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20
ISABELLA
For a moment, I’m not sure I heard him correctly.
“Married?You’re going to marry me? But—I thought you didn’t love me. I—I was pretty sure you hated me, even though you came after me; I thought it must only be because of my father.”
My heart felt like it nearly stopped in my chest when he said it, and now it feels like it’s galloping a hundred miles an hour, almost painfully fast.
“I don’t love you,” Niall says flatly, but there’s pain in his eyes when he says it, and it feels like a knife being driven into my chest too.
“But I don’t hate you either,” he continues. “As for coming after you, aye, it was your father’s doing when I first came to get you from Diego. Then I saw him having you carted off, and your father explained to me where he thought you were being sent and to what kind of man. I couldn’t leave you in the hands of a man like Javier, Isabella, no matter how we left things between us. I was going to come to get you free, take you to the States, and wash my hands of it once you were safe.”
The bald truth of his words hurts. It hurts so much, the deepest pain I think I’ve ever felt, hearing him say that he’d planned to be done with me. But after everything, I can’t fault him for it. I still can’t believe he saved me. I can’t think of another man who would have.
“Now, because of the baby,” he continues, “things are different. I can’t simply walk away from that, and I won’t see you or the baby in danger. So I want to do what I’m certain is best, to make sure you both get safely out of Mexico and to a place where I can ensure your safety. Diego can’t take you and force you to be his if you’re already married. He might be able to overlook lost virginity, but a marriage done properly in front of a priest—that, he can’t undo.”
I can’t simply walk away from that.It feels like twisting the knife to hear that he could have—wouldhave walked away from me if I hadn’t been pregnant. It doesn’t make me glad that I am, though, or that my half-baked plan worked. It just makes me sad to think of how the decisions I’d made in haste have come back to haunt us all so permanently.
Niall says he wants the baby, that it changes things for him, and I have to believe that. I have to trust him because, at this moment, here, he’s all I have left in the world.
“When?” I ask simply, and I see him relax when I don’t fight back or argue.
“Tonight.” He finishes his food quickly, with less pleasure than before. “I need to get cleaned up, and then we’ll see about finding a priest.”
I feel my chest constrict, a swirl of emotions running through me that I can’t entirely untangle or name. I’ve gone from being in Javier’s clutches this morning to about to be married tonight—to the one man I hadn’t ever thought I wouldactuallymarry. I hadn’t believed my father would actually marry me to Niall when I’d burst out with it at the gala. I’d just been clutching at any straw I could reach to stop him from giving me to Niall.
Before all of this, I would have been thrilled to marry Niall. I hardly know him—but we know each other better than I would have known anyone my father would have given me to. He’s handsome, kind, not too much older than me, and a good man. A strong, brave man. Someone I would be glad to have as a husband.
All my life, I’ve been raised to believe that marriage has nothing to do with love. It’s not the fact that I’m not sure yet how to quantify my nascent feelings for Niall or his apparent lack of love for me that makes me hesitate and want to protest. It’s the fact that I can tell he’s angry with me, that he’s doing this out of a sense of duty and necessity, not because he wants to. In fact, Iknowhe’d rather do anything but. He’s trying to keep me safe, and as much as I’m glad for that, it hurts too. He wants our baby, or so he says, but he doesn’t really want me.
And it’s all my fault.
I hear the shower running for a long time. I want one too—I showered this morning, but the ride here left me feeling sweaty and grimy—but I’m glad for the space from Niall for a moment, to let me think and process. I’m not going to argue with him. I don’t see how I can, in good conscience, when he’s already risked so much to save me. If he thinks marriage is the only way to keep me safe until we leave Mexico, then I trust him. I know he wouldn’t do it otherwise.
But what about after?What happens once we’re in Boston? Do we stay married, but live separately, as if we’re single? Do we divorce but share custody? I can’t imagine how to navigate any of that. A marriage done properly in the church, is one that can’t be severed by divorce—that’s what I’ve always been taught. But I suspect Niall isn’t a man who lives by those kinds of rules. And as for custody—I’d never imagined having to even consider such a thing. Having children in a marriage in my world means the woman can truly never leave, not unless she wants to leave them behind, and what mother would do that?
I believe Niall will be a good father. But aside from that, I know nothing about his life back in Boston—his parents, or family, or what they might think. What his bosses might think. I don’t know what kind of life is waiting for me there.
But I’m going to find out. Somehow, the lack of choices in this instance feels better. I don’t have to try to decide what to do because thereisn’ta decision. There’s only trusting Niall to keep me alive and out of Diego’s hands, because the alternative is unthinkable.
When he comes out of the shower, I suck in a startled breath. He’s wearing only his underwear, and I have to force myself not to stare. Not just because so much of him is bare, making that familiar warmth in my belly grow and spread as I see his muscled abs, his hard thighs, and the hint of his cock against his boxer briefs, but because of everything else.
He’s covered in purple bruises. There’s less unmarked flesh than there is bruised, and it’s not only that. There are dozens of paper-thin cuts all over his torso, arms, hips and thighs, marked with welts that tell me exactly what happened—that Javier sliced him up and then beat him where the cuts were, or vice versa. And that’s not the worst of it.
“What is that?” I whisper, horrified, pointing at the wounds on his side and his inner thigh, with blistered flesh all around them. “My god, Niall—”
“A taser,” he says tersely. “And then a cattle prod. You don’t have to sit here and watch while I get patched up, Isabella. I just wanted to do it here, instead of the bathroom where it’s too bloody humid.”
“Let me help.” The words come out instantly, even as I feel my stomach turn over from the sight of all the wounds, some of them bleeding slightly after the shower. My voice is breathy and high, my thoughts running faster than I can keep up with.A cattle prod?I’d thought what Javier had put me through was horrifying, but this—this is so much worse.
“You don’t have to.” Niall’s tone is more clipped than before, and I don’t know whether it’s because he’s in pain or angry with me—and I’m afraid to ask. “Just let me sit down here, on the edge of the bed. I found a first-aid kit in the bathroom, it’s not much, but it’ll help. None of the cuts are deep enough to stitch.”
I get off the bed instantly, very aware of how small the bed is—in fact, how small the entire room is. “I want to help,” I insist, reaching for the first-aid kit. “Please, let me.”
Niall relents, and it feels like a small penance, helping him to patch up his wounds. I carefully wipe away the blood, spreading antibiotic ointment on every cut and burn and then patching them with gauze. We end up having to wind a bandage around his entire torso to keep it all in place and then a smaller, looser one around his thigh. When I spread the ointment there, on the burn mark close to his groin, I feel Niall flinch and stiffen. I don’t dare look up. If I saw the heat in his eyes, I wouldn’t know how to handle it right now—and not seeing it would feel even worse.
I want to linger. Even under these circumstances, my hands being on his body has me feeling warm and liquid, wanting to be closer to him, to let my hands wander. I bandage his thigh, trying to keep my touch practical while still not being too rough, but it turns into a caress anyway. I can hear Niall’s breathing quicken, and my heart leaps in my chest.
