Page 61 of Heart of a Villain

“Six or seven?” He held her at arm’s length. “Did you fall in love with someone new every year?”

“Well, no. Not exac?—”

“Six or seven?”

He mumbled again in Portuguese, again too low and fast for her to pick up on, one hand in his hair.

“You’re not taking this well,” she pointed out.

“No? What gave me away?”

He pressed his palm against her chest, over her heart, but his hand was so large that his fingers brushed her nipple and curled around her breast.

Another spark moved through her, but she’d expected this one. She’d already expected to see herself on her hands and knees in front of him as he gripped her waist, entering her from behind. She wanted to ride his face, choke on his length, and have him replace any threads of painful memories with nothing but his presence.

“What are you doing?” she asked, attempting to keep her breathing under control.

“Checking to see if your heart is made of plastic.”

“Aren’t you overreacting a little?”

“Excuse me, but I have to check the food,” he said, releasing her. “I’ll need the nourishment to mend my shattered heart.”

“I heard Vitamin A is good for that.”

“Yes, go ahead. Joke and tease me…ha, ha, ha. Drive the knife deeper. Adrían can take it. Adrían won’t go upstairs and cry himself to sleep tonight, holding himself because I have no one else to hold me.”

Mouth twitching, she rested her cheek against his midsection. “Are you mad?”

“Slowly going mad, yes. I thought you were dead, and yet, I continued to look for you. You, obviously, didn’t look for me. Merda. Six or seven.”

“What?” She raised her head. “You thought I was dead?”

Why she’d never considered it, she didn’t know. Her mother had admitted to her that Adrían was alive, so in her mind, that had meant Adrían knew she was alive. In her mind, them running into each other again had been like crossing paths, but for him, it had been a resurrection.

With distance, possibilities remained, no matter how far-fetched they might be. However, until she showed up in Sweden, for him, there’d been zero chances of them seeing one another again. Thinking about Adrían dead was enough to add more cracks to the crushed remains in her chest, so she didn’t know what she would have done if she’d believed he’d been dead all this time.

“There was a van,” he said. “It was on fire. The burning body was wearing your dress. I know now that this was your mother’s doing, but as I stared at that fire, I came to realize that I had only felt pain like that one other moment in my life—when I witnessed my mother’s death. That was when I started to ask myself whether I did love you. Afterward, for years, the only thing that kept me going was vengeance and the fact that, in my darkest moments, you would always come to me…Ms. Six or Seven.”

She tossed her head back. “Oh my god, Adrían. I was joking. I never fell in love with anyone else. I never wanted anyone else. Release your agony.”

He rapped his chest twice. “Agony, release.”

“And why do you say things like that? Things like I came to you in your darkest moments.”

“Because I feel things now. I feel what I say and say what I feel. I thought I would hate it, but it gives my life more purpose.”

“Well, why do you feel them?”

“Think hard. The answer is easy.” He softly stroked the side of her face. “Sayeda, maybe you don’t understand. I won’t give you up. We will ride into the sunset together, and the only way that doesn’t happen is…”

His voice trailed off.

She tipped her ear toward him. “Is what?”

“The only want that doesn’t happen is if…”

He trailed off again.

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