“Why?”
“We are going back to Spain.”
“Why are we going back to Spain?” He wasn’t getting rid of her, was he? Was their time together already at an end? That was impossible. Two weeks would not be enough time for his grandfather to be convinced of the legitimacy of their relationship. It couldn’t be over. Not now.
Suddenly, the idea of having money, having a life that was full of things and freedom, but lacking in Diego, seemed desperately sad. And not like something she wanted at all.
“We have a wedding to attend,” he said.
“We do?”
“Matías is getting married.” He looked blank when he said it. “It was in the paper. She’s the daughter of some famous...horseman, I guess.”
“Oh.”
“Does that bother you?” The question was asked with an almost-savage intensity.
“Why would it bother me? I’m married to you.”
“Temporarily.”
The word was like an ice pick straight through the center of her chest. “Yes. I suppose that’s true.”
“I thought perhaps it might bother you to see your ex-fiancé married to another.”
“You know for a fact that he was never my lover,” she said. “That I did not have any sort of real relationship with him.”
“Does it bother you to attend his wedding?”
“No. Unless you’re planning on leaving me there in Spain without you.”
He looked completely taken aback by that. “Why would I do that?”
“You’re acting very strange.”
“Because I...”
It occurred to her then, the implications of the marriage. Of course if Matías was able to marry it meant that Diego would not get the total sum of the inheritance. They’d be sharing it. Considering Diego had stolen her from Matías in part to prevent that, he couldn’t be very happy.
“Are you upset about the money?”
He looked genuinely confused. “What?”
“The money. Now you’ll have to share it with Matías.”
“Right. I suppose so. But I will get what’s coming to me as well. I don’t need any of it.”
“Do you hate your brother?” She had to wonder if he did, with the way he was going after him like this, the way he’d tried to sabotage his chance at his inheritance.
“No. I don’t understand him, not any more than he understands me.”
“Then why does this matter?”
He made a sound that would have been a laugh if there were any humor in it. “My father tortured us. He took our mother from us. Now my abuelo is playing games with the only compensation we have for being sired by a madman. I don’t like my life to be under the control of anyone else. I don’t like being manipulated.”
“But you allowed it,” she said. “You married me.”
“I won,” he bit out.
“Then what’s bothering you?” He said nothing. “You’re still afraid that I’m going to run away from you, Diego. Is that it?”
“What has happened here has not felt real,” he ground out.
Those words echoed that deep feeling inside of her. That somehow, secluded on this island, the two of them were a fortress. A fortress that could never be destroyed, but once exposed to the outside world, to the elements...
She had no confidence in it there.
In the ability of a sheltered, recently deflowered heiress to hold on to the attention of a man as complicated and interesting as Diego. That was the problem. She imagined that, mostly, to him she was a novelty. And novelty didn’t last.
“What happened here has been as real as anything else in my life,” she said softly. “At least... At least it was of my choosing.”
“Was it?” he asked. “I kidnapped you. I brought you here. I certainly didn’t ask for your permission.”
“No. You didn’t. But I gave myself to you of my own free will, and I have most certainly given myself to you of my own free will since. Can you doubt that the last couple of weeks were anything other than my choice?”
“That,” he said, his voice hard, “is sex.”
“Fine. So it’s sex. Very good sex, I might add. That doesn’t mean it isn’t real. It doesn’t mean I didn’t choose it.”
“It doesn’t mean it was wise of you.”
She put her hand on his face. “Was it wise of you to kidnap me?”
His dark eyes stayed trained on hers, and he turned his head, kissing her palm. “Of all the things I’ve done, kidnapping you was perhaps the wisest.”
“Let’s go to the wedding,” she said. “I’m more than happy to attend as your wife.”
* * *
The moment he set foot on the dry, cracked ground of the rancho, Diego’s stomach twisted. He had not felt this way when he had returned to procure Liliana. Possibly because he had been distracted by the idea of claiming her as his own—which he had done repeatedly in the days since—but now... Now he felt consumed by the memories. This place. Which contained so many wonderful, terrible things.
The hacienda had not changed, not the red roof and wrought iron details. Nor had the grounds, arid and wild with the only real green the lawn stretching out before the house. The rest was all tangled vines and olive trees, washed pale in the midday heat.
He’d have thought that if he were to gain half ownership of the rancho he might burn the place to the ground. As he had already started to do years ago.
But for some reason, now that thought forced him to imagine what Liliana would think of such a thing. Needless destruction.
“Do you like this place?” he asked as the two of them walked to where the grounds had been set up for the wedding. Chairs positioned toward a flowered archway. He vastly preferred the ceremony he and Liliana had shared.
“Yes,” she returned.
“You think it’s beautiful?”
“Why?”
She stopped walking and looked at him, her blue eyes far too keen.
“Because if you like it then I should not allow anything to happen to it.”
“Why would anything...?”
“If I have ownership of the place it would be my inclination to not let it stand.”
“Because of your father?”
“Yes.”
“To continue to destroy his dream.”
She knew him so well. Understood him. She had that gentle way about her, soft and searching, and far more than he deserved. “Yes,” he confirmed, his voice rough. “I might as well burn it all to ash, no?”
“Is this where...?” She cleared her throat. “Is it where your mother was killed.”
“On these very grounds, yes. You can see the appeal of destroying it.”
“Matías loves this place,” she said. “I didn’t spend a lot of time getting to know him. I often felt like he was more a guardian than anything else. We didn’t have deep conversations. But he told me a great deal about the rancho. And he... He is consumed with it. It’s everything to him. I’m not sure that he has much passion in his entire soul, but what is there... It’s for this place. If you destroyed it, you would be destroying his dreams. Not your father’s.”
Something inside him twisted. “You forget, I kidnapped his bride. You think that the fact he cares about this place might deter me from doing something to it?”
“You wanted me,” she said, her hand on his arm. “That’s different. If you want the rancho...you should have your part of it. But if you want to ruin it... You didn’t take me to destroy me.”