Page 94 of Bound Enemies
‘Yes. I was angry.’ He reaches for my hand and holds it in his, sliding his fingers through mine and gripping me tightly. ‘I was angry with you for telling me what you did. For breaking what we had.’
My throat is constricted, and I want to draw my hand away, but his grip on me only tightens even further. ‘I know you were,’ I say. ‘But I’m not sorry and I don’t take it back.’
‘I don’t want you to be sorry,’ he says, focusing on me with the kind of sharp intensity that takes my breath away. ‘I don’t want you to take it back. In fact, what I want is to keep hearing it from you every day of my life for the rest of my life. I want you to love me, Beatrix. I want all of your love, and I want it forever. And…’ he pauses a moment, looking into my eyes ‘…I want to love you back.’
Everything in me freezes, the breath catching in my throat. ‘But you said you didn’t want—’
‘I know I did.’ Slowly, he pulls me in closer and closer. ‘But I was wrong. The truth wasn’t that I didn’t love you. The truth was that I did. I do. I just didn’t want to acknowledge it. All my life my love has never been enough for my father or my mother. They were always too wrapped up in their own emotions to consider mine, and I thought love was the issue.Mylove. But…’ he pulls me even closer, his other hand sliding to the small of my back and pressing there, so I’m up against his hard, hot body. ‘…I think in the end love wasn’t the problem. Love was the solution.’
I’m trembling all over now, barely able to take in what he’s saying, because he can’t be saying he loves me, can he? Or maybe only that he wants to?
‘I don’t understand,’ I say shakily. ‘What do you—’
‘I love you, Beatrix,’ he interrupts, even more fierce now. ‘You showed me what love could be, and I didn’t understand until just now. All I ever saw were the downsides, only the lies and the pain. I never saw anything good in it. But there’s good in it. There’s your smile and your bravery, and your stubbornness. There’s your passion and your wit, and your care. You showed me what it could be and I want… I want to try and give you the same in return.’
My throat has closed up completely, my heart inflating behind my ribs like a balloon, filling up with all the love in my being. All the love I have for him. ‘You don’t have to try, you idiot,’ I manage to force out, my voice husky. ‘What you’re doing already is enough, as I keep telling you.’ I pull my hand from his, and raise both of mine to his beautiful face, cupping it between my palms. ‘I love you, Santiago, and not in spite of your flaws. I love all of you, even the parts of yourself you don’t like. Because they make up who you are, and without them you wouldn’t be you.’
His eyes glow, like dark stars at midnight, and I go up on my toes and press a kiss to his hard, beautiful mouth.
‘I love that plan, too,’ I whisper. ‘Even in pieces.’
He smiles and it’s like the sun coming out. ‘I can draw it again.’
But I shake my head. ‘No, I like that you put it back together. It feels as if that’s what you did with my heart. You broke it, then put it back together again.’
His arms come around me, pulling me in close. ‘I will never break it again, pretty Bea. Never again.’
And he never did.
Even now, he keeps it as a treasure, as I do with his.
We’re binary stars, he often tells me, orbiting each other forever. Except I disagree about one thing. Binary stars never touch, and we do. A lot.
But the forever part is true.
Epilogue
Santiago
We returned toSpain six months after our little Mia was born. Beatrix wanted to bring her up in Spain, at the Veracruz estate, and I agreed. I was apprehensive at first, since being at the hacienda brought back some bad memories, but I soon realised that my fears were groundless. With Beatrix and Mia, it felt new and different, and after we refurbished the whole place it began to feel like home.
I had a long talk with my mother, telling her that she had to accept the situation with Beatrix and that both she and I would like her to have a relationship with her granddaughter. After that it was like a switch had flipped. She started doing much better, and at last she was well enough to come home, choosing to live in my house in Paris. She’s gradually coming around to the idea of Beatrix being my wife. but she very much loves her little granddaughter, and has let us know that she’ll be coming to Spain for a visit at Christmas.
Now I’m lying in our bed in the hacienda, waiting for my wife to join me after putting Mia down to sleep. I’m hungry for her as I always am…that hasn’t changed. She’s a conundrum that is never solved, a puzzle that continues to fascinate the more I learn about her.
I don’t know what kind of life we could have had if my father hadn’t married her, but if he hadn’t Mia wouldn’t have been born and I wouldn’t change that for the world. I wouldn’t change how Beatrix came to me either.
She steps into the bedroom, still wearing a robe, and I raise a brow. ‘It’s appalling you should come to my bed still fully dressed,’ I say.
‘I’m not fully dressed. I’m wearing a robe.’
‘As I said. Fully dressed.’
She laughs, and pulls something out of the pocket of said robe, before coming down onto the bed next to me. Then she lifts her hand and I see she’s holding a long plastic stick. There are two pink lines in the window.
My heart catches. ‘Bea,’ I murmur. ‘Oh, Bea.’
Her eyes are a lake in full sunlight and she laughs again as I pull her hard against me, and kiss her senseless.
