After lingering next to his ear for a moment, I draw back my face just enough to meet his gaze, putting on my Bambi eyes and tapping into the crocodile tears that worked this morning.
“But you don’t want to,” I murmur with a subtle tremble on my bottom lip.
Joaquin squints, his eyes darting back and forth between mine. “Mira, Natalia,” he says discreetly while the rest of the table continues the conversation amongst themselves. “I already said I’m going to—”
“It’s okay, cariño.” I make a big show of swallowing my tears and then clearing my throat as I turn from him, forcing a smile at the table. “Disculpe.”
Liliana raises her eyebrows. “Are you okay, Natalia?”
I nod hastily, still forcing my tight-lipped, teary smile as I stand up, turning my back to the table and stepping away.
Behind me, I hear her scoff at Joaquin. “You’re already being mean to her? Nice going, douchebag.”
“I’m not being mean to her,” he insists, attempting to keep his voice low, but I have my hearing homed in on him enough that I can still hear. “I just can’t let her think we can stay married.”
Liliana snorts. “Well, maybe you should’ve thought of that before marrying her, genius. She seems great, and she’s stunning, and she obviously really likes you. And not to mention, Mamá has been on your ass about settling down for years. You might as well just roll with it.”
Joaquin says something else, but I’m too far away now to hear him. I keep the fake waterworks going as I leave the restaurant and step into the casino, skimming the tourists in search of just the right decoy to toy with decent-guy Joaquin’s decent-guy modus operandi.
A smarmy, forty-something man with a dad bod, a receding hairline, and a half-empty drink is seated alone at the satellite bar in the middle of the casino, and he’s perfect. Sullenly trudging to the bar, I take a stool one over from him, and bury my face in my hands to sob.
It only takes ten seconds for him to take the bait. “Hey, peaches,” he calls to me. “A girl as pretty as you should never look that sad.”
I blink up at him, bottom lip still trembling as tears stream down my cheeks. “¿Qué?”
His thin lips curl into a lecherous smile. “No-ah speak-ah any ingles?” he queries, mocking my native tongue, then chuckles.
I shrug listlessly. “No entiendo.”
He continues to chuckle as he shifts his fat ass to the empty stool next to me. “I don’t know what you’re saying, but I bet I can put a smile on that pretty face.”
Just as I anticipated, he clasps one hand around my upper arm and rubs the top of my thigh with the other. I tense up, forcing a panicked expression onto my face, and dart my eyes around the casino.
“Por favor deje de,” I hiccup through another sob. “Por favor no me toques.”
Please stop, please don’t touch me, etc. etc. etc. Be the damsel Joaquin cannot resist saving because he is one-hundred-percent looking for me right now, and he’s going to catch this guy trying to feel me up and get all protective.
Smarmy Guy keeps pulling my arm toward him, keeps mocking my language, and I keep hitching little sobs, and just as I expected, here comes my knight in shining armor.
“Hey,” Joaquin barks, gripping the guy’s fleshy shoulder and jerking him backward. “Is there a reason you’re manhandling my wife, cabron?”
Smarmy Guy instantly cowers at the sight of muscle-stacked, six-foot-two Joaquin and lets go of me. “Oh… wow, sorry. She just looked really upset.” He lifts his hands and shimmies his big butt off the stool, picking up his drink. “Sorry, no harm intended.”
He scampers off, and Joaquin turns to me, bracing his palms on my shoulders. “Are you okay?”
Tsk. He’s such a decent guy. Such a shame.
I drop my chin low and hiccup again. “I want to go home.”
Joaquin drops himself onto the stool next to me and sighs. “Natalia, I think we should go back to the room and talk about everything. We just need to—”
“I said I want to go home,” I say with another pitiful sob. “You don’t want to do this. You weren’t in your right mind when you signed up for this. You need to just take me home.”
“Okay, but I still signed up for it,” he counters, stroking the side of my arm with the back of his fingers. “What about all the trouble you’re in? You still haven’t even explained it all to me again, and I still want to help you.”
“My trouble is not your trouble,” I squeak through an emotionally pinched voice, then wave my hand in the direction of the restaurant. “Your family is very important. Even if you knew me, I’m not right for you. I’d never fit with you. Your life is out of my reach.” I blink my big, teary eyes up at him, and his dark, distinguished brows are drawn together in concern. “Your brother-in-law may be the only actual prince, but everything I learned about you last night and this morning tells me you might as well be royalty, too. I am not fit to even stand your shadow, let alone be your wife.”
His dark-stubbled jaw pulses like he clenched his teeth, and indignation flashes in his brown eyes. “You know, Natalia, you sound a hell of a lot like my Papá right now, and I fuckin’ hate when he sounds like that.”
I lift one shoulder and then let it drop. “Your Papá sounds like a wise man with your best interests at heart.”
“He’s not wise,” Joaquin clips. “He’s just proud. Like, seven deadly sins kinda proud, and it’s not a good way to be. I don’t like him forcing what he thinks is right on me and my sisters, and I don’t like you doing that right now, either.” He presses his strong, tapered index finger into his chest. “I get to choose what I want in life. The only thing you get to choose right now is whether you want to do this with me, and that still hinges on whether I choose you or not.”
I force my chin to tremble wildy. “You won’t choose me. And I choose to go home.”
His brown eyes bore holes into mine for several seconds before he grits his teeth and slams against the back of the stool, his broad shoulders sinking. “Fine. Where’s home for you?”
I blink another fat teardrop out of my eye and stare at him with a well-practiced look of trepidation.
I know exactly where “home” is going to be in this situation, and once he sees it, decent guy Joaquin is going to turn his car right back around and try to rescue me from it. I know he will.
He’s a good man, and it really sucks that he has to die. The world really would be a better place if there were more people like him and fewer people like me.