I gasp, my heart thudding.
“I don’t want you swimming alone,” Santiago says, his voice sounding strange.
“You haven’t been here,” I remind him.
“I’m here now,” he says somberly. And I know something’s wrong.
I swim to the edge, and he stands up, gathers my robe, and wraps it around me as I step out, eyes lingering momentarily on my rounded stomach. When he lifts his gaze up to mine, I think I know what it is I see on his face, and it twists my own heart.
It's pain. He’s suffering.
“What’s happened?” I ask, feeling my eyes fill up.
He tugs the robe closed, fingers warm when they touch my skin, and I miss him. I miss his touch. I miss him so much. I want him to hold me. I want to lean into him.
He cups my cheek, runs his thumb over the dot of ink, the start of something that could have gone so wrong.
“Santiago? What is it?”
“I have men picking Eva up. You’ll both stay in the house for the foreseeable future.”
“What?”
“No more hospital visits.”
“Is it my father? What’s happened?” I pull out of his grasp. “What did you do?”
“It’s—”
“If you hurt him…if you…I’ll never forgive you. I swear it. I will never forgive you!” I spin to get away, but he catches me.
“Ivy.” His voice is hoarse, and when I look at him, my own lip trembles with the pain I see on his face. “Your father is fine. I’ve increased his security, too.”
“Security? What is it?”
His forehead furrows, eyes distant momentarily. “Colette and the baby—”
My stomach lurches. “Oh my god!”
“They’re fine. Now. Someone took them. Someone walked into the café she’d gone to and took them.”
“W…what? What do you mean someone took them?”
“She doesn’t know who it was. The person said Jackson had sent him, that something had happened and he needed her back home and she went with him and…well, Jackson hadn’t sent anyone. He had no idea. There was a second man in the vehicle once she got to it and she said she knew something was wrong but couldn’t do anything about it then, not with the baby. They apparently drove them around then took them to the end of their street a few hours later.”
“Are they okay?”
“They’re unharmed. They’re home and unharmed. IVI is protecting them.”
“Oh, god.” My hand trembles as I lay it over my stomach. Someone took Colette and her baby? Holton had been threatening Jackson.
“And I spoke with Jackson,” he says, eyes far away. “About…” he trails off, takes a deep breath in, then sets both hands at my arms and looks at me for a long, long minute before pulling me in to hold me.
I wrap my arms around his middle.
“I know you deserve better and more than I am capable of giving and I’m sorry for my failing, but I will protect you. I will keep you safe. I swear that on my own life, Ivy. I swear it.”
22
Santiago
I sit on the edge of the bed, studying my wife as she sleeps. The soft rising tide of her breaths is the only comfort I have found in the wake of recent events. To know that she is here, she is alive, is everything.
I understand now that there is nothing Abel won’t do to save himself. There isn’t a soul he wouldn’t sacrifice to spare his own. Words can’t describe the terror that plagues me over what transpired with Colette and her baby. What could have happened?
It could have been Ivy.
It could have been our baby.
And it also could have been Eva.
More than ever, I am confronted by the fact I’m not equipped to handle the myriad of emotions brought to the surface by this situation. The burden of responsibility is so great, and I never expected to feel... so much.
It isn't just Ivy, or Eva, or my sister. It's Marco, Antonia, and my entire staff too. They are embroiled in this situation merely by being in my employ, and I feel a duty to protect them all, as any honorable man should. But it goes beyond duty. It is a desperate need... the likes of which I have never felt before.
When I heard the news of Colette, I did not even think. It was second nature for me to issue my commands. To lock down The Manor, and everyone in it. But in the midst of rattling off those orders, I also found myself instructing Marco to request extra security for Eli. The man I have sworn to loathe for eternity. The man who I had intended to kill just days ago.
I can no longer deny that something inside me is changing. Call it softness, weakness, whatever the appropriate term, the ice block where my heart used to be is beginning to thaw, making room for the warmth of a spring I never anticipated. And it’s all because of her.
I reach out, stroking a lock of her hair between my fingers, and my breath stalls in my lungs. She truly is the most beautiful woman I have ever beheld. A likeness which, try as I might, I cannot seem to capture in my artwork. The delicate curves and lines I draw over and over do her no justice. Nothing can imitate the reality.
I wonder why it is that every man doesn’t fall to his knees when they see her enter a room. And I suppose it’s because they don’t see her as I do. The feelings she evokes in me are overwhelming in nature, too powerful to be defined by the prettiest superlatives. What we have together is too great to be contained by the average turn of phrase. Too rare. It is something I am only just beginning to understand. But understanding and acceptance are still two worlds apart, and I have not mastered the latter.
She possesses every quality I do not. Softness, purity, beauty… in every sense of the word. I am merely a beast of a man, yet, she professes to love me.
My darker half wants to deny it still because that is the easiest thing to do. But the lies we tell ourselves are only effective as long as we believe them. And she is still here. Aching for my company. My touch. She does not flinch at the sight of me, choosing to draw me closer in spite of everything. I would be fooling myself to insist it's a scheme of manipulation. She doesn't have that darkness in her. She couldn't fake the emotion in her voice when she confessed those haunting words.
She is in love with me... and I am helpless to it.
I don't even know what love is. What it feels like. But I know whenever she’s in my presence, I can't look away from her. My blood warms, and my eyes darken, and lightning fills my veins. The organ in my chest beats harder, faster, and I count the seconds until my hands are on her. Claiming her. Owning her.
Is that love?
I don't know.
I don't know anything anymore, except for this suffocating feeling is growing every day that Abel is still out there. As long as he is alive, he is a danger to her and my family and anyone else around us.
Jackson made it very clear to me when we spoke that he believes the same. Abel will destroy anyone he can to get to me. Women and children are not excluded from that list, even if they are his own blood. We can’t move forward until I know he’s dead. Ivy and our child will never be safe until he’s gone, and it’s up to me to make it so.
Right now, that goal has to be my primary focus.
My phone vibrates in my pocket, signaling a text from Marco. The news I've been expecting. I check it quickly and then lean down to kiss my wife on the cheek, closing my eyes and inhaling her.