Looking down at her, he pressed her hand to his heart. “You’ll never take my ring off, never leave my side again. I let you go only so you could calm down, but I won’t let you do this to yourself. Take your anguish out on me, never on yourself.” At her miserable silence, he gritted his teeth. “Weren’t you going to tell me about the baby?”
“Don’t you know me at all?” she countered.
His eyes softened with such...adoration. It still felt like the most genuine thing she’d ever known.
“I know all of you. It’s why you have all of me.” Pain entered his gaze. “You must have found out yesterday, must have been coming to tell me when you overheard us.”
As always, he just knew. It had been how he’d manipulated her so seamlessly. “Yeah, I arrived just in time to hear them congratulating you on the adjustment of your plan.”
“If you’d waited you would have heard me blasting them for refusing to believe you were never part of my plan and forbidding them to ever mention you again. Richard is the only one who knows what we have together, and he knew they’d stepped on forbidden territory.” She did remember Graves saying something to that effect. “But I don’t care what they think. I only care about you. I’m here to take you home, meu amor.”
“I can’t...I can’t be with you anymore.”
“You were just with me now. And you’ll always be with me.”
“You know what this was. I’m unable to resist you, but it will kill me to be with you now.”
“Don’t ever say things like that. I’ll give you time to come to terms with all this on the condition you never shut me out again.”
“I’m more valuable now that I’m a dual-purpose instrument, right? A weapon in your revenge, and a vessel for you heir.” Before he voiced his thunderous disapproval of her interpretation, a terrible idea sparked in her mind. A bargain. “But I will do everything you wish, Rafael...if you let your plan to destroy my father go. Whatever that would cost you, I will compensate you.”
He sat up, the animosity she’d always felt and he’d hidden so well on full blast now. “There’s no compensating me for what your father did. And don’t ask what that was. I already told you it has nothing to do with you. And it will remain so.”
Giving up, she left the bed on shaking legs and went to retrieve her clothes. Once she’d pulled on the clean layers, she exited the bathroom to find him blocking her way.
Circumventing him, she stopped at the door. “I can’t stop you, Rafael. But I can stop myself.”
He prowled toward her. “You can’t. You will never stop loving me, just as I will never stop loving you till the day I die.”
“Even if I never do, it makes no difference. What we had, whatever that was, is over.”
“It will never be over between us, Eliana. You’ll always be mine to protect and cherish every second of my life. And I will be there for every second of your pregnancy, and our child will be born with us long married.”
His conviction overwhelmed her. Warding off another wave of nausea, she staggered past him.
She was at the door when he said something else, so calm and final, it made her stumble the rest of the away out of the hotel.
Once outside, she found Daniel there, waiting. In no condition to refuse his services, she entered the luxurious, perfectly air-conditioned limo, slumped in her seat and closed her eyes, Rafael’s last words looping in her mind, deepening her desperation.
He’d said, “Our wedding will take place on time.”
* * *
Knowing it was pointless to keep running from Rafael, that he’d only keep coming after her, Ellie returned to the mansion. But she drew the line at sharing his bed.
He let her choose where she’d stay. She chose the suite as far away from him as possible on ground level, and she was relieved he didn’t try to invade it once she sought its refuge. He was apparently giving her time to “come to terms,” as he’d called it.
But there was no doing that while she mistrusted his motives, didn’t know the secret behind his enmity and expected a catastrophe to befall her father at any moment.
After another day in hell, longing for him and knowing it was a futile effort to again demand he tell her everything, realization descended on her like a hammer.
She knew who could tell her the truth.
His brothers.
* * *
For all their ruthlessness, Ellie was certain Graves, Raiden and Numair loved Rafael.