22. Diego
CHAPTER 22
DIEGO
Maeve storms off, leaving me alone and face-to-face with the man I hate more than anything in the world. There are a lot of things I want to say to him, and worse things I’d like to do to him, but revenge is a dish better served cold, so I hold myself back.
“I apologize for my daughter’s outburst. She’s always been too emotional,” he says.
The game where we don’t know each other is an interesting one. In a way, we don’t. He can’t start to understand who I am now and in how many ways living under his roof changed me. He, on the other hand, is still the same scumbag.
“Women, huh?” I’m devoid of emotions.
Cornelius lifts his face to look at me, and it’s almost as if he’s really taking me in this time. His eyes measure me from the brand of my clothes to the tattoos that cover my body. I see the moment his upper lip curls, and I know he is disgusted for even being in the same room with someone like me.
“You’re going to have to forgive me,” he says after clearing his throat. “I’m afraid I can’t allow my daughter to stay in this relationship.”
“Marriage,” I correct him.
“Marriage,” he concedes.
“You’re going to have to forgive me, Cornelius,” I mock. “But I don’t see how this is any of your business.”
I know he’s ready to open his mouth and start on a rant, but I don’t care for it. “Send my best to your sister. Awesome party,” I say, cutting him off.
I move to the door, but before I can make my way I turn to him. “Oh, and I don’t.”
“You don’t what?” he replies, forgetting about politeness.
“I don’t forgive you.”
People stare at me as I make my way through the house toward the exit. These yuppy bitches love to pretend I disgust them, but not a single woman here would refuse to fuck me behind her husband’s back if given the chance.
That might even prove entertaining, but too bad for me and my sense of poetry, Maeve might as well be the only woman on earth for how obsessed I am with her body. I give a series of cocky grins, pleased with my victory as I go, but when I finally make it out to the car, I’m surprised by what I find.
Maeve yanks on the handle, repeatedly trying to open the car door despite the fact it’s locked. She looks pointedly down, and at first, I’m staring because I want to enjoy her pain and the culmination of my plans, but then I notice the outline of her father’s hand across her cheek.
Rather than opening the door for her, I storm over to her side of the car and cage her against it. She fights me, trying to push my chest away from hers. She’s being so stubborn that I have to grab her chin and force her to look at me.
Sure enough, there’s a big red smack mark. She wipes the back of her hand across her face, pulling off a thick, wet ball of phlegm. He spit on her and smacked her in the face. I’m not sure exactly what I was aiming for today, but it wasn’t this. I thought she was his princess; I thought he treated her so much better than anyone else. I didn’t expect there was a chance he was just as awful to her as he was to me or my mother. I never saw that when I lived there.
Truthfully, he paid far more attention to my mother and trying to keep me in line than he ever did to her. When did he look for his perfect princess, or did he just talk about her?
She looks up at me with this helpless, broken expression, and something inside me aches. It’s not the grief for my mother or my rage at her father, which has inexplicably doubled.
“What more do you want from me, Diego?” she asks. “You got what you wanted. He hates me. You’ve humiliated me. What more do you want?”
I stare at her, trying to decide the right answer when all of this feels hollow. I’m not satisfied like she believes. Tears caused by another man hitting her are the opposite of what I wanted. But what the fuck did I want? I ask myself impossible questions that come without answers as her green eyes blaze.
“Can you please take me back to the guest room, or is forcing me to stand here and bear more of their scorn a part of your plan to see me break?”
“What if it is?”
Her lip wobbles, and rather than continue to kick her while she’s down, I pull the fob out of my pocket and unlock the car. She slips inside as fast as she can, closing the door and buckling herself before I’ve made it around the car. Her entire body shakes, and I’m not sure if it’s from the cold or the stress of the situation. She’s poorly dressed for a spring garden party in more than just style.
I crank up the heat, and she doesn’t complain, but she also doesn’t speak or look at me. If I hoped she would keep crying, I’m disappointed again, and somehow this quiet suffering is worse. How did she learn to take it so well and keep her face solemn like this while everything goes wrong?
The answer is exceedingly clear—this is far from the first time he’s treated her this way.
Maeve is a victim of Cornelius too, but does that mean I should stop trying to ruin her?
I don’t think I can.
We drive back to the apartment, and the entire way is silent. Maeve’s body hasn’t stopped shaking even with the heat, and I’m growing more tense by the second, wishing she would just freaking cry.
When I drop her off at the room, I look at her for a long time before speaking.
“This doesn’t change anything.”
She looks up at me, not seeming to make sense of what I’m saying.
“It changes everything,” she argues.
“What do you mean?”
“I believe you now. You won’t rest until I’ve suffered.”
“Maeve.” I try to argue, but what can I say? It’s true.
“Sleep well, Diego. You’ve done your duty.”
I leave her there, lock the door, and head to bed, thinking about what I saw today and what she said.
Is there a chance I’ve taken my energy out in the wrong direction? Is this all a flawed plan, given his daughter seems to mean so little to him?
It doesn’t really matter either way. I’ve made a plan of action, and I’ll stick to it. By the end, he’ll have paid in more ways than he can count.