Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
I gnacio couldn’t let it go.
He couldn’t forget what Delta had said or the look on her face when she said Something bad .
A heaviness rested in his stomach—one he couldn’t shake because he knew what had happened to her was worse than bad, more than likely terrible. The way she ran away from him proved it.
He took the box of cigarettes from the shelf in the kitchen cabinet and tapped one out.
No.
The stress of dealing with Delta and wanting to control his emotions was driving him to smoke again. Of course, if he really wanted to stop, he wouldn’t have them in the house.
He shoved the cigarette back into the box and tossed the box on the shelf. He then took two stairs at a time to the second floor and pushed his way inside their bedroom. Delta was coming out of the bathroom and pulled up short.
“We need to talk,” he said.
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“You dropped a bombshell on me. You can’t expect me to go to sleep and pretend our conversation didn’t happen.”
She sighed wearily, tucking some of her long hair behind her ear. “Why not?”
“Because I won’t be able to rest until you tell me what you’re keeping from me.”
“We’re not really in a relationship, so you don’t have to pretend?—”
“You think I’m pretending to be concerned? I’m not fucking pretending, Delta!” He dragged a hand down his face, fighting to harness his emotions. This damn woman . “You want to know something embarrassing? For the past eleven years, I’ve stalked your social media. In my head, I’ve punched my fist through the face of every man you’ve walked the red carpet with or smiled at in a photo. This isn’t fake! I wanted to forget about you—us—everything we meant to each other and I can’t. My heart won’t let me. I can’t fit anyone else in here”—his fist hit his chest—“because you take up all the goddamn space!”
He hadn’t expected such passionate words to spill from his mouth, and clearly neither had Delta. She stared at him in shock, temporarily speechless. “I—I didn’t know you felt that way,” she said quietly.
“You weren’t supposed to.” He spoke in a low, tired tone, but a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. “I can’t deny the truth anymore. Losing you—destroyed me.”
Her lips parted as tears sprang to her eyes. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Why did you send your father to see me? We were supposed to get married. I had a ring, I—” He broke off in frustration.
“I know. I know, but I had responsibilities. My family was depending on me, and you—you were blowing up. I was blowing up, too, and I had so much work to do.”
“We were supposed to grow together and share in each other’s success. That’s what we discussed.”
“I know, I remember.” She swallowed. “But it’s not as if you hung around for very long.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Right after you and my father talked, I reached out to you, and you were gone. You left the country and wouldn’t return my phone calls.”
“You sent your father to break up with me,” he reminded her in a hard voice.
“I didn’t send him,” she denied. “My parents thought it was best if he talked to you, but I regretted letting him go in my place, and then you were gone. The next time I saw you was in pictures with that Mexican actress. You didn’t even fight for us.”
“So you wanted me to grovel, is that it?” Ignacio demanded.
“I wanted you to fight for us, despite what happened.”
He clenched his jaw. “Do you have any idea what it was like to wait for you at the airport and have your father show up instead? To tell me you weren’t coming? To tell me to leave you alone once and for all, like I never meant anything to you? The whole time I had a ring in my pocket because we agreed to get married.”
“I was scared,” she whispered.
“And I was hurt. Destroyed. Destroyed ,” he repeated, leaning toward her, his voice strained.
“You got engaged to Lori Stanfield less than three months after we broke up!” Delta yelled.
“It didn’t mean anything!”
“Pictures of the two of you were all over the entertainment news, and you gave her a huge diamond,” she said, jabbing her finger at his face.
“I wanted to hurt you,” Ignacio admitted. “I wanted you to see what you were missing, and I wanted to prove to you and the world that I was fine without you.”
“Well, you did an excellent job.” Delta folded her arms over her chest. “I was crushed,” she whispered.
Ignacio laughed bitterly. “I guess we both were.”
“I know you don’t believe me, but I loved you,” Delta said.
“Loved me? You had a funny way of showing it. I lost track of how many times you broke up with me.” Ignacio tossed his jacket on a chair and paced the room restlessly, trying to calm his chaotic thoughts.
