Chapter Sixteen
I sit across from my mother in the dining room of the hotel, my arms crossed around my chest, staring sharply at her until she speaks. I will get an explanation, and she will not get away with sharing the bare minimum as she usually does. A basket of warm bread and butter with flakes of salt sits lonely between us as the server pours my mom’s glass full of wine.
“I’ll have some too, please.” I smile at the server: the same friendly face I’ve seen at nearly every meal I’ve eaten at the hotel.
“You shouldn’t drink on your medication, Ry. You know—” my mom starts to say.
I cut her off. “I’m having some.”
She purses her lips but doesn’t argue further. There’s a buzzing between us, almost a tinge of fear radiating from her side, which has never been the case in our power dynamic.
“How did you meet him?” Her voice is cool, dripping cold water.
I shake my head. “Answer my questions first. Why did you mislead me about why we came here? You told me you were celebrating a big deal, a merger. You complained about the seller some, but you didn’t even hint at what you were actually doing. I would have never come if you had. You know that.”
“And what am I doing exactly, Ry? You don’t understand anything about my job or how important this deal will be for us. For you, your future.”
I slam my hand down on the table, shaking the glasses and cutlery.
“What future?” I glare at her.
“Don’t say that.” There’s pain in her voice as my words land the way I intended them to.
I huff. “You know it’s true. So, you brought me here to get revenge on someone and ruin their family’s legacy? Are people’s livelihoods really such a game for you? Is money the only thing you care about?” I lean back in my chair and guzzle some of the wine. “I already know the answer, but I want to hear you say it.”
She mirrors me with her wine, except she downs the entire glass and waves the server over to order a bottle.
“I’m not here to get revenge on anyone. I’m here to make a deal for a valuable piece of land to build an in-demand resort on. Just like I’ve been doing for years. The family business that they’re both obsessed with protecting has been sinking for years. I know it’s easy for you to believe that I’m the big bad villain and everything in this world is black-and-white, right or wrong, but you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about regarding this situation.”
Anger bubbles in my chest. Julián’s family will be out of business, a business that spans generations. The very one he talked about, in detail, and it didn’t sound very small to me. I sat there listening to him talk about his life, his heritage—not knowing my mom was actively destroying that. I shudder, considering how many times I was oblivious to my mother and SetCorp doing this in the past. I knew they built fancy hotels and resorts all over the world, but I never thought about what or who lived and worked on the land before they came in with their bulldozers and checks. Her hundreds of business trips, promotions, and bonuses were all at the expense of someone else’s suffering.
“How did you meet him?” She repeats her question from when we first began. “Julián. Did he seek you out purposely?”
I shake my head, snarling at her audacity.
He didn’t, did he?
No way. I have to stop letting her get into my head.
I sigh heavily out of my nose. “No.”
“He appears to be as hotheaded as his father.” She tries to keep her voice steady, but I’ve been studying her mannerisms my entire life, always reading her body language, paying attention to the click of her tongue, the twitch of her brow, the way she looks at my nose instead of my eyes when she’s trying to hide emotion.
My throat is dry as I ask, “How on earth do you know his father?” My mind is rapidly attempting to put the pieces in order. Julián said she destroyed his life…
There’s something there, a deep history with Julián’s father. Something that she’s been suppressing for god knows how long. Julián said his dad has loved her since they were kids.
My entire body aches down to my bones as I try to piece the puzzle together. Was it possible that she once loved him? God, what are the chances? The first time I fall in love with a man—on the other side of the planet, at that—my mother and his father have history. Fate continues to be cruel to me, reminding me that no matter how good life can feel, it will always be returned doubly as pain. I’ve grown used to physical pain but thought I was numb to emotional agony. Clearly that isn’t the case.
“Tell me about his father: How did you meet him? Did you love him? Why would you do this to someone you loved?”
She’s growing tired and uncomfortable having her hidden past exposed to me. I can feel it before she gets to her feet. Defensiveness covers her like a dark cloak, and her eyes turn to slits.
“I’m doing this because I loved him.”
She yanks the bottle of wine from the ice bucket next to the table and takes it with her as she disappears from the restaurant.
When I get back to my room, it takes everything in me not to hurl into the toilet. I bet if I had eaten something today, that’s exactly what I’d be doing. My mind is a thick fog, my bones feel watery as I mechanically move through my hygiene routine, my mind both empty and overflowing. My ears throb as I wash my hair, not knowing if two or twenty minutes have passed. I step out of the running shower three times to check my phone for a reply from Julián that I know I won’t be getting.
If he would just let me explain… what would I say? That he should look beyond the fact that my mother is single-handedly destroying not just his, but his father’s and all of their employees’ lives, while I’m trying on designer dresses for a bullshit charity event?
It’s selfish of me to even think of asking him to look past this, to ever speak to me again. I know that, but it still makes my heart feel as if it’s been shredded into slivers, painfully floating on top of the sea, not heavy enough to go fully under and be swept away, but never to be whole again.