Page 44 of Ignacio

“What are you talking about?”

“Right after you and my father talked, I reached out to you, and you were gone. You left the country and wouldn’t return my phone calls.”

“You sent your father to break up with me,” he reminded her in a hard voice.

“I didn’tsendhim,” she denied. “My parents thought it was best if he talked to you, but I regretted letting him go in my place, and then you were gone. The next time I saw you was in pictures with that Mexican actress. You didn’t even fight for us.”

“So you wanted me to grovel, is that it?” Ignacio demanded.

“I wanted you to fight for us, despite what happened.”

He clenched his jaw. “Do you have any idea what it was like to wait for you at the airport and have your father show up instead? To tell me you weren’t coming? To tell me to leave you alone once and for all, like I never meant anything to you? The whole time I had a ring in my pocket because we agreed to get married.”

“I was scared,” she whispered.

“And I was hurt. Destroyed.Destroyed,” he repeated, leaning toward her, his voice strained.

“You got engaged to Lori Stanfield less than three months after we broke up!” Delta yelled.

“It didn’t mean anything!”

“Pictures of the two of you were all over the entertainment news, and you gave her a huge diamond,” she said, jabbing her finger at his face.

“I wanted to hurt you,” Ignacio admitted. “I wanted you to see what you were missing, and I wanted to prove to you and the world that I was fine without you.”

“Well, you did an excellent job.” Delta folded her arms over her chest. “I was crushed,” she whispered.

Ignacio laughed bitterly. “I guess we both were.”

“I know you don’t believe me, but I loved you,” Delta said.

“Loved me? You had a funny way of showing it. I lost track of how many times you broke up with me.” Ignacio tossed his jacket on a chair and paced the room restlessly, trying to calm his chaotic thoughts.

Yanking open the curtains, he stared out at the dark night, barely seeing the expansive yard and the covered swimming pool.

“I never wanted to,” she said in a low voice.

Ignacio let out a short laugh and stuffed a hand in his pants pocket. “Right.”

Silence took over the room for a long time, as if neither of them was willing to speak and break the temporary peace. Then he heard her voice, quiet and trembling.

“I was assaulted when I was sixteen.”

He spun to face her. She had spoken so softly, he was hoping he’d heard wrong. “What did you say?”

Delta pulled air into her lungs and met his gaze. “I was assaulted at sixteen,” she said again. “By someone who worked for the record company.”

Ignacio couldn’t move. He became rigid, his body locking in place. “Sixteen? That’s when we…”

She nodded. “It happened not long after you and I lost our virginity to each other.”

A mix of terror and anger thundered through him. “Who?”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to say.”

Seconds dragged by, and he remained silent, allowing her the opportunity to speak again when she was ready.

“My parents put too much trust in him. They left me with him over the weekend?—”

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