Chapter 16 Beneath the Citrus #3
Marisol is crying now, tears mixing with whatever was in that glass, her careful composure dissolving. "Rafael, please. Just let me explain. I only wanted her to feel sick for a little while. Just a few days. So she'd need to rest, and you'd have time to think, and you'd finally see..."
"See what?" His voice doesn't rise, but something in it makes her flinch. "What exactly was I supposed to see?"
"That she keeps getting in the way." The words tumble out, desperate and damning. "That if she'd just leave again, like she did before, you'd finally understand. I could have helped you. I was helping you. And then she came back and ruined everything."
"I came back to my own home." I step out from behind Rafael, though I stay close. "To my own husband. You don't get to be angry about that."
"You got me fired." Her voice turns venomous. "You destroyed my reputation. I can't find work anywhere because of what you told people about me."
"Rafael fired you after you admitted what you did." My hands are still shaking, but my voice is steady. "You don't get to blame me for that, either."
"I did it because I loved him." She's screaming now, all pretense of control gone. "I was there every day, helping him, listening to him, doing everything right. And he never saw me. He only ever saw you."
"I confided in you about work." Rafael's voice is rough. "About the estate, about my worries, about things I should have been telling my wife. I trusted you because you were her friend. Not because I wanted you."
"You needed me." She stumbles toward him, and two of the regular staff step forward, blocking her path. "You talked to me about things you couldn't tell her. Personal things. Important things. That had to mean something."
"It meant I was failing my marriage." He doesn't move, doesn't flinch. "It meant I was confiding in the wrong person while my wife waited for me to come home. You used that. You turned my weakness into your opportunity."
"I loved you." She stops trying to get past the staff and fixes her eyes on him. "Doesn't that matter?"
"No." He stays beside me, leaving her outstretched hands empty. "It doesn't. Because whatever you felt, I never offered you anything in return. I never touched you. I never wanted you. You built something in your head that was never real."
"It could have been real." She's sobbing now, her words barely coherent. "If she'd just stayed gone. If she'd just given up. But she kept coming back, kept holding on, kept ruining everything I was building."
"You don't get to decide when I leave my husband." I feel the anger finally break through the fear. "Or what I put in my body. You couldn't make either of us choose what you wanted, so you came here to hurt me."
"We were friends." She looks at me, and for a moment I see something almost like grief underneath the desperation. "Best friends. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"
"You were my friend when you called me to that office, too." Her pleading hurts worse than her shouting. Does she expect me to comfort her? "You knew how much I loved him. That was why you knew exactly how to hurt me."
She makes one more lunge toward Rafael, arms reaching, and the staff members block her, keeping her from reaching us. She struggles against them, screaming, all the careful polish stripped away to reveal something raw and broken.
"Keep her away from both of them." One of the older staff members takes charge, directing the others. "Everyone else, please step back. Give them room."
Rafael already has his phone out. "I need police at Tenuta degli Aranci. And medical support. Someone may have been exposed to an unknown substance."
"I didn't drink any of it." I grip his arm, needing him to understand. "I smelled it before it got near my mouth. I didn't swallow anything." Only now do I almost reach for my stomach. The baby. I can't make my mind go any further than that.
"I heard you." He holds my hand against his chest for a moment, his heartbeat racing under my knuckles. "We're going to find out what was in it."
Marisol keeps calling his name, sobbing so hard she can barely finish it. One staff member keeps an arm across her path; the other asks the watching guests to move back.
"Rafael, please." Her voice has gone hoarse. "We were friends too. All three of us. Don't do this. Don't let her do this to me."
"You tried to poison my wife." He doesn't turn to look at her. "You came to my home, you tricked your way in, and you tried to hurt the person I love most in this world. There's nothing to discuss."
"Sera." She's pleading now, reaching toward me from behind the staff member barring her way. "Sera, you have to understand. I never wanted it to go this far. I just wanted a chance. Please. We were like sisters. You can't let them take me."
I look at this woman I used to trust with things I was ashamed to tell anyone else. She knew how to make me answer the phone and come running. Today she expected me to take a glass from her hand. How much of our friendship had been practice for this?
Rafael turns his face toward mine, the phone still at his ear.
"Tell them exactly what she did." I meet his eyes. Marisol starts saying my name again, the way she used to when she wanted me on her side. "Don't leave anything out."