Chapter 12
CHAPTER 12
Isabella
Packing is impossible.
I don’t know what to take. None of my old things seem to be available. I search through drawers and find myself unable to pick out any items that weren’t bought by Francisco as part of my new wardrobe. It seems unlikely that I only came here with a pair of pants, a top, and two sheath dresses, but everything seems wrong.
Perhaps it’s me who is wrong. My head is clouded with anger and the lingering cuts from his words. I thought Francisco wanted me here. I thought he wanted me at all. That was the reason for our arrangement. He chose me. And now he’s glad to be done with me.
And I’m glad to be done with him.
I keep repeating this lie over and over while I rifle through my walk-in closet. I don’t want to be with him. I don’t crave the things he does to me in the bedroom. I don’t need to see the lust and want in his eyes every time I enter a room. I can live without hearing the sounds he makes when he lets go during sex. None of that matters.
It shouldn’t matter. I toss a cashmere sweater into the brand-new luggage I’ve found with a frustrated growl.
A soft knock at the door makes me pull up. Snap back into the good wife, though I won’t be Francisco’s wife for much longer. Lila stands at the threshold, surveying the open suitcase and the clothing tumbled into it. “His Grace sent some paperwork.”
“Good,” I say, too brightly. “Let me see it.”
I keep my jaw set so I don’t cry as Lila hands me a leather portfolio. It falls open in my hands. It should be easy enough to read the print on the page, but I can’t get past Agreement to Annul . My eyes blur. Why? He’s giving me what I asked for.
Lila puts a soft hand on my arm. “You’re upset. Can I help you?”
“We had a fight,” I blurt out. I shouldn’t be airing my marriage’s dirty laundry to my maid, but what is there to hide from her? She’s been between my legs. She sees everything. “My dad asked for help with his business. There was—there was a bad deal he wants me to smooth out. He got in over his head. The meeting… it’s happening tomorrow. I’d have to get on a plane right now to make it. Francisco said I couldn’t go.”
Lila is frowning. “Forgive me if this is too far, but is there a reason your father couldn’t negotiate on his own behalf?”
“No. He could do it. He signed the original deal. It’s just his way of...”
My maid moves past me to the suitcase. She bends to take the clothing in her hands, then folds each piece and tucks it into the space. “His way of doing business?”
“His way of never having to deal with the consequences.” It’s so obvious, now that I’ve said it out loud. This is the same reason I offered myself in marriage to Francisco. Not just because I love my family and want the best for them...but because my father refused to take responsibility. He let me carry it for him, and he wants me to do it again.
Lila stands and pats the front of her uniform. “Francisco believes in responsibility.” She presses her lips together, seeming to make a decision. “His own family suffered from a lack of it, though not when it came to business.”
My heart aches. “What was it, then?”
“His mother and father, the former Duke and Duchess of Linares, were not a match for each other in terms of their personalities. They both saw each other’s weaknesses and exploited them. Emotions ran high. I have to imagine it was stressful for His Grace.”
“Not a match. What do you mean?”
“There was fighting, constantly. Screaming.” She glances at the door, furtive, as she knows she shouldn’t be talking about this. “There was infidelity on both sides. The household, we thought the young duke would never marry. Not after the wreckage they made.”
“That’s terrible.”
“It was how they died. One night after a fight his mother drove away, furious, enraged. There was an accident. His father went after her. He found her in the moments after the crash. She died in his arms. The former Duke of Linares never recovered from his grief.”
My memory of the conversation in Francisco’s office is different now.
I see it filtered through my own past, and his. He was quick to see what I couldn’t about my father, and of course I didn’t want to believe that. He’s my dad. That doesn’t give him free rein to use me the way he’s been doing. Though I will never abandon my family, I also don’t need to go running every time they call. After all, my first duty is to my marriage now.
And the way I behaved...
No wonder it made his face close off. No wonder he dismissed me like one of the maids. He witnessed a lifetime of that kind of fighting. Francisco saw it at its most frantic heights.
And its most painful depths.
“I...” I’m about to apologize, but it’s not Lila who needs that from me. He didn’t handle the situation well; he could have explained. But at least now I understand. He thinks control will help him avoid the fate of his parents. “Thank you. For telling me all this.”
She nods and returns to the door. “Send for me if you need me.”
When I’m alone, when I’ve blinked the tears away from my eyes, I read the agreement.
It’s not the vengeful document I’d imagined when I threw it in Francisco’s face. In fact, it’s generous to a fault. My family keeps everything. They keep his investment, his backing. They even keep the damn Michelin-starred chef from Bali. They won’t have reason to blame me for ending the marriage. And, in its last paragraph, it releases me entirely from any and all agreements that Francisco and I have entered into. Without consequence. There’s even a provision for support lasting a full year after the annulment is confirmed.
He cares for me.
Enough to put aside the things I said to him and have this delivered to me. This—a door back to my old life, if I want it, and offered without spite or malice. This portfolio is freedom, from our marriage and from him.
I don’t want it.
My heart beats fast and hard at the knowledge, pumping blood into my cheeks and making the tips of my fingertips tingle. I don’t want it. Because I care about Francisco, too. I’ve been so busy with my own confusion that I never bothered to learn about him. There’s a wild heart beneath all that control and dominance.
I want more of his dominance, too. I was a fool when I fought him in his office. He was willing to stand between me and my father’s exploitation. It was, like everything with Francisco, more complex than what I let myself see. He would have been the one to take the fall for my refusal, not me. He would have done that for me.
The portfolio snaps shut in my hands, and I’m headed for the door before I know where I’m going. Out. Out of my bedroom, out into the hall.
I find the butler on his way from one floor to another. He pauses when he sees me rushing for him, making frantic eye contact. “I need your help.”
“Of course, Your Grace.”
“My room.”
Anthony follows me silently back to the bedroom. My heart flutters up into my throat, but I close the door and face him with my chin up. “The bindings that my husband uses on me. Do you know where he keeps them?”
“I do.”
“Get them out, please.”
The butler leaves the room, and I try to calm my racing heart. Step one is to remove all my clothing. I fold my dress neatly and put it on one of the blue satin chairs, along with everything else I’m wearing. Then I take the papers out of the portfolio and take them to the fireplace.
It springs to life with the flick of a switch. I’m certain I’m not supposed to burn things in there, but it feels too right. The flames eat through the papers and curl them into ash. I’m watching them burn when the butler returns. His arms are full of leather bindings with hooks and clips meant to anchor them to the bed.
We exchange a look, and I’m almost swept away by a powerful sense of gratitude. Thank god I don’t have to explain to this man what I want. Saying the words, even after the time I’ve spent in this house, would be too much. I go to the bed and lie down, stretching my arms and legs wide, and he moves efficiently around the mattress.
When he’s finished, I’ve been thoroughly bound for my husband’s display. I test the bindings. They hold. The butler has done his job well. He looks down at me from the side of the bed, calm professionalism on his face. This is a man who has flogged me and fucked my mouth. It doesn’t affect his ability to do his job.
“Is there anything else you needed?”
Part of me wants to ask him to send Francisco to my room, but I don’t want that. I deserve to wait for him. Naked and exposed to anyone from the staff who chooses to walk in.
My face flushes to think about it. Yes. It’s exactly what I deserve. “I don’t need anything else.”
The butler leaves the door open several inches when he goes. His departure stirs the air in the room, moving it over my skin and my tight nipples and between my legs. It whispers there while I wait for my husband to find me.