Chapter 203

The man in front of me didn’t move. The rain pelted his back, but he just stood there, hand outstretched, looking like an idiot drenched in foolishness.
Mateo.
My first thought was, Of course, it’s you. Because the universe clearly had a sick sense of humor. I had cried myself into near hypothermia, and now it decided to throw Mateo back into the mix like a soggy cherry on top of my despair sundae.
He blinked at me, his soaked lashes stuck together like clumped mascara. “Señorita
Señorita?
Seriously? We’re out in public and he’s going to play the gentleman?
Pfft. I had no time or patience for his pretense.
“Leave me alone,” I croaked, almost unable to push the words through the raw ache in my throat.
I hugged myself tighter, the cold eating into my bones like termites chewing through old wood. “Just walk on by, Mateo. Keep playing hero elsewhere.”
His brow furrowed. “Sorry if I’m disturbing you, but I didn’t think sitting out here in the rain was your best idea.”
Huh?
Sorry? Mateo didn’t say sorry. The
Mateo I knew unapologetically kissed me, slapped me in the face with the truth, and told me I was his like that was the truth. So yeah, sorry wasn’t in his vocabulary. That word came with shock value.
So I looked up, really looked, and that’s when it happened.
His lips parted a bit. “Dios mío… María José?”
There it was. The gasp, the wide eyes, and the slow unraveling of recognition.
I didn’t answer at first. I just watched the rain trace rivers down his cheeks like it wanted to be tears. “Yeah,” I finally said. “It’s me. You couldn’t tell because of the scar, huh?”
He stared, and I watched the moment he tried to piece it together. I could almost hear the rusty gears turning in his skull. “Letizia told me,” he said slowly. “About the scar. About what happened. That’s how I knew it was you just now. When you looked up… The scars gave it out.” ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ
“Of course, she did,” I muttered. “Letizia and her love for airing out family tragedies like fresh laundry.”
“I didn’t know it was you at first,” he went on, ignoring my bitterness. “I thought you were just some random person. Sitting in the rain. Alone. But now that I know it’s you—why the hell are you doing that?”
What now?
He was playing the responsible guy? After everything?
Tch.
I let out a sarcastic laugh. “Oh, I don’t know. Mourning my dead friends? Feeling like the world is chewing me up and spitting me back out as a pig slop? Just a normal Tuesday, Mateo.”
His jaw clenched, rain dripping from his chin like punctuation marks to my misery. “Come on. Let’s get you up. You’re going to get sick.”
“Welcome back from custody,” I snapped, tilting my chin defiantly. “Now go mind your own business.”
“You mean the custody your sister put me in?”
“Oh, haven’t you heard?” I spat, blinking away the rain that blurred my sight. “My sisters are bitches. All of them. And they’re not my concern.”
He crouched beside me, his hand brushing against my soaked shoulder. “Then, kind señorita, let me be your concern.”
Seriously? I could almost throw up with this fake gentlemanly act of his.
I flinched. “No. I don’t need this. I don’t need you.”
He narrowed his eyes, and I could see the fire brewing behind them like someone had lit a match in the storm. “You don’t have a choice. If you don’t get up right now, I will make you. I promised Letizia to keep you safe and well.”
I rolled my eyes. “Sure you will.”
Which, in retrospect, was a mistake because one moment, I was a puddle of grief and rainwater. The next, I was airlifted like a misbehaving toddler.
“Put me down!” I shrieked, flailing in his arms as he cradled me against his chest.
“Nope,” he grunted, adjusting me like a sack of drama. “You had your pity party. Time to go.”
“I’m not done mourning!”
“You can mourn somewhere warm. Like a normal person. Not on a freezing wet street like a raccoon that lost its trash.”
“I will kill you!”
“You’re welcome to try.”
I kicked, wriggled, elbowed him in the ribs, and may have even considered yanking his hair… but the bastard held on. He was stronger than I thought, more solid like the rain had forged him into something heavier than steel and twice as annoying.
He carried me back to Santa Leticia. The rain was unrelenting, wind smacking us from every angle like the weather was offended by his balls.
“Are you always this dramatic?” he asked, breathless but determined.
“Says the man who just kidnapped me!”
“Oh, please. You weigh like a baguette. I could carry you across Spain and still have energy left to argue.”
“Let me go, Mateo. I’m serious.”
“There’s not a time when you’re not serious, Señorita. Every time during public gatherings when you’re standing beside your sisters, you are always so composed. Is it that after getting disowned by the noble family, you decided to turn rogue?”
I went still in his arms. He was indeed right. I became this after breaking free from the clutches of that cursed De la Vega name.
The silence it took for me to process that cost a minute.
Finally, I said, “I died. That’s what happened. I died a thousand times. In pieces. Quietly. Every time someone looked the other way. Every time someone hurt me and no one did anything. I died.”
Mateo stopped walking. Just like that. Rain pooled in his hair. His eyes searched mine, and something like pity passed through them
“I’m sorry,” he said again, and this time it wasn’t weird. It was raw.
I turned my face away. “You should be.”
He shifted me gently in his arms. “You can yell at me once you’re dry and maybe tell me how you were able to recognize me. I know Letizia told you my name, but how did you match this face to that name?”
Was he kidding me right now?!
How on earth would I not know his name after the two unforgettable times we had crossed paths?
I knew he was a liar, but I didn’t think it was this bad.
.
We arrived at the small shack he called home, and I expected him to drop me on the porch like a mail package, but no, he nudged the door open with his foot and carried me inside like some low-budget knight.
“I can walk,” I snapped.
“Cool. You weren’t walking earlier, but congrats on the sudden recovery.”
Bastard.