Chapter 2
RAQUEL
There’s a bar I go to, miles from home. It’s my secret hideaway. No one knows about it, and I’m especially grateful for that right now.
I can’t believe I got away. I heard the door open as I kept running. I heard my mother screaming for me to come back, but I only ran faster. Once I was a safe distance away, I called for a car.
I don’t even know why I ran. I know I’ll be coming back soon with my tail between my legs. But there was no way I could’ve plastered a smile on my face as she told me the wonderful news of my wedding.
Carlito knows quite well how much I despise him, and it only makes him want to marry me more. He enjoys torturing me. I know he would have enjoyed it if I’d cried when they told me about the push of the wedding date.
I sip on a Cherry Coke, foregoing the alcohol since I already had some at the wedding. My cell has been ringing nonstop with my mother’s name flashing on the screen.
“Ugh!” I snap, smacking the phone facedown on top of the bar.
But she doesn’t stop calling. She never will. With a loud, exaggerated grumble, I decide to answer.
“What do you want?” I practically bark.
“Where the hell are you! What do you think you’re doing, young lady?!” she shrieks.
I can picture her blonde highlights swaying haphazardly as she walks around the house like she always does when she’s upset.
“Carlito is out searching for you! Do you know that? This is humiliating! Do you even know how your behavior is reflecting on this family? Don’t you get how this makes me look? How could you humiliate me like this?!”
“Humiliating?” I whisper-shout, bitterness crawling from my tone.
“You’re humiliated? What about me?! I can’t even choose the man I want to marry!
You and Dad chose that horrible piece of shit for me.
Someone who treats me like crap, manhandles me like I’m his possession, and cheats on me around town. That’s all you think I’m worth?”
“Carlito is a perfect match.” Her agitation comes clearly through the line. “He comes from a great family with—”
“With money?” My pulse spikes in my neck. “That’s all it’ll ever be with you.” Angry tears streak down my face. “I don’t even matter, do I?”
“Why do you think we’re doing this? For you!” Venom drips from every syllable. “He can provide you a good life and a proper family. You foolish, ungrateful child! What else could you want, huh?!”
“What about love?” I scream a little too loud, causing a few older men around the bar to glance at me.
“Love?” She laughs. “Oh, God. You really are a fool. Love is for losers, darling. People who think they can fall in love and have it all are only lying to themselves. Life isn’t a fairy tale, Raquel.
Time to grow up.” She exhales sharply. “I have given you everything you could ever want, and all I ask in return is your obedience. I will not tolerate this behavior. Your father will be hearing about this, and he’ll be just as disappointed. ”
Something clatters in the background, like she’s knocked into something.
“You will stop your immature nonsense and come home right now!”
“I’ll come back when I damn well please!”
“Raquel, I swea—”
I end the call, my breath lashing out of me and my heart squeezing in my rib cage. My hands tremble as the phone falls out of my grasp and rattles beside my glass.
I’ve never spoken to my mother that way. Not once. But the rage inside me is too great to contain. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t stand them thinking they can control my every move.
Covering my face with my palms, I take deep breaths. I hate this. I’ll never find a way out of this soon-to-be marriage. Not unless I forge my own road. One that ends with my demise.
“Sounds like you need a real drink,” says a deep, seductive voice.
I let my hands gradually drift from my face, simultaneously wiping the tears away.
A handsome, tattooed stranger greets me, the corner of his mouth tipping up into a flirty smile.
Where the hell did he come from? And how did I not notice him before? He’s not the type of man a woman can ignore.
Thick brows frame large, round eyes, the color of rich mahogany—strong, yet comforting. His hair is combed back, but a whisp of it falls slightly past his forehead, the rest of it full and tempting at the top and buzzed at the sides.
My eyes fall to his right arm, which is filled with tattoos. There are elaborate black vines and black roses filling the top of his hand and knuckle. A skull hides beneath the flowers on his forearm, and the sharp vines continue up his arm like tiny teeth.
He screams masculinity and hard edges, but the softness in his smile and those eyes is what draws me in.
He’s as intricate as his tattoos—a complication I shouldn’t find attractive, yet I do. One thing I’ve come to enjoy while working as a resident in a hospital is reading people, and his story already smells like trouble.
“I probably could use a strong one,” I snicker in response, no joy left in my voice. “But it’s also crazy late and I need to eventually get home in one piece, even though I wish I didn’t have to.”
