Chapter 147

María José laughed.
Not the nervous, breathless kind of laugh one might give when faced with an unhinged man confessing his love in the early noon.
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She burst out laughing.
Dios, it was the most infuriatingly beautiful sound I had ever heard. A full-bodied, uninhibited laugh that shook her tiny frame, made her head tilt back, and made her hands clutch her stomach as if I had just told the funniest joke in the world.
I frowned. “What’s so funny?”
She gasped between laughs, shaking her head. “You—you Another peal of laughter escaped her, making her shoulders tremble. “Do you even have an idea what love is?”
Love. What is love?
How do I tell her I didn’t give a batshit whatever it was but my mouth knew to articulate what I felt in the depth of my heart as love?
I settled for scowling and saying, “No. But neither do you.”
That caught her off guard. Her laughter died in her throat, and she blinked at me, the afternoon sun illuminating the puzzled furrow in her brow.
Fuck, she looked like a sprig of Lily in the beam of the light.
I took a step closer, my fingers brushing a stray strand from her cheek. “That’s why we should discover it together.”
I had no idea what I was saying, but I was saying it.
My voice was low, velvety, and wrapping around her like a whisper of temptation… because it was.
Oh, it was.
“We should explore each other’s feelings.”
She sucked in a sharp breath, her lips parting slightly. Dios, she had no idea what she did to me when she looked at me like that.
So wide-eyed, so unguarded. So ’Kiss me, oh, Big Bad Daddy Luis. Claim me’
Then, just as quickly, she snapped out of it, shaking her head. “How can you say you love me? This is the second time we’ve even seen each other.”
Who bloody cares how many times we’ve met?!
I let out a soft chuckle, tilting my head. ” Cariño… I loved you before I even saw you.”
Her eyes widened.
I moved in closer, trapping her between me and the rough stone wall. One hand braced beside her head, the other tilting her chin up to meet my gaze.
“I loved you the moment I saw you up ahead, standing there in the pigsty like some lost little thing that didn’t belong in this world. And yet, you belong more than anyone. ”
Her throat bobbed and her breathing began to rise.
I traced my knuckles along her jaw, my voice dropping to a whisper. “You think love needs time? That it has to be logical?”
I smirked, my lips ghosting over her ear and licking the soft skin surrounding it. “I don’t need time to know that I would kill for you.” My fingers trailed down her neck, brushing the curve of her throat, and feeling her pulse race beneath my touch.
Her hands trembled at her sides. She was listening. Latching onto every word.
“From the moment I saw you,” I murmured, my lips barely an inch from hers, “I knew I’d belong to you, whether you wanted me or not.”
She let out a shaky nasal breath. Dios. No one had ever spoken to her like this before. No one had ever wanted her like this. I could see it in her wide, stunned eyes.
For a moment, she was completely still, lost in whatever spell I had woven around her.
I inclined closer…
…Almost there…
And then, out of the blue, her hands shot up, shoving me backward with surprising force.
” Back off! ”
I staggered, barely catching myself in time.
She was breathing hard, her arms wrapped around herself as if she needed to physically hold herself together. “I—I get it. I understand your feelings.”
I narrowed my eyes. That wasn’t the reaction I wanted.
“But Her voice cracked, and suddenly, the fire was gone.
In its place was something much worse. Something soft.
Pity.
No, no, no, María, don’t you dare pity me!
The pity belonged to me to feel. I was the man. She was the broken porcelain. She was the one who needed fixing. It was me who needed to fix her.
I should hold the control, not her. My fingers started to twitch. This wasn’t going the right way.
She lowered her gaze, her fingers curling into the fabric of her dress. “I don’t know how you could love someone like me. A helpless girl who can’t even stand up for herself.”
My stomach twisted.
She gave me the smallest saddest smile. “You shouldn’t waste your love on me.”
The words hit me like a knife to the gut.
I felt a jolt in my breath, a searing pain taking hold of my chest.
I knew what heartbreak was. I had seen it. Hell, I had caused it.
But I had never felt it. I had felt grief, felt sadness, but nothing like this.
Not until now.
She wasn’t done. “If you truly didn’t kill the pigs She took a deep breath as if forcing herself to get through this. “Then I wouldn’t mind being friends with you.”
Friends?
I swayed on my feet.
Friends.
The word sent a searing pain through my ribs as if something inside me had just burst in half.
“I My throat closed up. I was going to be sick. I was going to collapse.
Then she said it. The words that broke me.
“But I’m in love with someone else.”
The world tilted. My eyes spun.
No.
No.
I physically felt my heart shatter inside my chest.
I couldn’t breathe. The air around me felt suffocating, too thick, and oh, too heavy.
Her voice was soft, hesitant, and completely unaware of the destruction she had just caused inside of me. “I’m sorry, Mateo.”
I staggered back and my vision began to swim.
My legs nearly gave out. I gripped my chest, my nails digging into my shirt as if I could physically hold myself together.
The pain—it was unbearable. Like something was tearing me apart from the inside.
María José, look what you’ve done to me.