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I don’t even know what to think or feel about him anymore…
•••••
Relief. That’s what I feel when his arm slides over my waist in bed. When he feels me startle awake, he turns over, onto his back, with me. He moves me, positioning me on top of him, like he’s my personal mattress. He clutches me for dear life around my head and back.
“I fucking hated every second of that.” He whispers in my ear. I try to pull back and look at him, but he holds me still. He kisses my head and smooths my hair. “Sleep. I’m here now, Ellie. It’s done. You’re done. You’re safe. Just sleep.”
Part of me wants to push him away.
Another wants to whisper one million questions in his ear.
Another wants to kiss him and look into his eyes, to make sure he’s okay.
But I’m tired.
And his arms feel like heaven.
So I sleep.
But I dream in questions, did my uncle buy it? Did they start a war? Is Mark really safe? What did they learn from my spying in the office? And most of all, what torturous performance will I have to give next? In the morning, I’ll find out.
CHAPTER 42
Eleanna
I wake up alone in the bed. Funny how what was normal the first twenty-three years of my life has been disrupted so quickly. Still, it’s probably better this way. I need distance. From him and from all of this madness. I find a robe in the closet and head downstairs.
“This has to be done now, tonight?” Mark asks, angry. I walk into the old-world style dining room where my uncle, father and husband sit. Marty is also at the table, and a few men I vaguely recognize.
“Sí. Ah,princesa,you can face some cameras today, can’t you?” Tío Fausto asks me. But it’s not a question. I know this from the expression on my father’s face.
“Of course, Tío.” I answer, my voice sounding froggy.
“Eleanna, come sit,” Mark says, getting up to switch chairs.
“She can eat with her mamá in the other dining room.” Tío says.
Mark glares at him. “My wife can hear what we have planned for her today.”
“And she will, when we’re done.” My uncle waves me away. Mark opens his mouth to keep arguing, as if we haven’t come close enough to death already.
“Mamá wanted to see me anyway,” I give them a small smile and walk through to the kitchen. I’ve barely finished putting toast in the toaster and pouring some tea when Mark comes in. He walks to me as if to hug me but sees my aunt and mother staring.
He sighs, “I’m sorry about this, but the story in the press is that we were on vacation in bumfuck Alaska or someplace and lost power so we couldn’t communicate.”
I look at his tired eyes. “Okay?”
“So, since we’re totally fine, we need to show up at a charity auction we were supposed to attend, tonight.”
“Tonight!” My mother gasps.
“You’ll have to find her a turtleneck dress. She can’t go like that.” My aunt says flatly.
I put my hand up to the bandage. It doesn’t really hurt. Not anywhere near as badly as the burns. The thought of my pain in relation to Mark’s, his family’s, it makes my gut flip. I put down the piece of toast I was about to butter. Mark catches all of it.
“Let’s go home. We’ll have dresses brought over.”
Mamá stands from her place at the dining room table just off of the kitchen. “I can take her it’s no trouble, Mia is coming home to see her, we can—”