He doesn’t say anything. He just assesses me with his sultry gaze, his fist resting under the dark brown stubble that rides up his angular jaw.
He’s dangerously beautiful. That’s the only way to describe a man like that. The kind of man who looks both sinful and sensual. The kind who holds both danger and temptation in the spark of his gaze.
The hint of his floral tattoo covers the skin of his neck, the rest hiding beneath his gray t-shirt that I’d very much like to remove just to see what’s beneath.
That’s a reckless thought.
What does it matter how attractive he is? I’ll either be dead or married soon. On any other day, I’d enjoy the attention from a man like that, but not today.
Not anymore.
Not ever.
My life is over.
And soon it will be for good.
A realization hits me: I have no intention of going home. I’ll find a way to die today. It’s the only way I’ll ever truly live.
He lifts his glass of honey-colored liquid and brings it to his mouth, his eyes still on mine. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I can drink for the both of us.”
He takes the liquor and downs it in one sip, drinking me in with his eyes at the same time. I can’t stop myself from watching the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows.
Placing the glass back down, he lifts a finger to call for the bartender, but his darkened gaze is still on me, assessing me so ferociously, it’s as though he knows me.
But that’s nonsense. We’ve never met before.
I have the sudden urge to hide, like he can see me. All of me.
And I don’t mean my skin. I mean my heart. My soul. All the pain I hide there.
I’m immersed in it. Suffocating.
The power of his intense gaze is practically ripping away the fabricated layers of my life, leaving nothing but bare bones that rot with my every breath.
“You must have a good story to be here dressed like that,” he adds, his stare cascading over my body, lingering on the thin shoulder straps of my tight black dress.
His jaw tenses. My body flushes from the perusing way his eyes ride down my curves, like he’s already picturing me without my clothes on.
“Long story.” I clear my throat as my eyes dart from the hollows of his cheeks to the rippling, brawny muscles of his chest and arms that are practically exploding from under his tanned skin.
The smirk on his face bends over his full lips once I find his eyes, and I realize he’s caught me gawking. Color rushes to my cheeks, and I instantly turn to the bar, my entire body all warm and flushed.
His chair drags across the floor, pulling closer until the side of his knee touches mine. His breath cruises over my neck.
Hot.
Heavy.
Tempting.
All of him is.
It’s clutching my body in an erotic undercurrent. One I’ve never felt this strongly before. I’m afraid to turn, to glance at him.
Why am I so turned on by a stranger? This is crazy.
I know it’s been a while since I’ve been with someone, and this man is beautiful, but this alluring, electric energy pulling me in needs to stop.
“I’m not against you objectifying me.” His voice caresses over my skin, his words gliding lower, filling the emptiness with rousing need. “Please continue. I’m rather enjoying it. It’s been a while since I enjoyed something this much.”
My heart rate kicks up a notch—okay, a bunch of notches—mingling with the ball of knots meeting my insides.
I should be afraid, sitting here with this man who clearly wants me and could probably hurt me. But does it matter if he does? What do I have to lose? I have nothing to live for anymore.
“I—I wasn’t looking,” I lie as I risk a glance, an exhale dropping harshly from my lips.
The smile dancing on his mouth and the glint in his eyes tell me he knows I’m lying.
His gaze flickers past my face and down my body, making me squirm.
He looks at me as though he wants to taste me, like the liquor still on his breath.
The eroticism slinking in those copper hues should drive me away, but it only pulls me deeper, like quicksand.
I want to be desired. Hungered for.
I crave it. I’ve never felt this level of lust before.
Maybe this is my chance to be someone different. I’m not the Raquel I was yesterday. Today, I can be someone else.
The old Raquel had a chance to live.
The new one doesn’t.
I can finally be carefree with a man and not give a crap. What do I have to lose? He might be just what I need to help me forget the awfulness of my existence, even if just for a few hours.
He focuses on me, and my body instantly comes alive, begging me to surrender to the temptation. He’s an angel in a devil’s body, and deep down, I want to know how it’d feel to be corrupted by the likes of him.
Chiara has hooked up with strangers before, but I’ve always been the relationship type. I need the emotional connection before I dive into someone’s bed. But why should I let that stop me now? I might not be alive tomorrow.
I wasn’t lying when I told Chiara I wanted to die. That’s the only choice I have. The only choice my family left me with.