Page 32 of A Diamond for My Forbidden Bride

Valentin lifted a shoulder. ‘Oh, yes. He was such a good little soldier.’

‘But...he’s your brother.’ I didn’t want to believe Constantine could have done something like that, yet deep down I knew that of course he would have. He was such a stickler for rules.

‘I tried to protect him by drawing Domingo’s attention as much as possible so he would leave Constantine alone,’ Valentin said. ‘I...didn’t know Domingo had been manipulating him behind my back and turning him against me. Not until he told Domingo about us.’ Something in his handsome face shifted. ‘That’s when I knew I’d failed. That Domingo had got to him.’

Shock rippled through me. ‘What do you mean, you failed? Why?’

‘You have to understand,’ Valentin said, his attention on the lock of my hair. ‘Psychopaths don’t need a reason to do what they do. They manipulate to get what they want for their own amusement. Because they like it. And I can’t blame Constantine for choosing Domingo over me. We weren’t allowed friends. Not even pets. Domingo didn’t want us to form any emotional attachments to anything or anyone except him, and he didn’t like it that Constantine and I were close. And I had no time for Constantine. I was too obsessed with you.’

His gaze came back to mine. ‘Seeing you, meeting you, was like coming across an oasis in the desert, or a spot of colour in a black-and-white world. You were special, Olivia.’

I couldn’t take it in. No friends? No pets? No emotional attachments? No wonder Constantine was so cold and so detached.

‘I should have spent more time with Constantine,’ Val went on, ‘but I didn’t, and that’s my failure. Perhaps, if I had, he wouldn’t have turned into Domingo. Anyway, that’s all water under the bridge now. He found out I was still seeing you and told Domingo, and we were shipped back to Spain the next day. Then he took away my phone and my computer and he locked me in a room in the basement of our house in Madrid. I wasn’t allowed to see anyone or speak to anyone.’

I didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t been able to contact me even if he’d wanted to and it wasn’t because he hadn’t cared. It was because his father had taken him prisoner.

The sympathy I’d felt earlier tugged harder. Two boys’ lives had been thoroughly blighted by the one person who was supposed to have protected them. Who’d abused and manipulated them instead, not to mention ruining the relationship between them, because that was obvious to me too.

‘That’s awful,’ I said. Such a meaningless and trite statement. Yet what else could I say? Itwasawful.

Val’s mouth curved in a bitter smile. ‘Yes, it is, isn’t it? Domingo was quite subtle. He knew a beating wouldn’t do anything, since I didn’t care about pain. But he knew how to hurt me in other ways.’ That bitter smile deepened. ‘He told me he’d keep me there for as long as it took for me to learn how to obey.’

A cold feeling began to wrap itself around my heart. ‘So...how long did he keep you there for?’

Val’s expression didn’t flicker. ‘Six months.’

The cold feeling pulled tight, making it difficult to breathe.

Six months. He’d been kept a prisoner for six months.

I’d cried and cried when I’d never heard from him. And then I’d got angry. I’d hated him for a time, thinking he’d lied when he’d told me he loved me. That everything about our relationship had been a lie. He didn’t love me, and he didn’t care about me. And all I was was just a silly teenage girl who’d fallen for a handsome boy who’d lied to her for fun.

But he hadn’t lied.

He’d been a prisoner.

‘Val...’ My heart felt strangely tight. ‘I...’

‘I don’t need your pity, little star.’ His voice was so mild. ‘Domingo wanted to teach me a lesson and so he did. I could have promised to obey him, and he might have let me out, but I was still trying to protect Constantine.’

My heart tightened even further. ‘You remained a prisoner for six months to protect your brother? After he told on you? On us?’

‘Yes.’ There was a bitter humour in his eyes. ‘It wasn’t his fault he turned out the way he did. I should have been there for him, and I wasn’t.’

‘Oh, Val.’

‘I’d probably still be there if someone hadn’t slipped me the key to the door and I was able to get out. Do you know, there were no windows? And once a week Domingo would take me outside to show me everything I was missing.’ Val’s gaze turned distant. ‘He hated that I wouldn’t give in. It made him so furious. He left me there three weeks once. I thought I was going to go mad...’

Horror gripped me, along with an aching pity that, no matter how hard I tried not to feel it, threaded through me all the same. Because behind his smile I could see that the boy had started to die even before that accident. He’d been so full of life, burning bright... What must being trapped in a room for six months have done to him? Not being able to see the sun, or the stars. The moon... Not being able to feel the air on his face or hear the sound of the sea...

And you hating him because he didn’t text you.

He frowned suddenly, his gaze sharpening. ‘Don’t, Livvy. Whatever you’re thinking, don’t.’

But he’d given me some honesty and so I had to give him some in return.

‘I was very angry with you after you left,’ I said. ‘For not saying goodbye. And then you didn’t contact me. I didn’t get a text or an email or a call. I thought... I thought you’d forgotten me.’

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