Total pages in book: 230
Estimated words: 217798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1089(@200wpm)___ 871(@250wpm)___ 726(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 217798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1089(@200wpm)___ 871(@250wpm)___ 726(@300wpm)
And I’m glad to be done with him.
I keep repeating this lie over and over while I rifle through my walk-in closet. I don’t want to be with him. I don’t crave the things he does to me in the bedroom. I don’t need to see the lust and want in his eyes every time I enter a room. I can live without hearing the sounds he makes when he lets go during sex. None of that matters.
It shouldn’t matter. I toss a cashmere sweater into the brand-new luggage I’ve found with a frustrated growl.
A soft knock at the door makes me pull up. Snap back into the good wife, though I won’t be Francisco’s wife for much longer. Lila stands at the threshold, surveying the open suitcase and the clothing tumbled into it. “His Grace sent some paperwork.”
“Good,” I say, too brightly. “Let me see it.”
I keep my jaw set so I don’t cry as Lila hands me a leather portfolio. It falls open in my hands. It should be easy enough to read the print on the page, but I can’t get past Agreement to Annul. My eyes blur. Why? He’s giving me what I asked for.
Lila puts a soft hand on my arm. “You’re upset. Can I help you?”
“We had a fight,” I blurt out. I shouldn’t be airing my marriage’s dirty laundry to my maid, but what is there to hide from her? She’s been between my legs. She sees everything. “My dad asked for help with his business. There was—there was a bad deal he wants me to smooth out. He got in over his head. The meeting… it’s happening tomorrow. I’d have to get on a plane right now to make it. Francisco said I couldn’t go.”
Lila is frowning. “Forgive me if this is too far, but is there a reason your father couldn’t negotiate on his own behalf?”
“No. He could do it. He signed the original deal. It’s just his way of...”
My maid moves past me to the suitcase. She bends to take the clothing in her hands, then folds each piece and tucks it into the space. “His way of doing business?”
“His way of never having to deal with the consequences.” It’s so obvious, now that I’ve said it out loud. This is the same reason I offered myself in marriage to Francisco. Not just because I love my family and want the best for them...but because my father refused to take responsibility. He let me carry it for him, and he wants me to do it again.
Lila stands and pats the front of her uniform. “Francisco believes in responsibility.” She presses her lips together, seeming to make a decision. “His own family suffered from a lack of it, though not when it came to business.”
My heart aches. “What was it, then?”
“His mother and father, the former Duke and Duchess of Linares, were not a match for each other in terms of their personalities. They both saw each other’s weaknesses and exploited them. Emotions ran high. I have to imagine it was stressful for His Grace.”
“Not a match. What do you mean?”
“There was fighting, constantly. Screaming.” She glances at the door, furtive, as she knows she shouldn’t be talking about this. “There was infidelity on both sides. The household, we thought the young duke would never marry. Not after the wreckage they made.”
“That’s terrible.”
“It was how they died. One night after a fight his mother drove away, furious, enraged. There was an accident. His father went after her. He found her in the moments after the crash. She died in his arms. The former Duke of Linares never recovered from his grief.”
My memory of the conversation in Francisco’s office is different now.
I see it filtered through my own past, and his. He was quick to see what I couldn’t about my father, and of course I didn’t want to believe that. He’s my dad. That doesn’t give him free rein to use me the way he’s been doing. Though I will never abandon my family, I also don’t need to go running every time they call. After all, my first duty is to my marriage now.
And the way I behaved...
No wonder it made his face close off. No wonder he dismissed me like one of the maids. He witnessed a lifetime of that kind of fighting. Francisco saw it at its most frantic heights.
And its most painful depths.
“I...” I’m about to apologize, but it’s not Lila who needs that from me. He didn’t handle the situation well; he could have explained. But at least now I understand. He thinks control will help him avoid the fate of his parents. “Thank you. For telling me all this.”
She nods and returns to the door. “Send for me if you need me.”
When I’m alone, when I’ve blinked the tears away from my eyes, I read the agreement.