Chapter Ten #3
She’d always believed she had a connection to Santiago, but she realised now the connection had been the scandal that no one talked about.
The scandal that had haunted so much of Santiago’s childhood.
To realise it had haunted so much of hers too, though, was no comfort.
Because what should have brought them closer was ripping them apart.
‘Why do you not answer?’ he asked, the derisive tone matched by the brittle judgement in his eyes.
She swallowed down the yearning. He thought she’d lied to him for months, thought she’d pretended not to know who he really was?
She didn’t even want to guess why he would think such a thing…
Because all it would do was confirm how little she really knew and understood him.
She’d known his reasons for this marriage had been pragmatic, but she’d never believed he was a cold man, far from it.
‘I… I can leave,’ she offered, even though it hurt to even contemplate such a thing. But she had to cauterise the hope. Because all her na?ve dreams about this marriage had been exposed now to the harsh glare of reality.
One dark eyebrow lifted, the sceptical arch matched by the tight smile.
‘How very noble of you,’ he said. ‘But I’m afraid we are due to honeymoon shortly on Isla de la Luna. Have you forgotten that one of the purposes of this marriage was to garner some good publicity for that venture?’
She recoiled at the chilling tone. ‘But how can we go on honeymoon now?’
‘Of course we can. Now we have your identity, we can make this marriage official.’
‘But… But you don’t want to be married to me any more?’ she whispered, as shock layered over the sick feeling of inadequacy.
‘Unfortunately, what I want and what I need are not the same thing,’ he said, as the last of her hope died inside her.
‘The press is already aware of your identity,’ he continued.
‘When the story of our betrothal breaks, the vows we have already made will get out too,’ he said, the flat, emotionless tone only scaring her more.
‘It is too late to undo the marriage now. It would only bring more scandal on this family, which has already suffered enough at your hands.’
She flinched at the furious contempt in his face and the clipped tone, which suggested he was holding onto his temper with an effort.
‘None of it was deliberate,’ she managed, forced to defend herself.
Even as she said the words, though, the hideous irony struck her.
She’d come to Spain to find out why her mother had run off with Santiago’s father that night.
And now she understood her mother’s decision, because she had done the same thing with álvaro’s son.
She had loved his attention, become intoxicated by their livewire sexual chemistry, enough to believe she could build a future with a man she barely knew…
That her mind had tricked her into throwing all caution away, the way her mother had, was beyond ironic. But so much worse was the yearning that would not stop—for Santiago to still want her, for him to believe she had not meant to hurt him…
‘What our parents did was wrong,’ she said. ‘But my mother was young and in love for the first time,’ she continued, not even sure any more if she was trying to defend her mother’s choices now, or her own…
Santiago barked out a harsh laugh. ‘Don’t be foolish. There is no such thing as love. They were two selfish people who decided that screwing each other was more important than facing up to their responsibilities. The only difference is that with your mother, my father chose not to cover it up.’
‘How… How do you know that?’ she asked, shocked anew by how bitter he sounded.
‘Because their affair was not the first time he screwed a woman who was not his wife,’ he countered, spitting out the ugly words as if they tasted sour on his tongue.
‘Your mother was just one of many women my father took to his bed during his marriage. The first time I saw him humping one of his mistresses was in the bodega when I was eight years old.’ The golden shards in his irises glittered with contempt, but under it she could see the pain that child had endured too.
And the disillusionment. ‘I kept his secrets, out of some childish sense of loyalty, but after that day I knew exactly who he was.’
Despite the hideous things he had said to her, the terrible things he had accused her of, sympathy welled up in her chest because she could hear the shame in his voice.
She’d always known that the tragedy which had befallen his family had had a marked effect on him, that the twin burdens of grief and responsibility thrust upon him as a teenager had made him a man who was determined never to feel too much.
But now she understood—his whole childhood had been marred by his father’s actions, the one tragic betrayal involving her mother simply a culmination of so many other lies.
Did this explain his refusal to trust her now?
