Page 72 of No Greater Oblivion

“About last night…” he hedges, still searching for the right words. “I don’t want you to be emotionally neglected. I’m sorry.”

I’m not sure what to say. “Okay.”

He lifts a brow at me. “Is that it?”

“No one’s ever apologized for hurting my feelings before. I’m not sure how to react.”

I wish I hadn’t answered so honestly but something about my response must strike a chord in him because his shoulders stiffen.

“Are we happy?”

His question caches me off guard. “What?”

“Answer honestly. Don’t worry about my feelings or what I think. I want you to say the first thing that comes to mind when I ask. Are we happy?”

“I can’t answer that question.”

“Why?”

“Because the answer requires more than a simple yes or no.”

He takes a steadying breath and nods slowly, as if coming to a realization of his own. “I’m not happy,” he states bluntly.

I can’t help but startle. “You’re not?”

“No. My discontentment comes from other things.”

“Like whatever you get caught up doing when you’re supposed to be coming home to me?”

“Yes.”

“My unhappiness comes from not being your priority anymore. I think it’d be easier to accept if I knew what you were doing every time you stood me up or came home late or pulled away from me. But I don’t and so it makes me feel like I’m the problem instead.”

Alejandro considers this a moment and says, “I won’t deny it. There are other things going on but I can’t tell you what they are.”

“Why?”

“Because you don’t need to know, Dahlia. You shouldn’t.”

It takes everything in me not to fight back. To ask why, over and over again, demanding answers to all the questions that haunt me at night. At every turn I’m reminded of what I willingly got myself into and forced to accept the reality of not wanting to live this way anymore. Alejandro warned me—he told me it would be this way and, in my naivety, I thought I’d be able to handle it. Or at the very least, learn to live with it. Instead, I feel it chipping away at what was once an immovable foundation.

For the first time, I find myself wondering whether or not coming here was a mistake. I don’t know how much longer I can go on living this way—loving someone who I may not truly know. He spends more time away than with me nowadays. Deep down, I think I’m afraid of the man he is when I’m not around.

After all, isn’t that why I sat there and watched him murder Jean Beauchamp? To see what he’s capable of?

He leans forward and kisses my cheek. “Why don’t we go away this weekend? Just the two of us.”

Maybe we shouldn’t.

“Go where?”

“Anywhere. I have a plane that can take us anywhere in the world.”

Will it take me home?

“No, nowhere far.”

“All right. Why don’t we take the drive out to the villa? We can leave before noon and come back Sunday evening.”