Page 31 of Velvet Deception

She furrowed her brow. “The night I found you?”

I nodded.

She shook her head. “No. I didn’t see anyone around.”

“But someone could have seen you transporting drugs.”

“Then they would’ve also seen me deliver the drugs to the clinic.”

I let her explanation sink in as she gently pressed a clean cloth to my skin.

“Thank you, Diego,” she said after a long moment of quiet. Her voice shook only slightly, and I was moved by the sincerity in her voice. “If you hadn’t been here…” She sighed.

“You don’t need to thank me.” I faced her, and she gave in to the pressure of my attention on her directly like this to meet my gaze. Stuck in a heavy stare down, she studied me like she was searching for a clue.

As I waited for her to speak again, I realized that there was not a single hint of fear. She wasn’t scared. Yes, she had been traumatized, clearly frightened of those men making good on their threat to rape her and take Ramon. But she didn’t fear me. She wasn’t sad, either. I couldn’t guess whether she’d seen such gory violence up close like that before, but she accepted it in the name of self-defense.

“How did you know…” She lowered the last of the bandages and then faced me again, seeming to pick her words carefully. “How did you know how to do that? To fight like that?”

I shook my head and hated that I didn’t have an answer for her. “I don’t know, Sofia. I really don’t.”

“Doctors don’t…” She looked down and frowned. “Doctors don’t fight like that.”

“I doubt they do.”

She peered at me, curious but unafraid.

“It was just… It came to me. I didn’t have to think. I didn’t have to plan. It’s like it was just ingrained in me.”

She licked her lips, nodding pensively.

Like muscle memory, Angel.

Once again, I wondered just what kind of dark and sinister path I had before to be a killer like that.

And even worse, now that I had a sample of the sweet perfection of what it could be like to have Sofia as my woman, as my partner and not just my grounding source of comfort, I knew without a doubt that my past—hidden and out of reach as it was—could be the very thing that would make her want to run from me.

13

SOFIA

As soon as I finished stitching up Diego’s arm, I put my medical supplies away. Being a nurse meant my version of a first-aid kit had more than the standard Band-Aids to slap on.

Diego didn’t leave, but the burn of his attention on me didn’t unnerve me. It was awkward in here, though, and it was my fault.

I’d done the brave yet stupid thing of asking him a question about his past. Now, I had to pay the price with this tense quiet.

I was eager to change the subject from what he did or did not remember of his past. So far, I had been so careful to avoid this strong man feeling any pressure to piece together the puzzle of who he was before I found him unconscious in that alley.

I had told Ramon not to push, that it wasn’t a good idea to ask Diego about his past. Questions that would challenge him about what he could and could not recall didn’t seem like an appropriate treatment. I could tell when he got frustrated about not remembering who he was. His brow would pinch, and thedesperation to understand broke my heart. Seeing him suffer from confusion when he strained to remember bothered me because I cared about his recovery.

After the depth of that kiss, though, it seemed clear that I cared abouthim.

I understood that it was difficult for him to not easily know who he was before the night I found him. A sense of identity and self-awareness is a critical necessity in life. And I wasn’t just being sympathetic. I had experienced this before too, in a different way. I lost my sense of self and had gone through the challenge of finding a new identity. The night the Cartel kidnapped me marked the occasion that altered my life for good. There was the previous Sofia, the younger woman I was, so innocent, naïve, and hopeful about life. Then there was this current version of me, jaded, smart, and cautious. I had to reconstruct myself and be a new version of myself after the hell of all that I experienced. And it was hard to let go of the past, to reconcile who you were before and who you had to be now.

The problem was that I didn’t know what to say to move on from this topic. He followed me out of the bathroom, and just seeing the destruction in the living bothered me. I let out a shaky breath and let my shoulders sag.

“No. Don’t.” He stepped around me and blocked me from seeing it. “Why don’t you go to bed and I’ll clean it up?”