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I’m willing to take my lumps—to a point. “We both know that arranged marriages are not some unique phenomenon in our culture. As I said earlier, Manuel approached me. I didn’t go to him.”
“You couldn’t say no? Is there something wrong with your tongue too? Because clearly your brain isn’t firing on all cylinders.”
“I couldn’t say no.”
“It’s not that you couldn’t.” She marches over to the table, an arm’s length from me. “It’s that you wanted those vineyards. And you were willing to sell your soul for them. Don’t treat me like I’m a fool.”
“The vineyards were part of it. I don’t deny it.” Although it makes the agreement more despicable in her eyes. “But Manuel treated me like a son. You know this. He steered me to the top on a path that Hugo would have never taken.”And he saved my life.
“I’m begging you not to do this.”
“It’s done.”
“You’re married?” She pulls her sweater tighter, as if the temperature plummeted suddenly.
“Less than two weeks.”
“I want to talk to her. I’m going back to Porto with you.”
No fucking way. That’s all I need.
I shake my head. “Absolutely not. You can speak to her after we’re married. Not before. It will only make matters worse.”
“Let me tell you something, big man,” she says, inching closer to the table. “I’ve been in her shoes. My sister was in her shoes. I assure you there isnothingthat could make matters worse. But since you don’t want me to speak with her, I assume she’s not thrilled with the arrangement. Imagine that?”
“She’ll get comfortable. I won’t give her a choice.” My tone is far more flippant than it should be, and her eyes widen, flaring with a rage I haven’t seen in years. Not since my father died.
She takes a long stride in my direction and raises her arm.
I see it coming. I can catch her wrist and prevent the impact. But I let her land the swing.
The slap across the face isn’t hard enough to make me flinch, but the significance isn’t lost on me. I expected her to be upset by the news, but it’s worse than I anticipated.
My mother took endless beatings for me. When I was a young boy, she stepped between my father and me more times than I could count.
“You’re going to get his,” my father would yell when she intervened, “and then I’m going to turn you black and blue for interfering.”
When I was nine, I forbade her from intervening. I warned her over and over. But she didn’t listen. Shortly after I turned eleven, after Hugo fractured her jaw in a drunken rage, I told her that the next time she stepped between my father and me, I would run away, and she’d never see me again. It worked, but it caused her great anguish to sit back and do nothing.
My mother never once raised her hand to me before today. Not even when I deserved it. No, the significance of that slap is not lost on me.
“I am your mother. And no matter how important and powerful you become, you will show me respect. What you’re doing to that young woman is an atrocity.”
Church bells ring in the distance. It seems to go on forever, like the silence between us, growing louder with each chime.
“I love you, Antonio—with all my heart and soul. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Bar none. I would go back and relive it all over again, because it meant having you. But what you’re doing—it’s beyond what I can understand. It doesn’t have to be like this.”
“It does,” I say calmly. “We signed in blood.”
“So what? You might lose your position on the foundation? Maybe some euros. A woman’s life is worth more than any of that. Surely something can be done to make this right.”
“Manuel made me promise to protect her. He was worried about her safety for reasons he refused to share with me. I promised him I would marry her and protect her with my life, if necessary. I will keep that promise.”
“Like they protected me,” she says softly, sitting on the edge of her chair.
They were there for her when I wasn’t. I reach for her hand. “This has nothing to do with you.”
She presses her lips together. I know she doesn’t believe a word of it.