Yanking open the curtains, he stared out at the dark night, barely seeing the expansive yard and the covered swimming pool.
“I never wanted to,” she said in a low voice.
Ignacio let out a short laugh and stuffed a hand in his pants pocket. “Right.”
Silence took over the room for a long time, as if neither of them was willing to speak and break the temporary peace. Then he heard her voice, quiet and trembling.
“I was assaulted when I was sixteen.”
He spun to face her. She had spoken so softly, he was hoping he’d heard wrong. “What did you say?”
Delta pulled air into her lungs and met his gaze. “I was assaulted at sixteen,” she said again. “By someone who worked for the record company.”
Ignacio couldn’t move. He became rigid, his body locking in place. “Sixteen? That’s when we…”
She nodded. “It happened not long after you and I lost our virginity to each other.”
A mix of terror and anger thundered through him. “Who?”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to say.”
Seconds dragged by, and he remained silent, allowing her the opportunity to speak again when she was ready.
“My parents put too much trust in him. They left me with him over the weekend?—”
“Over the weekend? The fucking weekend? ”
She continued speaking in a low, monotonous voice. “He said he wanted to develop my talent and suggested intensive training. There were supposed to be two other girls working with me, but they never showed up. I don’t know if they were really supposed to be there or if he made the whole thing up. He and I were the only ones at his house over the weekend. At first, everything was fine, and we practiced my dances, and he helped me vocally. That was Friday night. I realize now he was getting me to trust him. On Saturday… I was in my room, and he came in…”
Her voice quivered, and he recognized how difficult it was for her to continue.
“How did I not know this?” Ignacio whispered.
“You were in Panama working on a project with your father. I couldn’t reach you, and the opportunity came up to work closely with him, so we took it. When you came back, I broke up with you.”
“I remember,” he said slowly. “I thought you were upset because I had been gone for a long time.”
It was the first breakup in their on-and-off relationship over the years. He hadn’t understood why she dumped him and had experienced mixed emotions for a long time afterward. On one hand, he had been flattered because he assumed she had become upset about their time apart. On the other hand, he couldn’t believe she thought that was a valid reason to end their relationship. The whole time, she had been silently suffering. His insides tightened with sorrow.
“I had this weird mixture of guilt and shame—like I’d cheated on you. I felt dirty and… and not good enough for you. I was so confused.”
“I had no idea.”
“You weren’t supposed to.”
“How many people know what happened to you?”
“Not many. You’re the second person I’ve told. The first was my therapist.”
Her response temporarily stunned him into silence.
“What about your parents?”
She shook her head.
“Delta, you should tell them.”
“No.”
“It’s clear what happened still bothers you. Maybe if you opened up and told?—”
“I went to therapy and learned to deal with what happened. The truth is, I got what I wanted. I received a record deal, and everybody called me the next hottest thing in R&B. So what if some days I feel like a fraud, like I’m going to wake up one morning and the world will know how I achieved my success? So what if I’m hiding this horrible secret and don’t know if I was really good because of how I got the contract?”
Her flippant tone betrayed her pain.
Ignacio walked to her and gripped her shoulders. “ You are good ,” he said fiercely. “You’re an amazing, talented, beautiful person. You sing, dance, and write. You move people with your music. Your performance tonight was incredible, and it’s always like that.”
She smiled wanly.
“I’m not just saying that, Delta. You’re a rare talent.”
“Thank you.”
Looking into her eyes, he saw the young woman he’d been obsessed with since he was a teenager. If he could go back in time, he would protect her from that pain.
“I loved you so much.”
A faint smile softened her lips. “I wanted to marry you, Ignacio, but I wasn’t sure. I was scared, and I had this horrible secret. And we were young . Only twenty-one years old. But I loved you too, and I didn’t want to lose you. I wish I’d made a different decision eleven years ago.”
“Me too. I should have come to find you. I gave up too easily,” he said.
“We both did.”
He wasn’t sure who moved first. It could have been him. It could have been her.
All he knew was that one minute they were gazing into each other’s eyes, and the next their mouths were sealed together in a heartrending kiss.