Page 50 of Shameless in Vegas

After all, this is what they trained me to do.

After buttoning his fly, Xavier throws his open palm against my face in another pathetic attempt to make me cower before him. But I merely intercept the blow and blink away the sting of flesh slapping against flesh.

“I gotsoldadosall around this fucking propertyandthe one you’re about to move into,” he hisses, “so do your fucking job before I have to come in and do it myself. If I have to do it myself, I’m taking you out with all of them.”

I merely meet his eyes with a dead stare, and he stalks to the window and climbs out.

Once he’s gone, I stand up and march to the en suite to assess my appearance. There’s already a purple shadow of bruising radiating to life on my cheek. I’ll have to cover it with makeup before I go back down to the beach. My knees and shins are scraped and fiery red with rug burns, but an excuse for that quickly surfaces in my mind.

I turn on the shower, keeping the water cold to reduce swelling. Stripping off my clothes and tying my hair up into a bun, I step in and rinse Xavier’s filth from me, and then let the frigid water pour over my face. When I’m finished, I make quick work of concealing my face with perfectly blended, powdered makeup, then slip on a different bikini, and leave the bedroom.

I march down the hall and down the stairs, like a soldier heading into battle, and that’s when my mind falters at the latest act of violence committed against me.

My feet padding along step by step echo in my ears the recollection of not Xavier’s words, but those of my husband.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

He doesn’t mean that, I try to convince myself out of pure desperation because I don’t want this job, but there’s no way around it,he doesn’t really mean that.

Not even I believe myself.

Joaquin’s words repeat in my mind as I approach the long hall to the kitchen. I pause when I see Lili wrapping things up with the woman who heads the estate staff and uniformed servants picking up boxes of champagne bottles, mixers and garnishes, and trays of elaborate hors d'oeuvres, all of it the picture of perfect, utterly disconnected privilege.

I wait in the wing flanking the kitchen for them to file out the back door and then enter the kitchen to hastily pour a fresh cup of coffee. When Lili and the staff members are about fifty yards away from the house, I slip out and tiptoe behind them, following at a distance and preparing to mask the visible evidence of Xavier’s secret presence.

They arrive at the bottom of the stone steps and trudge through the sand toward Joaquin, Colin, and Elle. Joaquin says something to Lili, and I can make out my name on his lips, and he looks in my direction.

Our gazes meet, and I wave, and then I execute the necessary step to conceal the rug burns on my legs—by purposefullymissingthe next step.

My body pitches forward, the coffee cup flying and shattering on stone, and there’s a collective gasp from Lili and Elle, and I let my knees and shins take the brunt of the fall.

I’m sure on some level it hurts, but I still don’t give a fuck because this body is merely a tool, and I will use it to secure my freedom.

“Baby!” Joaquin hollers, startled as he darts to me. He reaches me in a matter of seconds, holding my wrist and wrapping his arm around my waist to pick me up. “Holy shit, are you okay?”

I would nevercryover a fuckingfall, but I can produce tears when I need them.

“Ohno,” I whimper, holding my scraped palms in midair and limping against Joaquin while he guides me to sit down on the step. “Dios mio, what a stupid thing to do.”

“Oh,honey,” he murmurs, crouching in front of me and then sucking in a pained hiss through his teeth as he assesses the damage. The rug burns have been grated off my knees and shins, replaced by severed skin and blood. He turns his head to call over his shoulder at the staff. “Eleanor, can you go grab the first aid kit out of the boathouse?”

The servant lady dutifully does as he says, and in the meantime, he strips off his shirt and holds it against my shredded legs.

As he does, the one memory I have of my mother’s face flashes across my mind.

I was around five years old. I was sitting on stone steps. My knees were smarting from scrapes. She’d knelt in front of me to clean the injuries and bandage them. Then she looked up at me. Her eyes were the same dusty gray-blue as mine. And then she sat on the step next to me, wrapped her arms around me, and kissed my head.

“Oh man,querida,” Joaquin says quietly, shaking me out of the memory. He cuts his brown eyes that are full of concern beneath his furrowed brow up to my face. “You really got yourself good.”

He reaches for my face, fingers stroking the tender flesh concealed by expensive makeup, and it’s neither the pain nor the façade I’m upholding that causes my bottom lip to tremble.

It’s the violence I just walked away from versus Joaquin’s tender hands driven by concern, and the words he’s told me far too genuinely and far too often.

I love you.

---