Chapter 37 #2
I came to see him on a whim—a compulsion. But being here has only reminded me how powerless I am in his presence.
“Isla.” He stalks along the opposite side of the table, his long stride catching me at the far end. He grabs the crook of my arm and forces me to stop. “I wasn’t built to cave.”
I gasp, flinch, the contact sparking wildfire.
I want him. With all that’s in me, I hunger for a man whose sole purpose could be to control my threat to his family.
He pauses, scowls, his hand sliding from my skin. “Are you scared of me?”
God, yes. Scared of what his touch ignites. Fearful of how much I want to succumb. Petrified that I’m nothing but a worshiper at his altar.
“Isla?” His eyes implore me. “Do I scare you?”
“No.”
“No?” He looks aghast. “Then what the hell was that?”
I smother the instinct to lean into him. Starve it of air.
He inches closer, encroaching until our legs brush.
It’s not him I fear. Not the person whose intelligence I covet. Whose dominance I adore. Whose attention I crave. What frightens me is how loving him, and believing he loves me in return, has the potential to ruin whatever fragile stability I’ve managed to rebuild.
I’m sure I’ll eventually overcome what my father did to me. I can also live with the trauma of Eliseo’s actions.
But there’d be no recovering if I found out all of this was Raffael playing pretend to save his family.
“I’ll never know if this is real,” I whisper, hating how thin my voice sounds.
“You’ll know,” he swears. “There won’t be a day where you’ll doubt it.”
His fingers skim along my arm, awakening riotous goose bumps.
I tense, warring with the keening sound daring to betray me.
“You still want me,” he murmurs.
“It doesn’t matter. This isn’t a good idea.” I sidestep and continue for the door, my stomach in knots as the distance between us grows and liberation comes within reach.
“Not even if I can’t exist without you?”
My breath doesn’t just catch—it claws.
“There’s no future without us together, Isla. I won’t stand for it.”
I stop at the door, my heart in my throat, and glance at him over my shoulder. “You won’t stand for it?”
He inclines his head, prowling forward.
I turn sharply toward him—as if facing my weakness head-on will make this any easier.
But he’s right there, closing in, pressing me into the door, the chill of the glass at my back, his body a mass of hard muscle and deliberate pressure.
“I had years to picture what it would be like if you broke the agreement and became mine.” He articulates the words with lethal precision. “Endless months of torture where I envisaged us married, with you in my bed and—”
“Against my will?” I cut in.
“Would it have been?” His hands glide over my hips, controlling me. Consuming me. “Because in all the futures I imagined, none of them had you feeling anything but at home in my arms.”
Pain throbs through me, not because I doubt him—the problem is how deeply I ache to believe.
“I’ve been deprived my entire life,” he admits. “A father, a mother, the country I was born in, the freedom to disclose who I am and where I come from. And I took that loss in stride. But what I can’t endure is being without you.”
I close my eyes. Scramble to find grounding.
“I would’ve killed for you. Would’ve died.” He’s so close I can taste the whiskey on his breath, have become intoxicated by it. “Is that not enough to earn your trust?”
I wince.
“I let another man date you.” His nose skims my cheek, his mouth feathering close to my ear. “Even though it took everything in me to watch and not slit his throat.”
That shouldn’t be a turn-on.
It shouldn’t.
Dear God, why is it?
“I’m not sure I’ll have the same restraint if it happens again,” he rasps.
Heat pools low in my belly as thoughts riot inside my head, the escalating push and pull driving me to madness.
Kiss him. Claim him. Run.
“You want me,” he whispers. “I refuse to believe in a reality where you don’t.”
I shake my head as my body screams yes. “It’s not that simple.” Not when my ability to trust was eradicated by my own father.
The stakes are too high. The scars too deep.
“You’re right. It’s not.” His touch evaporates. There’s a rustle of movement. Another brush of sound.
I open my eyes and find him reaching inside his suit jacket, retrieving something from the chest pocket.
“Let me make it easier.” He withdraws an envelope and hands it over.
I open it.
Unfold the page inside.
Stare.
The legal jargon hits first. Sterile words in crisp font.
It’s a contract. Already signed. An “irrevocable” transfer of Raffael’s entire personal net worth to me if he betrays my trust in any capacity.
Financially.
Emotionally.
Physically.
Professionally.
My gaze snaps to his. “Why would you sign this?”
He peers back at me, sincerity and conviction molded into the devastating handsomeness of his features. “Because money means nothing when pitted against losing you.”
I hang by a thread, my resolve so close to defeat.
“No.” I shove the paper against his chest, needing to get it away from me as fast as possible.
“Yes.” His hand closes over mine, trapping my palm against the solid thud of his heart.
I whimper. Panic.
His eyes darken. Smolder. “Careful, la mia rovina. Another sound like that and we won’t make it out of this room with our clothes intact.”
Dear God.
I wrench my hand free, turn to the door, then inch it open enough to slide through the crack. “I’ll give it some thought.”
He follows. “I’d appreciate that.”
The words are polite. But the tone? Pure seductive menace.
I spill into the hall and hustle for the elevators, heels clicking, pulse hammering, way too aware of Raffael hot on my tail.
I reach the call button. Strike it harder than necessary.
Then he’s there. Shadowing me. Not touching. Just radiating temptation at my back.
“Despite your concession,” he growls near my ear, “I’m struggling at the thought of letting you leave.”
And despite the trauma of my previous captivity, the prospect of being trapped here is devastatingly compelling.
The elevator dings, and the door slides open.
“You’re a strong man, Raffael.” I step inside. “You can handle it.”
I press the button for the lobby and retreat to the far wall, my stomach on a spin cycle.
He watches me. Visually devours.
My dress becomes a sensitive second skin, my nipples painfully beading against the fabric.
It’s devastating how easily he reduces me to sensation. How bodily autonomy becomes an illusion. A myth.
The doors begin to close, and I hold my breath—waiting, aching—the space between us thinning to a fragile sliver brittle enough to crack.
A few more inches and I’ll be able to regroup. Breathe.
Ten more.
Five.
Two.
Relief feels within my grasp.
Then Raffael’s hands slam between the inch-thick gap, stopping the doors’ momentum. Gears groan as he pushes the metal barriers apart and takes a chilling step inside the elevator.
“I apologize, la mia rovina, but it seems I’m nowhere near as strong as you think I am.”