Page 40 of His to Bedevil
“Mamá,” I warn. “If it made her cry, then yes, it is my business.”
She sighs. “It’s your fault, you know. You told me nothing about this woman, so I didn’t know to avoid any subjects.” My eyebrows sink, and I wait for her to elaborate. “I was asking about her family, and at first she just politely answered my questions, then all of a sudden she got upset. I did apologize to her,mijo. I truly did not mean to upset her. I only wanted to know a little about her. That’s all.” My mother is being sincere, so I’m not angry with her.
“What did she tell you exactly?” Irma has told me nothing so far. She started to open up a little bit about her mother, but then she quickly shut it down.
“Just a little bit about what happened after her father died and how she and her mother became distant.”
There’s a painful stabbing inside my chest. “Tell me everything,” I demand.
My mother clucks her tongue and shakes her head. “Mijo, what Irma and I discussed is between us. If you want answers to anything, you ask her yourself.”
Spinning on my heels, I exit the room. I can’t face my mother anymore right now. The jealousy is bubbling over, and I need to put some distance between us. Irma opened up to my mother after just one day. I would do anything to have her open up to me. To trust me with all of her memories.Time. With time.She’ll eventually give her whole self to me, I just need to have a little more patience with her.
Getting to my office, I sit behind my desk and rub my temples. The action now makes me think of Irma. The way she massaged my head. Her hands working their magic. I wish I could go back upstairs and spend the rest of the day with her. Just a single thought of her drives me to complete obsession. I left our room not even ten minutes ago, and now I find myself pulling up the live feed from our bedroom. But before I can focus on it, Berto comes striding in.
“Alejo, Lucas is on his way home,” he announces, and I sigh in relief.
It’s been a few months since I’ve seen my younger brother. At twenty-eight, he is five years my junior. We’ve always been as thick as thieves and both born into our roles. I was born to run the business one day, and he was born to be the muscles and brawn of it. He’s a beast and the scariest of them all. But my mother thinks of him as her gentle giant.
A few months ago, we raided a warehouse because some other affluential family was trying to move in on our territory. Lucas got badly injured, on top of losing the only woman he has ever loved, other than our mother, only months before that. He had begun to spiral, and it led to him getting sloppy and almost got himself killed. So, I sent him away to recover and take some time off. It’s been the longest I’ve gone without seeing him, and I miss my brother. I feel stronger with him at my side.
I know he’ll disagree about keeping Irma’s ex-lover alive, because of who he is and what he almost got away with, but he knows I’m the boss in this family now. He’ll definitely find it very amusing when he meets Irma and I tell him about how I came to possess her. When he fell in love, he told me it would only be a matter of time before it happened to me.
Irma
Marriage. He wants marriage in exchange for Matches’s life. He turned down my proposal of sex and instead wants to marry me.Who the fuck is this guy?He’s bizarre. I mean what guy on this planet would turn down sex for marriage? Aren’t most guys terrified of marriage? Don’t they try to avoid it and only do it to please their significant other? I just don’t get it. It’s not like he’d be getting anything out of it. Right? Is there some weird inheritance he wants and has to get married in order to get it? No, that can’t be it. He’s pretty well off, and again, why would he choose me? I’m not a princess or royalty. I’m not related to some big politician. There’s nothing he would gain from it. From me. It’s madness.
Times like this is where having a friend or even family would really come in handy. I have absolutely no one to talk to about this. No one to help and give me some advice.“Hey, so this insane deity of a man wants to marry me so that my friend Matches doesn’t die. He’s been crazy good to me, and he’s insanely rich and alluring, and I find myself drawn to him even though he’s a total monster. What do I do? Oh, and he’s pretty adamant about never letting me go.”
Yeah, it’s no wonder why I don’t have any friends…
When Alejo told me that there was this pull connected to his chest, I pretty much stopped breathing. I, too, feel that pull. My body is naturally drawn to his, and when he’s away from me, there’s, like, this longing inside of me that I have never experienced. It’s sick, if you ask me. Don’t they call this Stockholm syndrome or something like that? Falling for your captor. Except I’m not reallyfallingfor him. I’m just attracted to him. And the attraction grows stronger every time he holds me and every time he kisses me. I try so hard to resist, but my body caves every single time.Traitor.
