I feel a smile spread my lips, already absorbing the warm energy surrounding us in this moment. “Me too.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven Leira
“…so that was the one, and only, time I’ve ever been to Disneyland. I’m pretty sure the park instituted new guidelines based on what I did.”
Enrique is still laughing as I tell him about the time I got a little too curious and wandered “backstage” at Disneyland, exploring the off-limits part of the park for almost two hours before I was finally returned to the nanny, who promptly quit the next day.
It’s late, so the only other patrons are part of a large group, obviously drunk and thoroughly enjoying themselves based on the noise.
I laugh with him and take a long swallow of the wine in my glass from the second bottle he’s ordered. Just like the sangria, I can feel it hitting me hard, but I’m enjoying myself too much to quit. “So I’ve been talking all night. You know all about me. What about you? What was it like growing up here?”
“Marbella is not here,” he corrects.
I wave my glass in the air. “I meant Spain. It must have been some transition at first.”
Relocating to the convent for the summer was definitely a culture shock for me, but at least I had the benefit of knowing I’d return to normalcy once it was over. But really, will anything be normal after all of this?
More importantly, do I even want to return to it?
“I was five at the time,” Enrique says. “Everything that happened before that feels almost like snippets out of a dream. Even my mother’s face, her voice, it’s all faded. My adoptive parents actually made a point of encouraging me to try and forget about it all. I guess they thought it would only be traumatic for me to dwell on it. Or maybe they just wanted me to fit in better to my new life here. I don’t know.”
“That’s terrible,” I blurt out. “Having never even known my mother and oldest sister, it seems cruel. Hearing stories about them via my father and older sisters at least made me feel like I knew them somehow. Then losing Layla, who was the sister I was actually closest to, and Lucinda, who was probably more of an influence than she should have been. The memories I have with them…I can’t imagine ever letting go of those.”
“More than anything, I think I miss what could have been. With my mother at any rate. My father—” Enrique stops, his jaw hardening. “I sometimes think maybe my life would be better if I had forgotten what he did, moved on from it all.”
I feel some draw pulling me toward him, not liking that train of thought he’s on. I scoot out of my side of the small booth we’re in and round the table to be next to him.
“You have a right to be upset, Enrique—to grieve. I don’t know what I’d do if I had the chance to confront the men that took my sisters. So I get it, what you’re doing.”
“Even killing?”
It’s wrong. Despite the Bible’s rather bipolar exploration into taking lives—even if the Ten Commandments are quite clear—I know it’s wrong. But I also empathize with it. And that same deviant rush that seized me when he first talked about killing his father now consumes me once again.
An eye for an eye.
Thou shalt not kill.
“I…can’t speak to that,” I say. Something in his eyes dulls, and I instinctively reach out a hand to cup his face, bringing them blazing back to life. “But I would never judge you.”
I can’t tell if the heat of his cheek against my palm is a warm glow of comfort or symbolic of the fires of hell. Maybe it’s just the wine warming the blood in both our bodies.
Enrique’s burn is obviously not a slow as mine is. He sets his glass of wine down on the table and pulls me in closer.
There’s nothing warm and comforting about the way his lips feel against mine. No, his mouth is like pure brimstone, punishing and dangerous. It sets the alcohol in my blood on fire, making it far more potent an enabler.
His tongue slips through, speaking a language with mine that could only translate into trouble. And hell if I’m going to tell it to shut up now, not when I’m caught under whatever spell it’s chanting.
The sound of someone clearing their throat interrupts us.
Enrique and I pull apart like two magnets suddenly on the same poles, repulsing away from each other.
“Desculpe,” the server apologizes before explaining that the restaurant is about to close.
Enrique pulls out his wallet and hands over a credit card before the bill can even be set on the table.
I pour the last of the wine into my glass and drink, even though I know it’s the last thing I should be doing. Something inside of me is on the cusp of an edge that delineates whether I fall into an abyss I shouldn’t, or rise above it.
And I want to fall.
“Are you sure about that?” Enrique says, eyeing me as I finish off the glass. “Remember what happened with the sangria?”
Oh, yes I do.
I set the glass down and give him a level gaze, or as level as the wine in my system will allow.
“I’m sure.”
The amusement in his gaze evaporates and is replaced by something dark and smoldering.
The server comes back with the bill and douses the moment with reality. Enrique signs the check and takes his credit card.
I quickly slide out of the booth, wanting whatever is left of the momentum to carry me all the way back to our hotel. My legs are less sure than my head is and get entangled in one another.
“Cuidado,” the server says, reflexively catching me as I nearly tumble to the floor.
Enrique is just as
