Page 105 of The Gilded Survivor

I opened my mouth. What was I supposed to say? How could I tell Antonio about Isaac when there was this undeniable tension between us?

Telling Antonio about Isaac felt like closing a door I wasn’t ready to shut. I shifted my feet and drew my shawl tightly around my upper body.

Were Isaac and I even still a possibility? My head was spinning.

Antonio crossed his arms and watched me carefully. Listening.

I cleared my throat, deciding to tell the truth. “She offered me a deal in exchange for her sponsorship of my marriage to Isaac.”

Antonio’s jaw tightened. “Your what?” There was a fire behind his eyes I’d never seen.

I took a step forward. Not toward him, but so I could get out of this place. “My marriage to Isaac.” I ground out. There was no part of me that wanted another argument in this wind.

“Why in the hell are you thinking about a wedding? You told me once that you weren’t the marrying type.” Antonio said slowly, anger edging his words. I sucked in the cold air.

I had said that… the night we first met.

Antonio continued, like him remembering an off-handed comment was nothing. “Aren’t you supposed to be focused on the Blood Tournament?”

I stopped right next to him, holding the shawl across my body with one hand, and clutching the doorknob with the other. “I am.I train harder than anyone else in the center. Books filled with boring principles and techniques line my room, all read in between my incessant schedule of classes and exercise. This is planning for the future, Antonio,”—my throat tightened with fear as I thought of the road ahead,—“my life doesn’t end when the Blood Tournament is finished. I need to be prepared for a life in this world I don’t understand. Isaac has been kind to me. He is stable. Marriage to him would be safe.”

“You were up here with him?” Antonio scoffed. “Like hell you would be safe with him. Isaac is a boy. He doesn’t think about anything beyond instant gratification. There are definitely cameras somewhere, cameras pointed at you and that lovely, dangerously bare neck.” His eyes flicked lower again.

My eyes burned. He was making me feel small, too. Idiotic for even considering this, and imprudent for getting lost in a moment of passion. Stupid, because I knew he was right, no intentions had been declared. I had caught Isaac taking drugs that one time.

But then I remembered that Isaac had stopped taking them because I had asked him to. I could change him. Help him.

He certainly could help me.

He could’ve, anyway. Before his mother forced her way in.

“You’re right. Isaac is a boy. But I am a girl. A helpless girl in a place I don’t belong.” I twisted the handle, hiding my face from his prying eyes.

“Carmen—”

“Stop calling me that! You’ve just witnessed the destruction of my future. I hope you enjoyed the front-row seat,” I said bitterly while twisting the handle with my left hand. My eyes and face burned because of the wind, and I needed to get away. Crying wasn’t something I enjoyed doing around Antonio.

I’d done so well today. Until I hadn’t.

Suddenly, in one swift movement, Antonio’s hand covered my side. His fingers brushed a bare strip of my rib cage uncovered by the shawl. My skin crackled with electricity. I couldn’t breathe.

“Carmen, I think the way you stood up for yourself was reckless,” he started, his face inches from mine. “Reckless and magnificent.”

I sucked in a breath and furiously blinked away tears. “Please don’t say that to make me feel better.”

Antonio’s other hand wrapped around my left palm and lifted it from the handle. For a second, I thought he was going to kiss the back of it. I almost wished for it.

But instead, he studied my face with his familiar brand of intensity. “Don’t get mad, get revenge.”

Then he released me, shrugged off his suit coat, and wrapped it around my shoulders.

It smelled like him.

“Stay close. We’ll have to sneak out. It’s time to go home, Carmencita.”

PartThree

Two Weeks To The Blood Tournament

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