Ugh.I’m on my own here. I have to make this decision all on my own. I have so many questions though. What does marriage mean? Like, why does he even want to do it? Is it just a way of owning me? Does he think once I’m his wife, he can have me on demand? Because it doesn’t work that way, no matter where the hell you come from. If a woman is unwilling and says no, it’s rape. Marriage, no marriage. It’s rape.
He said he wasn’t pining for children, although he said that he’s thinking about it now since I brought it up.Way to go, big mouth.He has tons of money. I am no one. So, why the hell is he demanding marriage?
It’s getting late, and I’m curled up on a lounger outside when my belly starts to grumble with hunger. Alejo better not make me wait for him to eat dinner. I’m starving here now that my appetite has become somewhat normal.
I hear the bedroom door shut, and I sit up to see who just entered. It’s the monster himself, and he looks tired. Pretty much worn out. His suit isn’t as crisp as it was this morning, and his hair is askew. When he looks around and sees me outside, he heads in my direction, and a fluttering sensation happens in my stomach. He’s such a beautiful human being. His bronzed skin stretched over taut muscle. The way he strides like he’s stalking his prey. As he gets closer, I can see slight shadows underneath his eyes, and they’re not a bright coppery color like they typically are.
When he gets to me, he bends down and kisses my forehead. The contact makes me shiver. “Buenas noches, mi amor.”Good evening, my love.“Are you hungry?”
I nod. “Starved, actually.”
“Lo siento, mi amor.”I’m sorry, my love.“I’ll have dinner brought up immediately. I’m just going to go wash up. Can I get you anything in the meantime?” I stare up at him for a long moment and think about how this could be my future husband. The man I will spend the rest of my life with if I don’t find a way out of this. As I shake my head slowly, he gives me a warm smile. “Okay, I’ll be out in a little while.” He heads back inside as he calls over his shoulder, “I’ll have a salad sent up for you right away while you wait for me.”
My eyes follow him all the way inside and to the bathroom. He closes the door, and it snaps me out of my stupor. It’s already as if we’re a married couple, so marrying him wouldn’t be so bad, right? But this could all be an act. An act he’s putting on to try and get me to fall for him and agree to marry him. Then once he gets what he wants, he’ll show me his true colors. He’ll become the brute that he is to everyone else. He probably has a mean temper and wouldn’t hesitate to smack me around a bit to put me in my place when I mouth off. And I know damn well he couldn’t stay faithful to me. He’ll have tons of indiscretions, fucking whoever the hell he wants. It’s probably why he keeps a bunch of pretty women on staff around here and even on his plane. Firing the woman on the plane who was hitting on him was for show, a guile.
Maybe he’ll give me some time to really think about it. Or maybe it can be a long engagement. I could always agree to marry him and convince him to do it in, like, a month or two. That could give me some time to get Matches and me out of this alive. Or maybe, just maybe, it’ll give him enough time to get bored with me. In a month or two, he might change his mind. Realize what he is doing is even too crazy for him. I don’t see him as an indecisive or impulsive man, but deciding to want to marry someone who is still a complete stranger is hasty for anyone.
A maid brings me a salad and sets out a bottle of wine and two glasses, and surprise, surprise. She’s beautiful and young and sexy. She’s not even one of the two that served me lunch earlier. Yup, he only hires beautiful women to toy with when the urge calls for it. Fuck that. I’m not going to marry a man who will continue to debase and disrespect me. He’s already done that to me by making me piss and shit in a bucket for weeks while his men watched through the surveillance cameras.
I’m nibbling on my salad watching the sunset over the horizon in the west when Alejo finally joins me. I freeze with a bite halfway to my mouth as I watch him approach. He really is a divine creature. His hair is dark and shiny, still wet from the shower, his skin seems to glow in the dim lighting, and the way his white T-shirt hugs his body and his powerful thighs stretch his jeans is positively mouthwatering.
When I glance up, I catch him grinning. I ignore him and shove the forkful of salad into my mouth then focus back on the scenery. He sits down just in time for Juanita and two of his sex dolls to come out and serve us. Juanita greets me and asks how I’m doing, and when everything is all set up, they quickly leave.
“How was your day, my love?” He begins cutting into his food, and I sip some more of my wine.
