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6
ISABELLA
The banging on my door at six a.m. would have roused the dead. It certainly wakes me up, which feels awful, considering that I feel as if I barely slept five minutes. My body aches in all the places where I was grabbed or shoved last night, especially my elbow and left hand.
I slip my hand out from under my pile of blankets—the room is fucking freezing—and look at the diamond in the watery grey light coming through the window. It’s a beautiful ring, if old-fashioned, but I hate it. Somehow the dark cuts on my fingers where Diego scraped my hand and the blood dried look appropriate around the massive gem. They’re a visible symbol of his cruelty to me, his ownership, just like the ring is.
“Isabella? Are you up?” A thin voice comes through the door, and I let out a sigh, squeezing my eyes tightly shut before tears can well up.
“Yes!” I manage. “I’m getting up now.” It feels like a physical effort to pull myself upright, like my entire body is weighted down, but I manage it anyway. If I’m going to have to deal with some kind of punishment, I don’t want it to be for a stupid reason like not being able to get out of bed.
A key turns in the lock, and Lucia comes in. She has the same carefully blank expression on her face. She’s wearing a pair of wide-legged black pants with a sleeveless cream silk shirt that has a bow at the throat and a thick black wool cardigan over it. Her hair is a lovely dark brown—or would be, anyway, if she took care of it. It doesn’t look like she does much with it, and it frizzes out around her face, making her blue eyes in her tanned skin look even wider and sadder.
“You need to get up,” she says snappishly. “Mamá is going to be pissed if she comes up here and you’re not dressed yet.”
“Youjustbanged on my door,” I return in a peevish tone before remembering that anything I say to Lucia and how I say it is almost certainly going to make its way back to Diego. “I’m getting up now.” Hearing her call her mother by that familiar term makes my heart ache for my own, even if before all of this, I would have said we didn’t get along. We didn’t agree on what we each wanted for my life, but she was still my mother, and I’d give almost anything to be back there with her now instead of in this awful house.
Lucia ignores me, scooping up the pile of my dress that I left on the floor last night. I let out a hiss as I slide out of bed and my feet touch the cold floor, but I pad over to the wardrobe anyway, noticing her picking at the remaining diamonds and pearls on the dress out of the corner of my eye.
“You can have it if you want,” I tell her with a shrug, fumbling in the upper drawer of the wardrobe for something to wear. “I’m not going to wear it again.”
It was an attempt to be nice, seeing as how Lucia is probably the one person in the house who could actually be a useful ally, but the way her face screws up tells me it was the wrong thing to say. “I don’t want your leftover rags,” she hisses, crumpling the dress in her hands. “I was only ever going to throw it in the trash.”
Sure you were.After picking it clean of the jewels like a fucking crow.
I find a long black cotton dress with a slit up one side and a leather belt that will be comfortable enough. A similar cardigan to the one Lucia is wearing, except mine has a woven pattern in the black and grey wool. It’s very soft and actually very pretty, and I run my fingers over it for a moment, missing some of my things back home. I have a similar dress in a rich blue, one that I liked to throw a cashmere sweater over on chillier days, a sweater that belonged to my grandmother. My mother didn’t want it, preferring new clothes. Still, I liked to put it on and imagine myAbuelasitting in her chair with her knitting or her book, swathed in the warm, soft embrace of it.
Nothing here is mine, and it makes my chest ache with that pang of loneliness again. When Lucia throws out the dress, all that’s left that’s nearly mine will be my mother’s jewels, and even those don’t feel comforting or like they really belong to me. I was only ever borrowing them.
But they’re my last link to home.
Tears well sharply in my eyes, burning, as I think of the necklace Niall gave me. It’s in my jewelry box at home, and the longing I feel for it is so deep and painful that I have to turn away, clutching the clothes to my chest as I walk towards the bathroom to get dressed.If only I had that, I might feel a little better.I’m certain Niall hates me now; I don’t know how he could feel anything else, but it would make me feel less alone all the same. It would be a touchstone to better memories, the last happy moments I had before everything fell apart.
But I don’t have that, either.
When I come back out, Lucia is gone, and so is the dress. I sit in front of the mirror quickly, braiding my hair back on either side and looping it into a bun at the back of my head the way Elena showed me. It makes me feel closer to her, soothing me and hurting all at once like a fist lodged in my chest. I suspect it will please Renata more to see me with a modest hairstyle befitting a future wife instead of leaving it loose and wild around my face.
When I step out of the room, Maria is standing there waiting for me, her mouth pursed. On her elderly face, the expression looks normal, but I can’t help thinking that everyone in this fucking house will have premature wrinkles if they don’t stop copying it. Every member of the Gonzalez household looks as if they spend most of their time sucking on a lemon.
“They’re waiting for you downstairs,” Maria says in a tone laced with reprimand, and I stiffen.
“Well, I don’t think they’d have wanted me to come down naked,” I say primly and sweep in front of her, heading for the staircase. Renata might have done her best to make me feel like nothing last night, but I remind myself that it’s not true. My father’s voice from the gala as Diego dragged me away comes back to me, shoutingI’m RicardofuckingSantiago, and I stiffen my spine as I start to walk downstairs, lifting my chin.
I’ve fucked up, and badly. I’m in the clutches of Diego Gonzalez, and I’m facing a fate that makes me shudder, butI’mIsabella fucking Santiago, and I’m not going to let them cow me.
If they want to hurt me, they can do it while I’m standing on my own two feet.
Maria catches up to me by the time I reach the first floor, unsure of where to go to find the dining room. “This way,” she says primly, raising an eyebrow as her mouth twists with humor, and I have to cut my gaze away to stop from saying something biting.Of course I don’t know where I’m going. This isn’t my home.
The family is already seated for breakfast by the time I walk in. Diego is at the head of the long, carved dining table, looking pompous and satisfied in his strained button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up and collar open, his receding, greying hair slicked back away from his face. It’s clear from looking at him that he was once a more handsome man, like his brother, but all that’s gone now—and knowing who he is deep down, I can’t imagine ever finding him attractive. I don’t know how anyone could.
Renata is seated at his left, straight-backed as if a rod is glued to her spine, with that same pinched expression on her face. The chair to his right is empty, and I know it must be for me. Any doubt of that is stripped away when Diego meets my eyes, his thick lips curling up in a pleased smile, and he nods towards it.
“Come sit where my wife should, Isabella,” he says, patting the table in front of the chair, and I see Renata flinch.
“She doesn’t deserve it yet,” she hisses, and Diego casts her a black glare.
“Silence, woman,” he mutters, and she flinches back again as if he smacked her, her hands tightening in her lap.
