Arranged(75)

She sent me sly smile. “I won’t be underage forever.”

I rolled my eyes.

“How many brothers does he have?” Santi asked. “And are any of them gay or undecided? Or hell, a little bit curious. I can’t resist beautiful, sarcastic men either.”

I laughed again. It felt good. “He has five and I have no clue. Want me to ask?”

“Yes, please,” he said cheerfully.

The next breaking news that rocked my world was perhaps the most predictable and by far the most painful.

The attack didn’t kill me, and being dragged by the internet didn’t break my spirit, but the third blow nearly did.

New rumors started that Banks had gotten back with his ex. And they came with receipts.

A disheveled, smiling Fatima was photographed on multiple occasions leaving Banks’ apartment building. And headlines such as: Fatima Leaves her Husband for Banks Castelo, Two Marriages on the Line as Banks and Fatima Reconcile, Castelo Leaves his Supermodel Wife for His First Love.

Piled onto that was the fact that I hadn’t seen him since the hospital.

It all painted a dark picture for the future. A picture I didn’t want to see because every time I glimpsed it, it felt like daggers in my heart.

When I entered into this, I was unfeeling. There were things that I wanted that made me willing to put up with the conditions of a marriage of convenience.

But that had changed. Now I felt too many things. I’d have gone back to unfeeling if I could have. Especially as time passed and still he stayed away.

When I finally saw him again, I wished he’d stayed away longer.





CHAPTER





THIRTY-FOUR





He hadn’t called or paid a visit for weeks when he suddenly showed up at my door. No one else was home for once. It was a mercy. We needed to have this out in private.

He looked like hell. He was wearing a suit like he’d come directly from work, but it was wrinkled, tie gone, half the buttons undone. His hair was wild like he’d dragged his hands through it. I thought at first that he was drunk, but when he spoke I realized he was instead hungover.

Or perhaps, like me, he’d just been hung out to dry.

His eyes were all over me, hungry, wary and worried all at once. “You look much better,” he noted.

“You don’t,” I shot back, arms folded over my chest. I wanted to ask him a million questions and slam the door right in his face. The two instincts were warring manically inside me.

He ran a hand through his hair, looking absolutely miserable. “Let’s go to your room. We need to talk.” It wasn’t a request.

When we reached my room, he sat on my bed. He was looking down at his hands like he couldn’t meet my eyes.

This was going to be bad.

“I have to tell you something, but I really don’t want to,” he told his lap after a drawn-out, frustrating as hell pause.

“You’ve gotten back with Fatima,” I said coldly. It took a lot to say the words with composure. They were ripped out of the darkest recesses of my soul, but at least they came out sounding matter-of-fact.

His head shot up, his eyes wide with shock. “What? No. Fuck no.”

Relief flooded me, but not for long.

“It’s worse than that,” he continued.

My chest started aching again. “What?”

“She’s the one who hired those men to hurt you.”

“To kill me,” I corrected before the thought even fully connected. I wasn’t altogether surprised. The idea had been floating on the edge of my brain somewhere since I’d woken up in the hospital bed, especially with the cold way Pasco had been treating his son ever since.

He flinched. “Yes. That. It’s highly doubtful we can ever get enough proof together to trace it back to her directly in a legal sense, but I’m certain of it.” He took a deep breath. “She’s not even bothering to deny it, in fact, she’s proud of it.”

It took me a long time to respond, and when I did, even I was surprised by what came out of my mouth. “How could you have loved someone like that?”

His face twisted up in anguish. “I didn’t know she was capable of—”

“Liar,” I said softly, the word filled with venom. “You looked scared every time she and I exchanged words.” The words seemed to come together in my mind even as I spoke them. “You always suspected she’d try to hurt me.”

He still couldn’t look at me. “I was worried she’d do something malicious, something to fuck with your head, but please believe me when I say that I never knew she was capable of this.” He sounded like he was choking on the words when he added, “My father was always right about her.”

I had no reason to trust him or my reactions where he was concerned, but somehow I could taste his sincerity in the pain etched all over him and I did believe. It help eased at least some of my pain. Enough that I could catch my breath enough to say, “I guess that’s why she’s been leaving your place at all hours lately.” I paused. “To discuss my attack?”

He looked like he was about to be ill. “In part. Listen, she won’t hurt you again. I have a lot of dirt on her, things she’d never want to get out. And if there’s one thing I know about her, it’s that she’s self-obsessed enough to keep quiet when her vanity’s on the line.”