Page 38 of Born a Queen

Chapter Twenty-Two

Raina slept like the dead and woke up feeling disoriented. She yawned and stretched underneath the heavy blanket, squinting her eyes toward the window. It was a bright and sunny morning. She slapped her hand around her night table until she found her glasses. Shoving them on, she looked groggily at the alarm clock. 11:30 AM; almost lunchtime.

Raina sat up, shoving hair out of her face. She looked around and then realized she didn't know where anything was. Had her purse been captured with her? Where was her phone? She was going to be pissed at Mateo if he lost her phone. It was less about the phone itself, though she had some valuable contacts in there. No, she wanted her phone case.

She had found the coolest iPhone place at a Disney store in Paris. It had a picture of Betty Boop on the front riding a motorcycle and Raina's name emblazoned across the bottom. It was silly, but for some reason, that cell phone case was a symbol of her independence. It was the first thing that she bought for herself when she'd been on the run. First time she stopped long enough to shop for something.

Raina climbed out of bed and stretched. She was wearing only her panties. A quick look around the room told her that there were no clothes there for her. She was forced to pull on the clothing that she'd worn the night before. Bar-star was not a good daytime look.

She found a packaged toothbrush and toothpaste in the bathroom, which she used. Feeling better, she made her way down the stairs, looking around. The house was insane. The furnishings were big, beautiful, opulent. Not really her style and a little tacky if she was being honest, but the place itself was incredibly luxurious.

There were so many rooms that she lost count as she went by them. She didn't stop to look inside any of them yet; she figured she could do that later, after breakfast.

Raina descended to the first floor of the mansion and found herself in the lobby by the front door. She glanced around and found an archway off to the side. She went through and, after a few minute’s exploration, she found the dining room, which sported a ridiculously long table and at least a dozen chairs. Mateo was sitting at the head of the table, engrossed in a conversation with someone on his cell phone, a piece of toast held aloft in his hand.

He was wearing a suit instead of his usual jeans and T-shirt. He looked mouth-wateringly good. Even the scowl wrinkling his brows was sexy.

He caught sight of her and his serious expression shifted. He didn't smile, but there was a softening to his features as he watched her.

He waved at the chair on his right, indicating that she should sit down. Raina narrowed her eyes at him and headed around to the other side of the table, sitting in the chair on his immediate left. She may as well establish immediately that she was no dog to be ordered around.

Mateo continued to listen to whoever was talking on the other end of the phone, but Raina could tell he was also paying close attention to her. He reached down and pulled something from his pocket, setting it on her placemat. Raina immediately recognized the little blue bottle. Her pills. So he did have her purse somewhere.

Raina started piling food on her plate. In front of her was a spread of every kind of delicious breakfast food imaginable. There was a plate filled with toast, one with waffles, another with scrambled eggs, and yet another with bacon and sausage. There was also a big bowl filled with a variety of fruit. Raina was going to ignore that particular dish until she made her way through all the fatty stuff.

She didn't often allow herself to indulge this way, but she also didn't often have that many options spread out in front of her hungry gaze.

As she reached for another fistful of bacon Mateo grabbed her wrist. Without missing a beat in his conversation, he pushed her hand toward the fruit plate. Once again, she narrowed her eyes at him, laser beaming him with her displeasure. She pulled her hand away from his and once again reached for the bacon this time snatching it fast and shoving it into her mouth before he could stop her.

"Excuse me, I'm going to have to call you back. Give me half an hour." Mateo ended the call and set his phone on the table, then turned his gaze to Raina's face.

Raina grinned at him as she chewed her bacon. She was being childish, but she couldn't help it. She wasn’t about to let some man tell her what to eat.

"I thought we established that your health is very important to me," Mateo said in a growly voice that did strange things to the pit of her stomach. "Stop eating the bacon and move on to the fruit. It's better for you and will promote better kidney health."

"If you don't want me to eat bacon then don't give me the option," she said tartly, picking up the cloth napkin next to her plate and wiping her fingers of bacon grease.

She actually did kind of want some of the strawberries and blackberries that she saw in the fruit bowl, but now it was a matter of principle; she couldn't touch that fruit.

Mateo reached out, swiped the fruit bowl and dumped half of it on her plate covering her toast and eggs in fruit.

"Hey!"

Mateo grabbed her hand before she could start throwing berries back into the bowl. "You need to have a better attitude when it comes to both me and your health. If you want our marriage to be a pleasant one, then you’ll follow a few basic rules."

"Well that's an easy problem to solve," she said sarcastically. "We're not married yet, so I think I'll do as I please."

"Do not declare war with me, little girl. I’ve won every battle, skirmish, and war that I have partaken in. If you choose that path, you will not win."

Raina rather thought that his feelings for her gave her an edge in any war they might be about to embark on, but she didn't want to show her hand by telling him that. Instead, she pushed her plate away from her and crossed her arms over her chest. "I’m well aware of my needs. I’ve been living with the consequences of kidney failure since the age of nine. I rarely indulge in things that I know are bad for my body. I don't need a keeper to tell me to stay away from bacon."

"Apparently you do.”

Raina could feel her temper soaring and had to take several deep breaths to stop herself from shouting at him. She was getting absolutely nowhere and now wasn't the time to throw a fit. The way things were going, she thought that there would be plenty of time for that in the future. She decided to change the subject instead.

"Who does this house belong to?" she asked. "I mean, besides you. It's obviously been here for a while and the furnishings don't exactly seem like your taste. Too gaudy.”

He wiped his mouth with his napkin and dropped it next to his empty plate. "The mansion used to belong to the former Miami boss, Ignacio Hernandez. He was killed about four years ago. The mansion was then entrusted to Reyes through marriage."

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