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CHAPTERTHREE
“Ason,” I croak. Am I surprised the man has children? Hell no. “Where is he? Playing with Franco? I’m sure his mother is waiting for us as well.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if he sprung an entire happy family on me, out of the blue, complete with the family dog.
“No.” He smirks as if amused by a joke I missed. “He would need to be born first, chica. Right from that pretty pussy of yours.”
I swallow, too stunned to speak.
“Youwould be his mother,” Jaguar continues, driving his point home. “No one else.”
Dios mío… Lightheaded, I lean against the wall, praying my wobbling knees hold me upright. I’m hallucinating. Better yet, I’m still delirious from whatever Jaguar drugged me with, and this entire conversation is a fever dream caused by the aftereffects of that. This isn’t happening.
It can’t be.
“You… You don’t want a baby,” I rasp, risking a glance in his direction. “Very funny.”
Rather than chuckle, pleased I’ve caught on to his joke, Jaguar doesn’t even crack a smile.Oh no.I recognize this look. His charming mask has completely fallen off, revealing the calculating figure I first met in his private library. The intellect behind the power-hungry narco.
A man who doesn’t ever lie.
“I wouldn’t jump to such presumptions, Lupe,” he warns. “After all, you were willing to die just to prove how much you value concrete evidence. Give me more respect than that.”
Shit.
“I mean…” I shift away from him, clinging to the frigid wall of the stall. “I’m sure you have children already. You have so many women—”
“Those women are not worthy to bear my child,” he snaps, advancing a single step as if to drive that statement home. Because someone like him—a man who values his dead brother and keeps a “kitty” he shows more affection to than most humans—would be discerning when it came to any children he would choose to have. “They are whores. The mother of my child would be willing to fight like hell to defend them. She’d protect my seed with her very life. And it doesn’t hurt that you have such a pretty little smile—” He reaches out to gently pat my cheek. “Do this for me, and you will have my protection for life—I promise you that.”
It isn’t lost on me that just days ago, I would have given anything to hear those words.
But now…
“I can’t have a child with a man I don’t know,” I say, aware of his calloused palm against my jawline. One wrong move, and he could easily hurt me. “It wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be fair to you—”
“Fair?” He steps back, letting his hand fall. “You’d sell your body to a stranger for Braulio’s son.”
“I had no choice,” I stammer in a rush. ForBraulio’s son. His grated tone makes it clear that he voiced that distinction on purpose. My façade as Tiena has completely fallen away, and I only have the truth to cling to—and I sense that to misstep now would be to lose what little leverage I have. I have no choice but to continue to walk this tightrope.
“Tell me something,” he demands, standing unabashedly naked as the water pelts us from above. “Why go through all this bullshit merely for a child? Why?”
I don’t like this change in subject. “Because he’s my family—”
“Ah, that’s the correct answer. Family.” He smiles in that beautiful, unsettling way. “Few understand the true meaning of that word. The fierceness needed to protect and defend it. I want a woman who will mother my children like a wild viper-kitty. I’ve seen you are capable of that. My little chat with your dear friend confirmed it.”
“You don’t know me,” I croak. Though, given what Pedro might have told him, he probably knows far more than I’d like. Too much. “Please tell me you didn’t hurt—”
“You might be right about that,” he says over me. “Your friend Pedro is a tough nut to crack. He is just as fiercely protective of you as you are of him. Such loyalty is rarely reciprocal. It means you must be a good judge of character.”
“Just tell me if you hurt him. Is he… Please—”
“Pedro is alive and well.” Jaguar smiles again, and just like that, his mask is back in place, obscuring his true emotions. “In fact, you can speak to him,” he says. “He’s downstairs.”
My heart sinks further. Downstairs as in a cage, awaiting another iteration of Gatita to rip him apart?
“If you laid even a hand on him—”
“Save your threats.” With a wave of his hand, he heads for the exit, pausing only to grab a towel and sling it around his waist. “I’m beginning to understand you now, Lupe. What pushes your buttons, and what keeps you sweet. You don’t like being challenged. You don’t like feeling as though you have no options. I push you too far, and you will gladly cut and run. But if I give you a reason to stay… Ah, that loyalty—” he snaps his fingers, and the sound haunts me, echoing off the walls. “That will kick in and make you willing to listen. Finish up and get dressed. We’ll be waiting for you downstairs. I promised Franco I would take him out on the town today. You will accompany us.”
