like a compass rose.

He hesitated, then said, “A family sigil.”

“I’ve never seen silver so lustrous.”

He could have lied. Said it was white gold. Platinum. But he couldn’t seem to lie to her. Not in the beginning, at least. “It’s from a star.”

She playfully rolled her eyes. She didn’t believe him and that was all right. Maybe that was best. Letting his hand rest against the dark hair of his chest, she continued to explore him, and he sat there, a table set for her hunger. He’d never been so aware of his every breath, the uneven murmur of his heartbeat.

“You look afraid,” she said, kneeling on the furs.

“I’m not.” His laughter was a dark rumble because it wasn’t quite true. Bolívar had never been afraid of anything, or anyone. He couldn’t quite figure out what it was about this young woman, this girl who had never been anywhere before she’d met him. He’d watch her stand still when the lioness roared in her cage. He’d watch her laugh with glee at the storm that set upon their ship across the Atlantic. Now, with her mouth on his swollen erection, she was a lightning rod splitting him in half. And he realized that it wasn’t Orquídea he feared, but the way he lost control when they were together.

Bolívar yanked her on top of him, pushing up her dress. His drink spilled over her and he drank it off her skin. He thought he was consuming her, but it was she who was taking from him until they were naked and tangled on the floor among the fringe and furs.

He pulled a cushion under his chest and turned to the side to look at her. She filled her glass with what was left in the champagne bottle. Traced a cold finger along the scars on his bicep, the hard muscles of his back.

“But how did you find all your marvels?” she asked.

He rolled over on his back and rested a hand on his chest, grazed her leg with the other. “My father wished for them.”

She frowned and pinched the taut skin of his abdomen. “I may be from a small country, but I’m not stupid.”

“Can I trust you?”

“It’s not whether or not you can trust me. It’s whether you want to. If you have secrets, I swear I would never tell.”

Bolívar weighed her words. He made a choice. “One day, my father saw a shooting star. He saw where it fell near our camp and we went in search of it. But what we found instead was a boy. A living star.”

“Are you trying to convince me that the Living Star is real? Bolívar—”

“The ground around him had turned into a small crater, and everything was covered in what looked like glass. Even in the night, it lit up like a prism, like water on an oil slick. I cut my finger on it.” He held up his index finger, where there was a thick scar across the pad. She kissed it.