“Keep the corridor clear,” he instructs the men before increasing the length of his steps to catch up with me.
When he reaches me, he places his hand on the crook of my elbow. I yank away from him.
“Kitten—”
“Don’t Kitten me,” I interrupt, standing up for myself for the first time since. . . ever. “You lost the right to call me a nickname when you let people call me a whore!”
His eyes drift around our surroundings before he murmurs, “I did that for you.”
I stare up at him, shocked and disgusted. “Do I look like an idiot?”
My chest is heaving, and tears are streaming down my face, but I hold his gaze, trying to display I'm not as weak as he thinks I am. He scowls but maintains the quiet approach he exhausted during brunch.
“How could letting people call me a whore be for my own benefit?” My words come out rickety, hampered by the sob sitting in the back of my throat.
When Rico steps toward me, I hold my hand out in front of me, demanding for him to stay away. I need to keep a safe distance between us, because even teeming with anger, an excited tingle ran the length of my spine when he grasped my elbow earlier. I clench my teeth and glare into Rico’s eyes, not just disgusted he let people belittle me in front of him, but also at myself. What type of sick, twisted person gets turned on by the same man stabbing a knife into her chest? I keep blaming Vegas for my foolhardiness last week. But it wasn’t Vegas. It was me. I am just as sick and twisted as the man standing in front of me.
Noticing my irate gaze, Rico growls, “Goddamn it, Blaire, don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what? How am I looking at you? Like you’re a monster? Because that's what you are!”
Overlooking the way my callous words caused a brutal pain to hit the middle of my chest, I fling open our bedroom door and storm inside. I wait until I hear Rico enter before I spin around to face him. My fists are clenched at my side, my body poised to fight.
He attempts to speak, but I beat him to it. “What type of man are you if you allow your wife to be ridiculed directly in front of you?”
Anger lines his face. “When the time is right, they’ll suffer the consequences of their actions. Their stupidity will not go unrebuked. Their punishment alone will ensure no man will dare speak of you with such vulgarity again.”
His anger makes his words come out with a heavy Russian accent. They also have an edge of danger to them that sends a shiver through me.
“It isn’t about punishment, Rico. It’s about decency. They belittled me as if I were nothing but a worthless whore right in front of you. That means you agree with what they were saying. I thought I meant more to you than that?”
“You do!” His roar startles me.
My brows knit into a frown. “Well, you have a very funny way of showing it.” I cross my arms over my chest, my heart heavy, my pulse escalating. "I stupidly told myself that it wasn’t the drugs in my system last week that made me agree to marry you. But I was wrong, so very, very wrong.”
The expressionless mask Rico wore throughout brunch slips, momentarily revealing a blaze of emotions. Regret, sorrow, guilt, they are all radiating from his beautiful eyes. But the biggest one—the one that causes the most impact to my heart—is the look of hope.
“You were not wrong, Blaire.” He steps closer to me, his tone less heated, his eyes less pained. “It was not the drugs influencing your decisions. It was you. It was us. Together.”
The brief shake of my head forces a tear to tumble from my eye. I angrily swipe my hand across my cheek, loathing that my tears are making me look weak.
“That man out there…” I point to the door leading to the corridor, “I would have never agreed to marry that man.”
“You didn’t marry that man.” He pounds his fist on his heaving chest. “You married me, Blaire. You married Enrique.”
“It’s the same man!” I yell, my voice cracking with emotions.
Rico shakes his head. “No! They’re not the same. Rico is an act, a role I have to play. The man here, the one standing in front of you, this is Enrique, the man you married. Me. You married me!”
My pulse quickens when he pushes off his feet and spans the distance between us. “You know this, Blaire, you just need to remember.”
I shake my head, sending tears flying off my cheeks. “I don’t know you. You’re a stranger.”
My chin quivers from the torrent of pain surging through his beautiful eyes. “No, Kitten. You know me. The real me.”
I try to shake my head, to deny his claims, but no matter how hard I fight, my heart refuses to acknowledge the pleas of my logical brain. Even though I realize I've only known him for two short weeks, my heart disagrees.
“You know me,” he mutters again, staring me straight in the eyes. “You just need to remember.”
