Page 108 of Deception

Likely, the entire household knows everything by now, the gossip about my dalliance, who my prisoner guest is. That’s just the nature of a close-knit family.

While I wait, I sit on the edge of my bed, staring at the floor. I’m still wearing the same clothes from the day before. I probably need a bath. A hot meal. Three days to sleep.

But the need to see her trumps it all.

I can’t even say why. What will I even say to her?

The panic and insecurity of that fact unnerves me as the door opens and Tomas sees her in, closing the door behind her.

I’m painfully unprepared for what stands in front of me.

She's stunning, dressed in one of Angelica’s light-colored gowns. Her hair tumbles over one shoulder, tied into a single, spiraling side ponytail.

Conflicting emotions well up, a torrent of love, stifled with fury.

The same struggle wars in her eyes, in the set of her stance and the fretting of her hands wringing slightly in front of her.

How can I not worship this woman?

Yet how can I forgive her?

I know Ciro would argue,“Why don’t you just ask her why she did it? People have all sorts of reasons for the things they do.”He’d say it like it was all no big thing, rolling his eyes at how overblown the situation is.

And he’d be right.

Except my heart doesn’t work that way.

Hatred boils in my gut, mostly for the way things have gone, the situation with Dom. As I sit there, clutching the edge of the bed, I realize there’s not an ounce of hatred in her towards me.

I can see that now, so different from the day we met.

She hated me then, truly. Although she hid it well.

And just like that day…

“You’re still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, you know?” I hate how bitter I sound.

“Only when I’m with you. Otherwise, I’m just…”

“Just. I don’t even know what I am without you, now,” I grunt, trying to muffle my rage. “How could you do this to me, Isabella? Knowing who I am, how I am. What am I supposed todo?”

She lets me bubble over, storming from the edge of the bed and pacing into the same rut I’ve walked into my rug a hundred times in the last few days.

“You shattered me. You destroyed me. I let you in and you trashed the place. You used me.”

The last statement hits her like a lash across the back. The subtle flinch wounds me, an instant regret.

But it’s short-lived, a flash of anger flaring her eyes. The defiance I came to love so much.

“Used you? I was a stranger who came into your home, and regardless of my motives, I fell for you. I never intended for any of this to happen. And you can’t stand there and tell me you didn’t use me just as hard.”

“I would never have done so if I had known?—”

“Known what? How could I have known that what I believed, the entire reason for pursuing you was a lie? I wanted revenge for a murder that didn’t happen.”

“You wanted to bring me down for your own career moves.”

“You hurt people all the time for your own gain. How is that any different?”

---