was always you I wanted.” Gripping her head, he tried to make her look at him. She finally did and tears flowed thicker. He looked exactly like the man she loved. That man who didn’t exist. “I never intended to use you against him. And the only calculation you felt targeted your father.”
“Now it all makes sense. The...viciousness I felt from you toward him. And I kept rationalizing it so I could be with you. And I ended up giving you everything you needed...to destroy my father.” The first sob tore out of her. “All an act...”
He squeezed her tighter. “I never acted with you.”
“I don’t believe...anything you say...anymore.”
“You have to. Eu te amo, Eliana—I love you and that’s the only truth. And when you remember everything we had...”
“I do...remember.” Her every word now got hacked in two, the pain unbearable. “Every touch...and word...and look. And they’re all tainted with...what I now know.”
His hands roamed her face and body, as if he’d wipe away what she now knew. “That’s shock talking. You’re just angry.”
Sobs caught in her lungs, almost tore them apart. “I’m not...angry...I’m...destroyed. You...destroyed me...Rafael.”
“No... Deus, Eliana, don’t say that. I would never hurt you. I only care about you, about us.”
“There is...no...us.”
“There is nothing but us. My plans for your father have nothing to do with us. Nothing. And after our wedding...”
It finally hurt enough. It made her lurch out of his arms, tumble onto the couch, pushing against him as if he burned her. “You...think I’ll go ahead with the wedding...as if nothing happened? As if you’re still the man I loved?”
He burst to his feet, his frustration pummeling her. “If this had happened a month after the wedding, I would have already secured you, us.”
This made tears and sobs stop abruptly. “If we’d been married ten years, it would have still ended things between us.”
Stabbing his fingers through his hair, he exhaled heavily. “I can see I’m not talking you down but just making it all worse. But I swear to you, Eliana, we have nothing to do with anything I ever planned for your father. I never lied to you about my feelings, and I never wanted to hurt you.”
“Then prove it. Don’t hurt him.”
The fire went out in his eyes, that terrible, terrifying ice impaling her. “Your father has to pay.”
And she wailed, “Pay for what?”
His face became an opaque mask. “It’s nothing to do with us, Eliana. Nothing to do with you.”
“It has everything to do with me. He’s the most important person in my world.”
His eyes flared again. “I thought that was me.”
“I don’t even know who you are anymore. But I know who he is. He’s the man who’s been there for me every single hour since I was born. He’s my father.”
She pulled at her finger in a frenzy, almost pulling it out of its socket. By the time she yanked his ring off, she was panting, weeping, shaking all over.
“Put my ring back on your finger, Eliana. Now.”
Holding his volcanic gaze, she let the ring drop to the pristinely polished hardwood floor.
For one last moment, she looked up at him—the most incredible dream of her life, who’d turned out to be its most devastating nightmare. And said goodbye.
“If you’re my father’s enemy, you’re my enemy, too.”
Staggering around, she stumbled out of the room. Out of his mansion. Out of his life.
Where she’d never truly been.
Crumpled on a bed in some hotel, Ellie lay like something broken and discarded, the storm of misery buffeting her.
She hadn’t been exaggerating when she’d told Rafael he’d destroyed her. He’d crushed something inside her. Her belief in her judgment, which balanced her, which she depended on to guide her through life. He’d done so once before only to heal it, then boost it to no end. Now he’d crushed it again, irrevocably this time, along with everything beautiful and hopeful inside her.
Just hours ago she’d been on top of the world, secure in the love of the man she adored, pregnant with his baby, and a couple of weeks away from marrying him. Now everything lay in ruins at the bottom of the hollow shell she’d become.
Everything had been a lie.
But how had she ever believed it had been real? The more she thought back, the more she remembered how he’d made her give him every detail of her father’s work, the clearer it became that she’d always been a means to an end to him. And this made sense. That she’d been just an instrument to him. How had she ever believed a man like him could love her like she loved him? Hadn’t she already known that he was too much for her?
Then the avalanche began again.
Every second from the moment she’d laid eyes on him, every memory, so brutal in clarity, so heartrending in beauty, blasted holes in her heart. The cascade strengthened with every snippet of remembrance, decimating her self-worth, submerging her in humiliation. Every word she’d uttered, admiring and believing in him; every glance that hungered for him and adored him; every liberty she’d begged him to take with her body, with her being; every surrender and trust she’d bestowed on him, certain he’d treasure it.
The damage would only spread, deepen, until there was nothing left of her but ashes. And it had all been for nothing. She’d been nothing to him. Worse than nothing. She’d been the knife he’d been honing to stab her father with.
She could only be thankful he’d broken that knife before he had a chance to use it.
Suddenly, she bolted upright before slumping back, faint with the hours of soul-tearing weeping...and with true terror.
For her father.
Rafael was too powerful, could be—was—ruthless. Whether he wielded her as a weapon or not, there was no stopping him.
If only she could find out the reason for Rafael’s enmity, she might find a way out. But she’d seen it in his eyes. He was never telling her why.
There was only one other possible source of info.
* * *
“Are you sure it’s only a stomach bug?”
That was the fifth time her father had asked her that question inside five minutes. That had been the one thing she could think of to explain how horrible she looked.
Ellie nodded. “The worst of it is over.”
Her reassurance did nothing to allay his anxiety. After her mother had complained of what they’d thought digestive troubles, which had turned out to be terminal cancer, her father had been a full-blown, worst-case-scenario worrywart. All her life, he’d been obsessed with her health.
“Daddy, please answer me.”
She’d asked if he’d ever committed any serious indiscretion. He’d thought she was asking because she didn’t believe untimely decisions were the only reason for the trouble his business was in. He really had no clue Rafael was after him or why he would be. At least this reassured her she wouldn’t discover she didn’t know her father, either.
Her father sagged down beside her on the couch, his unseeing eyes scanning