Ouch.
That stung.
Abril wasn’t wrong though.
“It’s bad I care?” she asked quietly.
“It’s bad you care so much, you would sacrifice yourself for someone else, yes. Women like us that’s not how we make it in our life.”
“Abril?”
“Hmm?”
Valeria glanced at her sister-in-law from the side, weighing her next words because she didn’t want to offend the one person from her husband’s family who gave a shit, and looked out for her. Then again, Abril had always appreciated Valeria’s honesty, so she chose to say was on her mind.
“I don’t want to be like you,” Valeria whispered, “I’m not like you, or them. I never was.”
Abril cleared her throat, her gaze drawing down to the ledge of the bench seat where Valeria sat, and she stood next to her. “I know, which is why I never understood his obsession with keeping you when you didn’t fit him.”
“I’m a trophy. Something he won. Nothing else.”
“Shame, that.”
Valeria let out a hard exhale and put her attention on the scene outside. “He told me earlier that if I didn’t behave, Maria wouldn’t be there when I returned home.”
Abril made a dismissive noise. “He wouldn’t bother. That’s too much energy to spend for a girl, Val. And that’s all she is to him, a girl. What he wants more is a boy, and so if he can keep you in your place long enough to get what he wants from you, then that’s what he’ll do. Even if it means using her, and your fears about her, to get it.”
She swallowed hard.
Abril didn’t miss it.
“What?”
“He will not get that boy,” Valeria muttered.
“That’s not how sex works, is it?”
“IUD, two years ago. A just in case. I have another four years before it must be replaced.”
Abril whistled low. “Do not let him find out about that.”
Yeah.
Valeria got it.
“But for her—Maria—he doesn’t care,” Abril said, “and if you were a smart woman, you would use that to your advantage more than you do.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Because you’re not like me, right?”
Valeria gave her a glance.
Abril cocked her brow. “Not a lie.”
“Not a lie,” she echoed. “What do you mean, though?”
“If he’s willing to use her to manipulate you into behaving, then use her as a way to make him believe you’re willing to behave.”
Valeria blinked. “Do you mean—”
“He’s a man, Val, and not a complex one to begin with. Should he think letting you have her and do what you want with her will make you react and behave better than his way, which do you think he’ll use?”
Huh.
At the dawning realization in Valeria’s eyes, Abril smirked.
“Keep it in mind.” With that said, Abril turned to leave, but not before saying, “It’s rude to spy. Or hasn’t anyone told you that, yet?”
Valeria’s head snapped sideways at Abril’s chiding only to find the reason for it leaning in the sitting room’s doorway room like he didn’t have a care in the world. Chris shrugged when Abril strolled on past him, but his attention turned on her once Abril left.
Sadness.
That’s what she found in his gaze.
How long had he been listening?
What did it matter?
• • •
Valeria avoided going to bed, but as the house grew quiet and the sky blackened but for the moon and stars, she no longer had a choice except to go to her room. It was always easier when she went willingly rather than Jorge needing to come and find her to drag her to bed.
The bedroom was empty and dark when she made her way upstairs, but she wasn’t mad about it. At least, it gave her a few more minutes to be alone with her thoughts, and without her husband.
Everything was always easier without him.
Valeria also learned what she had to do to make her experience in bed with Jorge less traumatic and painful. As long as she seemed submissive, and unwilling to fight, even if every piece of her wished she didn’t have to be there, doing what he forced her to do, then she walked away from nights with her husband in the morning less sore, and with fewer bruises.
Sad as that was.
So, Valeria readied for her night, sick to her stomach the entire time. Undressing from her day clothes, and slipping into something more appropriate for nighttime, and moved on to set out her clothes for the next day, the minutes ticked by.
Jorge still didn’t come upstairs.
The longer she waited, the more nervous Valeria became sitting on the edge of the bed. There, she had a full view of the door, and what kind of monster might come through it.
Jorge had been in a mood all day, and that was going to translate into the man who entered the bedroom. She much preferred to be ready to deal with it right away instead of being surprised by it.
Valeria had time to consider her life during moments like these, and everything that happened until this point. All the choices she made, and the things she might have done differently so that this wasn’t where she ended up night after night.
She didn’t want to blame herself.
Easier said than done.
Sighing at the sounds of footsteps in the hallway, approaching the bedroom, Valeria glanced down at the clenched hands in her lap. Her fingernails manicured to perfection because that’s what her husband liked, but she was more concerned with the stiffness in her hands that reflected in the rest of her body.
She willed it to calm.
To relax.
It didn’t work—it never did.
The doorknob jiggled, before it turned, and the door pushed open. For the split second she took to peek up, ready to deal with yet another nightmare in her daily life ... only for her to freeze on the bed at the man who slipped into the room.
It wasn’t Jorge at all.
“Chris.”
12.
Valeria’s shock at seeing Chris slip into her room only lasted long enough for him to close the door before she shot up off the bed like a bullet coming out of a gun. Her hands were already up, palms facing him as she came toward him, reading to push him back.
“You can’t be in here,” she hissed, “you can’t—he’ll be up any minute. You have to go!”
“Val—”
“Get out. This isn’t funny anymore, Chris!”
“Valeria.”
She wasn’t hearing him at all. Her hands hit his chest, and with all her might, she pushed him back toward the door. Or rather, she tried. Chris was a wall, tough as fucking brick, and unmovable. That didn’t mean she wasn’t willing to give her all, which he had to appreciate either way, as cute as it was.
Cute.
Yeah, that wasn’t the right word.
Chris had seen Valeria go through a gamut of emotions and situations since his arrival in Mexico. He’d seen her sweet and loving with her child. Sad and scared with her husband. Indifferent when no one thought she was looking, and she was alone with her thoughts. The woman was a spectrum of feelings—never settling on one thing for too long before she had to put on yet another mask to satisfy her husband, and whatever he was demanding of her for the moment.