Chapter Fourteen #2
But I’ve decided on the ring now, and I will have it on her finger, and besides, there’s plenty of time for pleasure later. So all I do is lock gazes with her, letting her see the intention in my eyes, and I can’t resist the triumph that fills me when she blushes like a summer sunrise.
That’s genuine, that response. There’s nothing fake about her desire for me or about the pleasure she takes from my touch. Her orgasms are real, too, and that’s more than she ever got from my father.
The jeweller’s showroom is by appointment only, but they instantly make time for me when I give them my name. We’re shown into an elegant salon with white velvet couches and a white carpet. Glass cases show off the jewellery to perfect effect.
Beatrix’s eyes are wide as the sales assistant leads us to one of the couches and we sit down. I instruct the man to bring us a selection of wedding rings, including ones that have an engagement ring to match, since that’s important too.
‘Please don’t buy me anything too expensive,’ Beatrix murmurs as the man vanishes through a door.
I’m sitting next to her and, after that flirtatious look in the car just before, the warmth of her thigh pressing against mine is making it difficult to think properly.
‘Why not?’ I ask, curious as to why she’s uncomfortable, since I can see that she is.
‘You’re the wife of a very rich man. Shouldn’t you have something expensive? ’
Her hands are clasped in her lap, her attention roving around the room. ‘Our marriage is for legal purposes only and for the baby. Rings…mean something.’
‘So why did you wear that diamond my father bought for you?’ I ask, unable to help myself. ‘Did that mean something?’
A spark of anger glitters in her eyes and she sits a little straighter. ‘This is about Antonio? You know why I married him, Santiago. I told you.’
I want to tell her that no, it’s got nothing to do with him, but again, that would be a lie. ‘Well, you’re marrying me for the same reasons.’
‘Yes,’ she says, the word sharp. ‘I am. To protect myself and the baby. If that’s a problem for you, then you should have said.’
Why do you hurt people all the time? That’s all you ever do. You just can’t help yourself.
The thought is barbed and painful, so I push it away, even as I struggle to keep hold of a temper that shouldn’t be as out of control as it is. ‘It’s not a problem for me,’ I say, attempting to moderate my tone.
She gives me a disbelieving look, then drops her gaze to her hands.
‘You need to stop throwing him back in my face,’ she says.
‘I married him because I had nothing. I didn’t finish high school and I had no qualifications.
I couldn’t get a decent-paying job. I was barely scraping by, and I wanted a life.
I wanted options. I wanted a home and a family, and that’s what I thought marrying Antonio would get me.
’ She glances at me, blue eyes burning. ‘Do you know what it’s like to have nothing and no one?
To have no family and no prospects, and no future except more of the same? It’s lonely, Santiago. And bleak.’
I study her, and for a moment I can see everything in her eyes, all her painful vulnerabilities.
Loneliness, despair, fear. And I remember what she told me the night she arrived, about how she was given up by her father into foster care, and how the one family she wanted to stay with didn’t want her in the end.
All of a sudden, I’m disgusted with myself. Disgusted by my jealousy and how I can’t let it go that she married my father, not me. Disgusted by my anger at her, which has been and is completely unwarranted.
Holding on to anger is what your father did too, remember?
Oh, I remember. Just as I remember telling myself I’d be different.
So I reach out and take her hand, sliding my fingers through hers and gripping tight. Meet her gaze, so painfully blue. ‘I’m sorry that happened to you,’ I say, meaning every word. ‘And, while I don’t know what it’s like to have no family, I do know what it’s like to have no prospects.’
‘You?’ Her fingers tighten in mine, as if she likes me holding her hand. As if she needs it. ‘I find that difficult to believe.’
I like the way she’s gripping me, looking at me as if she’s interested, as if she’s curious. So I say, ‘My mother worked herself to exhaustion to keep a roof over our heads after my father threw us out. So I decided that when I grew up I was going to take care of her, since he wouldn’t.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I had a gift for science,’ I say. ‘Physics in particular. I worked extremely hard at school, got into university early, and then got my PhD. I have a gift for numbers too, so at the same time I played with the stock market and accumulated enough for a research start-up. Then I went looking for investors in the tech sector.’
‘What happened then?’ Her anger has gone now, leaving behind it an open curiosity that I like more and more, since most people aren’t that curious about me as a person.
They want my ideas and my expertise, my talent, and now my money.
Even the lovers I have aren’t interested in who I am.
Then again, I’ve never wanted them to be, so it’s strange to now be enjoying Beatrix’s interest.
‘I had a couple of wealthy investors interested, and the company grew from there.’ I slide my thumb over her soft skin in an absent caress, relishing the feel of her skin against mine.
She nods. ‘I don’t have the same rags-to-riches story that you do, but…
Well, I worked in a supermarket stacking shelves, and a co-worker told me she was going to apply to be on this sugar-baby website in order to get more cash.
And I thought Why not? I didn’t have the education or gifts that you do, but… I’m not unattractive, so I used that.’
I look at her lovely face, hear the catch in her voice as she speaks, and I realise that in many ways we’re alike.
Both of us using what we had in order to survive.
But there’s more to her than merely a pretty face.
She must have had a lot of strength and determination to get through what seems to have been an appalling upbringing.
Certainly, she’s been nothing but strong and determined with me.
She’s a woman capable of achieving anything she sets her mind to. You’d employ her in a heartbeat.
Yes. I would.
‘Antonio was well aware I needed money,’ she goes on. ‘I didn’t take advantage of him, and he didn’t take advantage of me. We had an agreement that satisfied us both.’ She pauses a moment, then says, ‘He told me he didn’t want you to inherit, and that’s why he married me. Did he…tell you that?’
Oh, I know. He flung that in my face the last time I visited him in a last-ditch effort to put our differences aside.
‘Remember that day I turned up at the estate?’ I ask, continuing to caress the back of her hand with my thumb. ‘Not long after your wedding?’
Her cheeks flush and her eyes darken. ‘I remember.’
Yes, I remember, too. How Antonio and I shouted at each other out the front of the hacienda and how, as I turned away to leave, I’d caught a glimpse of Beatrix at the window, staring at me.
‘That’s what he told me,’ I say. ‘That he married you to make sure I didn’t get the estate. So you were right, that’s exactly why.’
Her fingers tighten around mine as if I’m the one needing comfort, and her blue gaze is very direct. ‘He was wrong to do that,’ she says quietly. ‘I thought it was wrong then and it’s still wrong now.’