As Cristiano spoke to a man who looked like a butler, I inched toward Jaz. “Can I have something to drink?”
She gestured around the kitchen. “It’s all yours. There’s filtered water from the fridge or bottles inside, along with soda, beer, and anything else you want.”
It wasn’t mine. Just because I’d married Cristiano didn’t mean I had a right to anything in his home. I opened the fridge and found a sparkling water I hoped would settle my nervous stomach.
I took a few long sips. Fizz bubbled up my chest, and I pressed my hand to my chest, trying and failing to conceal a burp. Everyone but Jaz laughed—even Cristiano.
An embarrassed smile crossed my face. “Excuse me.”
“Jaz,” Cristiano called across the kitchen. “Please show my bride to her bedroom.”
She cocked her head at him. “Her . . . bedroom?”
He nodded once, and Jaz sighed, conveying her disappointment. Perhaps she, too, had thought he’d toss me in a locked cell and forget about me. Or maybe she knew what was to come, and it was jealousy that plagued her. It didn’t seem like a stretch that there could be more to their relationship than employer and staff. That didn’t sit right with me—that Cristiano would abuse his power that way, then flaunt it in front of the household and me. And if he was an unfaithful husband—did I care? Was there any chance he wouldn’t be?
Cristiano took the dish in Jaz’s hands and popped it on the top shelf. “I’ll finish this,” he said. “Go.”
Jaz shrugged as she hopped off the counter and gestured for me to follow. “Come on.”
“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable earlier,” I said as we climbed the staircase. “I was just trying to help.”
“We don’t need your help,” she said.
So I was coming to find out. The question was why? I glanced at my interlaced hands. “And if I need yours?”
As we hit the second floor, she dove into an exaggerated curtsy-bow. “I’m at your service, doña Natalia. We all are. It’s our jobs.”
“I hope we can be friends.” We continued up to the top floor. “Coming from university, where I knew lots of people and had rarely a dull moment, I’m afraid I’ll get lonely.”
Jaz didn’t respond. I’d been willing to give up all that so I could have Diego, but now I had neither him nor that life. And how would I fill that hole in my chest? As night closed in on me, all that I’d lost did too. But I couldn’t let it weigh on me tonight. I had to be strong when Cristiano called for me later.
At the end of a hallway, Jaz used her shoulder to shove open a heavy plank door with iron hinges and hardware that made me feel like I was boarding a pirate ship. A breeze passed through the dark room, fluttering the white gauzy curtains of an elevated, four-poster bed. Only the moon shone through arched doorways that opened to a balcony. Jaz flipped a switch and warm light bathed the thick white walls and red-clay Saltillo tile. A weathered, leather chest sat at the foot of the bed across from a sitting area with a red velvet couch, russet-colored coffee table, and stone fireplace.
I turned in a circle. The room paralleled the rest of the house with dark wooden support beams that cut across a white vaulted ceiling with an antler chandelier as a centerpiece. “This is my room?”
“Sí,” Jaz answered.
As far as jail cells went, it was undoubtedly the most luxurious one in existence. I removed my sandals, picked up the hem of my dress, and made my way to the balcony. I hadn’t even scratched the surface of the bedroom’s magnificence. As I neared, the world spread out before me.
Stars shimmered like a city in a black sky that bled into the horizon and became the ocean. Waves crashed below. A refreshing sea breeze misted my face, almost delightful enough to make up for my circumstances.
The house had been built through the mountain, desert and town behind us, jungle around us, and nothing but ocean and sky before me.
“But it’s so wonderful,” I said to myself. I lived on a bluff, directly over the water, and had never seen anything like it. “And so big.”
From my balcony, it was nothing but ocean and sky. And a long drop to the small strip of beach below. I stared down into the darkness as I once had into a tunnel.
There’s always a choice, Cristiano had told me more than once.
There was always a way out.
“It’s the master,” Cristiano’s deep, contented voice answered behind me, rumbling through the beauty of this new world like thunder. “If you’re thinking of jumping, don’t. You’re forbidden.”
I turned and braced myself against the short, stucco wall. A cream and brown woven hammock big enough for two swayed in one corner with the breeze. “I’m forbidden?”