Instead, she had only felt a sense of dread, a sense of being deficient. Because she could never be the woman he had chosen for himself in the first place. She could never be that kind of sweet, delicate beauty she knew that men like him—all men—preferred.
But now she questioned that feeling. She had assumed, of course, that she was the only one carrying around dark feelings. She was the only one beset by misgivings of any kind. Because how could a man who looked so sublime in a custom-made tux be carrying around any sort of weight in his chest?
And yet, his was the greatest of all.
“How do you know?” she asked, her words muted.
“I saw it,” he said, the words rough. “I saw him with my own eyes. You wonder how I can be so certain that Diego did not kill his wife. Because I spent my childhood with a man capable of such a thing. And while I think my brother is morally bankrupt, not unaffected by the life we led here at the rancho, I don’t believe he’s a killer. I looked into the eyes of a man who would do such a thing. I had been left to live with that man in the aftermath, while the local government bent over backward to cover it up, corruption and payoffs raining while Justice died a sad, horrible death alongside my mother. Diego is a villain. But he is not a killer.”
“Did Diego see...?”
“No,” he said, the words sharp. Hard. “I was the only one who was there that day. My father did not see it, either. I was frozen, up in a tree. I was...eight years old, I suppose.”
She could tell that he remembered everything. From his age to his exact position in the tree, his specific vantage point. But that he was going out of his way to keep it vague. To keep it easy.
That he was doing what he had to do to protect himself.
“I had been playing out in the olive groves, and I heard the sound of approaching horses. A chase. A game, I thought at first, except when I realized it was my father and my mother I knew it could not be. My father did not play games. At least, not the kind that anyone but himself could win.”
“Matías...”
“He shot her.” There was a very long silence after that. The only sound in the limo the tires on the road. She said nothing. Could do nothing but simply sit and wait. She was...horrorstruck. She wanted to hold him and she knew she could not. Should not. He wasn’t hers. And of course he never could be. But she wanted him to be. Oh, she wanted him to be now.
“She fell off the horse,” he said finally, his tone distant, pained, “or, the horse fell, and there was screaming. I do not think it was the gunshot that killed her, but the fall from the horse. When I said she broke her neck falling from a horse...that was in the official report, and I know they were covering up some of what happened. But I do think there was truth in it. The way that the horse toppled over after.” His words were hard, flat. “And I could not move. I was afraid that if I did he would kill me, too. I did try to tell the police. But the police chief said I was not to repeat that story. It was an accident. A terrible riding accident, as to be expected when people spent so much time with horses. An acknowledged risk, you see.”
Camilla pressed her hands against her chest, as if that might do something to calm her thundering heart. As if it might do something to dampen the horror she felt. “I’m so sorry. How could they do that to you? How could they do that to a child?”
“I don’t tell you this to make you sorry for me. It is done. There will be no justice for my mother, and there never can be. All the evidence is long gone and buried. Every police officer involved in the investigation moved on, retired. And my father is dead. My father is dead, so he cannot be arrested. I hope, very much, that he burns in hell for what he has done. As it is, he was killed by something so mundane as a stroke while he was in the company of no fewer than three prostitutes. If that end would have brought him shame, I would have considered it a partial form of justice, but the man had no shame at all. And so, I can only hope there is justice in the afterlife for him. For he did not suffer enough in this life.”
Her thoughts jumbled together, her heart full of immense pain. It was all starting to make sense. His need to redeem the rancho.
This place, the place where his mother had been killed, was a place of ghosts and demons for him. And she imagined that he was on a quest for redemption.
“And Diego...”
“I believe one of the more commonly held rumors. Which is that his wife caught him out in an affair and killed herself as a result.”
“He must feel...awful.”
“I don’t know that he possesses the capacity,” Matías said. “He’s a vain, selfish man. And while I don’t believe he would ever physically harm someone...he does it every day by living only to please himself.”
They made the rest of the drive in silence, and when the limo pulled up to the front of the well-lit hotel, the previous conversation from the car temporarily fled her mind as she felt a growing sense of nerves over what lay ahead.
Shallow, trivial in many ways in light of all that Matías had told her. But she was only human, a human who was about to be put on display in a room full of people, and then put on display yet again in the papers. Online. The world over. Not because of any interest in her, but because of the interest in Matías and the entire Navarro family.
Matías exited the car and she stayed in her seat, her eyes fixed upon the entry doors that were standing open, people filtering in and out wearing all manner of evening finery. Long gowns glittering beneath the spotlights.
She saw a beautiful blonde make her way down the stairs, a formfitting gown highlighting her voluptuous figure, her hair left loose and blowing in the warm evening breeze.
For the first time in quite a while, Camilla missed her hair. Wondered if Matías would find her more beautiful if she hadn’t cut it all off.
Then she frowned. She wasn’t supposed to care what Matías thought. This wasn’t about him. It was a business deal. She was the one who had said that. The one who had shaken hands with him as though they were in a board room. As though they had not been sitting in his family library, he coping with the betrayal of a fiancée, and she dressed as a boy.
The limousine door opened and Matías stood there, looming over her, tall, dark and perfectly dressed.
The sight of him took her breath away, and she was reminded why it was so difficult for her to keep the nature of the arrangement straight in her mind.
Because he was beautiful. So very beautiful and it didn’t matter that she was not a lovely enough woman to catch his attention. At least, it didn’t matter to her body.
It was shameful. The fact that she was not immune to him. That she would like to be disdainful of all his egotistical assertions that all women fell at his feet the moment they set eyes on him.
But she could not be disdainful because she was not immune in the least. And she was perilously close to falling at his feet.
So don’t.
She held on to that stern, internal admonishment as she reached out to take hold of his hand. She lifted her chin, meeting his gaze, doing her best to appear confident.
Mercifully, she was wearing flat shoes, the nature of her long dress making heels unnecessary. They had an elegant, pointed toe and glittered gold just like her gown, and were easy to walk in.
With each step they took toward the ballroom her stomach tied itself in a slightly tighter knot.
She took a breath and imagined that instead of approaching a ballroom, she was approaching a barn. That all she would have to do was wrangle a two-ton animal, rather than dance before an audience of people who would be judging her, assessing her value.
She found that settling.
Horses were her confidence.
This was not.