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Chapter 22
“I’m telling you,the woman is losing her mind.”
Rolling my eyes, I scan the tilled soil outside, huffing when, once again, I see no significant growth in the garden I planted last month. Stems are beginning to sprout, peeking up above the soil, but no flowers have flourished. Not even the daylilies, despite supposedly having a short blooming period.
Part of me is starting to wonder if maybe the air of death that surrounds the house is keeping the flowers underground, where they’re safe.
If letting Kal help weed and prepare the soil didn’t suck the life from the area.
I glare at the window planter above the kitchen sink, where the mint Marcelline started sprawls out of its container, thriving in the sunlight provided.
Through the speaker on my phone, my sister Ariana rambles on about how badly Mamá misses me.
“I mean, she sits on your balcony every single night, staring out like you’re dead or something.”
Sadness weasels its way into my soul, the idea of being the source of my parents’ heartache not something I like to entertain. Even if their own motives aren’t necessarily always the most selfless, my lot in life has been to not add to the unhappiness rife in our world.
It’s something I plagued myself with, even as a child, going to great lengths to be what my parents wanted. The perfect little mafia princess, docile and submissive, willing to do anything to make them proud.
Anything for a chance at seeing the glimmer of pride in my father’s dark eyes, or for my mother not to look at me like a younger, worse version of herself she could live through.
Still, I am where I am, who I am, because of them and their choices. The least my mother can do is cut me a little slack, and yet she’s still trying to make me feel guilty, still trying to control me, when we aren’t even sharing the same land.
“In the States, most people who grow up and get married move out of their parents’ houses,” I tell Ariana, picking at a dead piece of mint, tossing it into the garbage disposal. “In fact, it’s a little embarrassing I didn’t leave sooner.”
“Not that you’d have been allowed to go anywhere,” she says, and when I pick up the phone, reloading the video chat, I’m met by her big brown eyes as she leans into the camera, applying a thin layer of makeup to her water line. “You’re lucky Kal got you out when he did.”
I raise my eyebrows. “That sounds ominous. What are you not telling me?”
She grins her little lopsided grin, twirling a strand of her chestnut-colored hair around a manicured finger. “Nothing, really. Just... things changed a bit when you left.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Everyone got really tight-lipped; Papá hardly comes out of the study, and when he does, there’s this weird look in his eyes, like...”
She trails off, and I grip the edge of the marble counter, waiting for her to continue. “Like what?”
“Like he’s a dead man walking.” Ariana glances at something past the camera, widening her eyes slightly in an annoyed gesture she’s done since we were kids. “Anyway... how’s married life? Figure out where you’re at yet? I know Mamá is still hell-bent on finding you.”
Feeling uneasy about the way the last subject cut off so quickly, I decide to ignore it and move on with her; my sisters aren’t the kind of people to keep quiet about anything, least of all something that would put them in danger.
At least, that’s what I tell myself as I head down the hall to the library, tucking myself inside while Kal’s at yet another meeting.
Over the last few weeks, we’ve certainly gotten a bit closer—physically, at least. The man is a statue made of stone, and each time he fucks me, a little piece of the exterior chisels away. But the fragments are so small, it never feels as if I’m actually making any progress.
He’s wound tighter than the crank on an old grandfather clock, and every time we fuck, it’s evident he’s trying to funnel his frustrations directly into the act.
Not that I’m not enjoying the ride; my body is constantly sore in places I didn’t even know existed, my mind swept away each night on a tidal wave of ecstasy. It’s just that the ride is more like a roller coaster, and the theme park attendant isn’t letting me off.
And the problem is, I want him to open up to me. Since the night of my attack, I’ve given up on the quest to keep my attraction a secret, and instead embrace it every chance I get.
Sometimes that’s by milling about in his office, perching on the edge of his desk while he goes over real estate contracts and malpractice suits—not his, somehow; instead, he likes to keep up to date on big ones rocking the medical world, ‘just in case’—and slowly parting my legs until he sees what I’m offering, and abandons his work to do me instead.
Sometimes it’s by prodding him with a million questions, starting with unimportant ones until he’s irritated enough to answer what I really want to know.
Like how he never met his father, and that it wasn’t until after his mother died that he found out he had siblings.
Or how he grew up impoverished, and it was my father’s help that dug him out of it.
