“I mean about last night, Isla.”
She turned her big, brown eyes up to my face with total mischief. “I loved last night.”
I managed to maintain a neutral expression. “You mean you…”
She didn’t remember any of it.
Isla has always had a prolifically patchy memory when it came to things that were unpleasant. Her brother, Joaquin, and sister, Graciela, were constantly teasing her about it. To me, it always seemed that she simply focused her memories on the good things in life. It never struck me as problematic.
After all, what would it hurt to let bad things slip from your memory?
“I mean, I love you, mi amado.” She pressed another kiss to my skin and turned her head to rest her cheek against my chest as I stroked her hair.
“I love you, too, baby girl.” I dipped my face to kiss her head again, shifting down the mattress so I could lie flat and drift into sleep with her. “World without end and beyond my last breath, I will love you, my sweet Isla.”
MALACHI
Present
AT 3:40, I STAND in front of the mirror in my own bedchamber on the opposite side of the palace from Isla, adjusting my silver tie and platinum cufflinks, and silently convincing myself that she’s going to be late just to spite me.
At 3:42, I leave my chamber and march to my study, to the closet, through the adjoining door, which opens to a small room that houses the vault. Scanning my thumbprint, the latches open with a heavy CLANK, and I pull the door open. It’s a smaller collection of jewelry than my older brother, Philipp has, and much smaller by far than my parents have, but it has the basic essentials a duchess would need. Now that I actually have a duchess, I actually have a reason to go in here.
For as long as I can remember—prior to eleven years ago that is—I’d seen all of these items that became mine when I came of age as Isla’s. I had dreamed of all the beautiful things I would give to her, and all the events we would attend together where she would wear them.
So now, I just hate all of it.
For this event, she’ll need a diminutive set of pearls, and an equally diminutive, but elegant, matching tiara. The piece is more like a thick headband that consists of fat, teardrop shaped pearls with tiny accent diamonds between them, all set in platinum. I stack both leather boxes in my hand before leaving the vault and latching it behind me.
At 3:51, I’m descending the wide center staircase that connects to the main hall…
And just as I suspected…
She’s not fucking here.
I set the boxes on a large, round table next to an extravagant floral arrangement and march back up the stairs and toward the west wing.
Her door is still wide open, and I grip the frame to swing inside, sucking in a breath in preparation to bark at her, but find the room empty.
It is now 3:57, and I have no idea where she is, and my blood is starting to simmer.
At 4:05, I’ve been through the dining area, the kitchen, and the servants’ quarters, barking at Mrs. Maisley to send her staff to search every nook and cranny of the entire estate.
At 4:12, I’m traversing the stone walkway on the back of the palace that wraps around and leads to the front drive, because now I’m sure she’s left on foot and is potentially hitchhiking through Corwick to get to the airport.
Just before I hook the corner, I spot her on the lush, green lawn beyond one of the courtyards with a blanket spread out on the grass.
She’s reading. And she’s wearing jeans and a sweater.
“Duchess!” I holler at her as I pound the stone pavement toward the steps that lead to the courtyard.
Isla cuts her eyes up at me with a bewildered look. “Yes?”
I leap off the second to the last step and continue to march toward her. “I told you to be ready and waiting at 3:55.”
She tilts her head. “I beg your pardon. You told me no such thing.”
I reach the blanket and grab her arm, dragging her to her feet. “I see you’re playing stupid in addition to being obstinate. How very original.”
She stumbles as she struggles to keep pace with me while I march back up the steps. “Don’t fucking drag me, Malachi, and you didn’t tell me shit! I haven’t even seen you since yesterday!”
I halt and whip around, jerking her close. “You will not speak to me that way, and I just spoke to you two hours ago!”
“You did not, you fucking psychopath!”
Rage surges through me, and it happens in a nanosecond.
My arm drawing back and propelling my open palm toward her face. There’s a stinging connection of flesh to flesh. Both her head and her hair fly sideways before she staggers and stumbles to land in crumpled pile of limbs on the stone pavement.
She is still.
Her hair is a black curtain hiding something I cannot undo or take back.
My palm is throbbing like I slapped a smooth slab of marble with all my strength.
But I didn’t slap marble.
I struck the face of a woman I’d loved my entire life.
Someone I had vowed since childhood to protect from anything in the world that might hurt her.
I’ve never raised a hand to anything.
I’ve never even thrown a fist at another man’s face.
I am not, nor have I ever been, a violent person. But apparently, I am now.
And this is what she turned me into.
Isla pushes her hair away from her face with a violently shaking hand, revealing not only wide, spilling eyes, but also a fiery red handprint that covers nearly the entire left side of her face.
“Y-y-you d-didn’t t-tell,” she whimpers through hitched breaths and hiccups, “m-me any-anything.”
She doesn’t remember.
I swallow discreetly as bile threatens to creep up my throat. “I did.”
Her brown eyes are wider than I’ve ever seen, and all I can see in them is every moment that took place before.
Before that unspeakable day eleven years ago, when she ripped off the mask that was the woman I loved and then drove a knife straight through my back and my heart.
“Go back to your room and stay there,” I mumble, pivoting on the ball of my foot and striding away.
In the reflection of the glass in the doors that lead back inside, I see her lower her face into her hands before her shoulders convulse. From behind me, I hear the first sob that’s all too familiar from so many moments before.
But I keep walking. I don’t even look back.
This is what she turned me into.
FOUR
ISLA
Present
I DID GO BACK to my room and stay there. I had every intention of never leaving my room again, but the following morning, I took one look in the mirror and changed my mind immediately.
My face looks horrifying.
It’s swollen, and purple, and tinged red in places. There are thick diagonal lines crossing my cheekbones that are so obviously finger marks that all of it screams what a monster Malachi has become.
So, when I saw that, I decided I would make him stare at it until it heals.
This is now day five of me living here, and I’ve yet to join him for breakfast. But today, I’m going down to the dining room to sit right across from him just to see if he can, A) actually face what he did to me, and B) maintain his appetite.