What Raquel and I had was real and he wasn’t some disconnected monster who didn’t care. He simply believed in our family traditions. I could talk to him, reason with him, and hopefully, get through to him the same way Jesse had.
I just needed time, but the ache already slicing through my chest said that maybe the fact that I loved her didn’t matter as much as I’d hoped it would. A moment later, that suspicion was confirmed when she looked up at me again, the devastation in those striking gray eyes just as real as it’d been when I’d arrived at her house last night.
“I think you mean that,” she whispered.
I took another step closer to her. “I do. Of course, I fucking do. I want to be here with you. That hasn’t changed.”
She searched my gaze, her head dropping back for a moment as she inhaled a deep breath, but when she refocused on me, I didn’t see hope or relief in her eyes. Instead, there were only questions and, as it turned out, none that I had any answers to.
“How?” she asked. “You made staying here sound so simple before, but it’s not, is it? It’s not as easy as you just making the decision to stay.”
“No.”
“Then how?” she asked. “You mightwantto stay here, but do you have any idea if or how you can actually do it?”
“No, I don’t know.” Loving her was easy, but everything else was a mess. “I can try, though. I could?—”
“Raquel.” Avery’s voice cut across the foyer from the parking lot, his tone stern and protective.
She glanced at him before looking back at me, but as soon as her eyes met mine again, I knew she was about to leave. Between what he’d told her about what my family does for a living and our arranged marriage customs, she didn’t see a future with me anymore and I couldn’t blame her.
So I reached for her hand and pressed the check into it, needing her to accept at least this. If nothing else, she should have this dumb piece of paper that had somehow been the catalyst for the end.
“Take it,” I said. “I don’t care about the money.”
I just wanted her to not lose the shop, but when her fingers closed around the check, she shoved it right back into my hand instead of taking it. “I can’t accept this.”
Those tears that had been welling on her eyelids seemed to be right on the verge of tipping over, but I never saw it happen. She let go of the check after pressing it firmly into my palm. Then she turned and walked away.
Every instinct in my body rioted as I watched her go, but I didn’t follow. Raquel deserved better than wishful thinking and I couldn’t give her that. As she reached Avery’s truck, he opened the passenger door for her and turned to look at me.
I could see his lips move, probably chirping something at me, but I couldn’t even hear what it was over the roaring in my ears. Raquel snapped at him, her voice carrying faintly above the roaring. “Stop. Just stop. I don’t want to hear another word out of your mouth.”
He lifted both hands in surrender as she climbed into the truck, and a few seconds later, they were gone. I stood completely still, like I’d been planted right there in the entryway, with my chest hurting and my heart racing, my mind spinning so fast that I couldn’t keep up with my own thoughts.
Did I just lose my girl? Overnottaking my money? That has to be a Westwood family first.
Back home, people often got angry because of our money, but usually it was because they wanted it. Yet somehow, I’d managed to lose the love of my life because she’d refused to take mine. Honestly, if I hadn’t been actively dying inside, I might’ve appreciated the irony.
“Mr. Westwood?” the cashier behind me asked. “Would you like to discuss investment opportunities while you’re here?”
I rolled my eyes and shoved the check into my back pocket, not even bothering to answer the guy. Instead, I just turned around and walked out into the Arizona sunshine, genuinely wishing that I’d never even broken down here in the first place.
CHAPTER 30
RAQUEL
It had been a week since I’d last seen Theo. Naturally, I wasn’t counting, but if I had been, it would’ve been seven days, nine hours, and approximately thirty-two minutes.
Okay, so maybe I am counting. Sue me.
I wasn’ttryingto keep track, but I felt terrible about the fight and it was like my body was refusing to let me forget. Every morning when I woke up, I just had this innate sense of how long it’d been, and every hour of the day, I somehow knew another hour had passed since.
In the meantime, I’d dropped into the motel three times looking for him, but he hadn’t been around any of the times I’d been here and Frieda had been completely useless on the information front.
The old woman knew exactly where he was. I knew she knew, but every time I asked, she would simply take a drag of her cigarette and tell me he was helping neighbors and such whoappreciate his good will.
I knew a dig when I heard one, and apparently, Frieda blamed me for pretty much everythingTheogoing wrong.