‘I’m sorry, Santiago. Your father sounds like a selfish man, unworthy of your loyalty and respect. But this is not the same…’
And we don’t have to be the same , she thought frantically.
Last night, this morning, every time he had taken her with such need, such passion… It hadn’t been just about the sex, and chemistry, it had been so much more than that. She’d seen a man who wanted to make an emotional connection, even if he couldn’t admit it to himself or her.
Why was he making them both pay for something they had had no part of?
She reached out to touch his arm—desperate to comfort that boy, desperate to connect again with the man she had seen in the rare moments when he had let his guard down. Moments which seemed even more precious now.
But instead of accepting her compassion, the muscles of his forearm tensed and he drew away from her touch. His expression remained cold and unmoved.
‘You’re wrong,’ he said, the cutting tone thick with sarcasm.
‘My decision to have you, no matter the cost to my family and my reputation, proves that I am my father’s son after all,’ he added, but beneath the brittle anger she could also hear the regret.
‘I kept his secrets because I was too scared not to. And because of my cowardice, my mother never understood what a bastard he really was. She had no way to protect herself against his lies—when the truth was exposed for the whole world to see—and so she took her own life.’
His jaw hardened as Cerys’s stomach churned. ‘What…what are you saying, Santiago? I thought your mother died in childbirth?’
Wasn’t that what Ana had said? What the press reports had implied? That the shock of her husband’s death had caused his mother to go into premature labour and the subsequent loss of blood had led to her death and her baby’s.
‘She killed herself, and as a result the child inside her,’ he hissed, and her stomach turned to lead as she realised what he was saying. His mother hadn’t died from a miscarriage, she’d committed suicide. Which meant what Santiago had endured that summer had been even more horrendous.
‘I didn’t know she had the pills. I should have realised how much pain she was in…’ he continued. He heaved a tortured breath, his gaze becoming haunted. ‘She still believed he was a good man, that he was worthy of her love, because of my silence.’
She pressed her palm to his cheek, the muscle in his jaw so rigid her instinct was to soothe. ‘That’s not true, Santiago. It wasn’t your fault. You were just a child.’
His gaze flashed to hers and he jerked his head away from her touch.
‘I was man enough to keep his secrets from her for eight years. I knew who he was, and I said nothing. If she had known who he really was—that he had never been faithful—she would not have been so shocked by the affair, so devastated when he died. That’s on me and I will bear the responsibility for it for the rest of my life. ’
‘Santiago!’ she gasped. ‘How can you believe a child of eight could be more culpable than a man of thirty?’
It explained so much, she thought. Why he was so determined to protect his siblings, why he had been determined to protect her—because he believed he had failed to protect his mother…
But also why he found it so hard to share his feelings, to be vulnerable, to admit he needed support too.
Because he had always been the one to take on the responsibility, to pay the price for his father’s crimes…
But where did all these terrible truths leave them?
‘We can’t legalise this marriage. Not now. Surely you can see that, Santiago,’ she said carefully, even as her heart shattered.
She understood now exactly how much he had lost. How badly he had been hurt. But how could she ever hope for more from him now, when she would always be linked in his eyes to the events which had destroyed his childhood?
‘We do not have a choice,’ he replied, the flat tone only hurting her more.
‘But why not?’ she asked, desperate now. Leaving the castillo , leaving Ana and María and all the other friends she had made here—even Alejandro—would hurt immeasurably.
The friendships she’d made in Spain over the course of a few months had been more intense, much deeper and more real than any others she had made in her life before now, because she’d always been held back by the fear of abandonment which had dogged her until she’d woken in Santiago De Montoya’s home.
But how could she stay, when being with Santiago, seeing how much he despised her, would hurt so much more?
The full impact of what she had done dawned on her.
She’d let herself fall in love with this hard, cynical man.
Even though he’d never really given her any reason to hope for more from this marriage, she’d felt cherished and important.
But what they’d had was a lie. Even if one day he could believe she hadn’t faked the amnesia, how could she ever atone for sins that weren’t even hers?