I press my lips together to smooth my lipstick and stroke the antique lace bodice of my gown, which feels like a too-small cage. “So? What’s wrong with focusing on happy memories?”
“Uhhh…” he arches one dark brow at me. “Because you’re not just focusing on them, you literally don’t remember anything bad that happened, and that seems like something’s wrong with your brain.”
“Well, actually,” Elle speaks up, crossing her legs under her long, sapphire skirt, “sometimes forgetting things you don’t like, especially as a child, is a very common coping mechanism. It’s your mind’s way of protecting you from unpleasant experiences that might keep you from being functional later in life.”
“Yeah,” Colin interjects from the window, “and Elle got her degree in psychology from friggin’ Columbia, so she knows a lot about this stuff.”
I cock an eyebrow at Joaquin. “See? Nothing’s wrong with me.”
At least, that’s not what’s wrong with me. There’s a lot wrong with me, and it can all be traced to that horrifying time period when I realized Malachi was gone forever.
Forever… until he showed up later as a sinister clone of the man he used to be and trapped me in a lifelong arrangement during which I know he’s going to make me suffer, and I’m going to make him suffer right back.
“Okay, all of you are missing the point I was trying to make with that story,” Graciela cuts in, standing up and smoothing her palms down the front of her ruby red bridesmaid gown. “The point is, princesa, that we all know you both fell out of love a long time ago, and when it’s time to do the deed tonight, you need to try to remember a time when you liked doing it with him.”
My jaw gapes as I attempt to pull words together, but Elle pitches toward me to clasp my lace-covered forearm. “Listen to me, Isla.” Her elegant brows are high on her forehead. “You do not have to have sex with him. If he forces you, it’s rape. If he coerces you into saying yes but you don’t want to, it’s still rape. Even though you’ll be married. And you can go to the police. He’s not exempt from the law. I already checked for you.”
The severity of her words renders the room to a thick, uncomfortable silence, and my heart palpitates.
Once upon a time, Malachi had promised to keep me safe from anything and everything in this world. And now he’s the single greatest threat in my life.
I swallow thickly and stare at my hands. The twenty-five-carat, heirloom diamond glints back at me, almost like it’s as smug and haughty as Malachi’s been for all fifteen months of our engagement. The emerald-cut stone is as absurd as the arrangement, clocking in as bigger, flashier, and more expensive than those of Jennifer Lopez, Kim Kardashian, and Beyoncé. Also just like this marriage, it’s clearly mostly for show. All superficial beauty and no substance.
“I don’t think he’d go that far,” I say quietly.
I mean, I hope he wouldn’t go that far. If I’ve learned anything about the new Malachi, it’s that he really fucking hates me now. But he’s never been violent. He’d never do something like that to anyone. At least, before he wouldn’t. I have no idea who he is anymore, so there’s honestly no telling.
Joaquin scoffs. “Yeah, he won’t. At least… he’d better fucking not,” he retorts through a far less jovial voice than he typically uses, reminding me that, despite being a year younger than me, he’s still a twenty-eight-year-old man, a tall column of large, stone-cut muscles with that same gritty Mexican blood that we all have running through his veins, and that he would kill a man that hurt any of his sisters if it came to that.
Even Malachi.
But Joaquin, my sisters, Colin and Elle, and my parents will all be on a private jet back to the States in the morning. And I’ll be here at the mercy of a husband who hates me.
But then again, I apparently have killed a man for hurting me. I just don’t remember doing it.
I wonder if I could bring myself to kill Malachi if I had to.
I ponder this while muted activity picks up again in the room as the wedding coordinator enters and starts giving instructions. Just as I take my brother’s hand to stand up from the chair, and my sisters smooth the long, full, satin skirt of my gown, and Elle adjusts my tiara and strokes my hair while she meets my gaze with a look of love and solidarity, I realize I know the answer.
I couldn’t.
I would sooner let Malachi murder me before I ever raised a hand to him.
After all, he already killed me once eleven years ago when he disappeared without a trace, and then killed me again when he reappeared as a twisted, cruel, alternative version of the man I always loved.
ISLA
Twelve Years Old
MAMÁ HAS ALWAYS BEEN legendary for her stunning and elegant parties and social events, and our annual Christmas party was no different. In the massive ballroom of our Southampton estate, a hundred or so guests glided across the marble floor, dressed jewel-toned finery amidst warm, gold lighting from the glittering chandeliers. Rich evergreen garlands adorned with sparkling red ornaments draped over the wide arched windows, and six towering, yet fat and fluffy Christmas trees lined the walls on either side of the space. A big band crooned swanky arrangements of Christmas classics from a stage up front, and tuxedo-clad waitstaff zipped around the room with colorful holiday cocktails on their trays.
My parents made the rounds with their friends and colleagues, and my siblings mingled in and out of the crowd, swiping sweets from a dessert table and knowing it was the one night of the year they could get away with it. I was twelve years old and trapped in that awkward phase between girlhood and my teen years, feeling oh-so-grown-up in a strappy red dress that matched the garnet ornaments that hung from the Christmas trees. The stylist who swept Mamá’s hair into a sophisticated chignon had graciously taken the extra time to transform my mass of long, charcoal waves into fat, shiny, flawless curls. And once Mamá was distracted, I’d snuck into her dressing room to sweep on some mascara and red lipstick.
I stared at my reflection, a slender, girlish figure, with only small lumps of new breasts, but that filled out the top of my dress enough. A face that, with make-up, could almost pass for maybe fifteen or so. But I looked pretty and a little more mature, and I made a silent wish that he would agree.
He and his family had returned from Corwick only the day before in preparation to spend the Christmas holiday at their estate next door, and they were planning to attend Mamá’s party. I hadn’t seen him since summer, and something had changed in me that summer. I had loved him for as long as I could remember, but with all the other changes happening in my body, it seemed something had changed in my heart as well.
It was the year I had started falling in love with Malachi.
And tonight was the night I hoped to find out if all his promises about us running away to live in his Corwick palace when we grew up were meant as Malachi and his sister-like-friend, Isla, or Malachi and Isla, his love.
Standing on the edge of the ballroom, I waited and discreetly scanned my gaze while trying not to pick at my freshly-polished fingernails. King Andrew and Queen Deirdre were there, making the rounds with old friends. I spotted sixteen-year-old Philipp for a second before he snuck out of the ballroom with a glass of champagne held inconspicuously low at his side, but I hadn’t seen Malachi yet. I wanted to make sure I saw him first so I could make sure my posture was just right, with my hip thrown to one side in an effort to exaggerate the not-quite-existent curve of my figure.