by Bethany-Kris
She did.
So damn good, too.
• • •
As much as Chris didn’t want to leave that bedroom, or Valeria’s side, he still pushed out of the bed slowly. Once the two had cleaned up, redressed, and he tucked her into his side in the bed, she fell into a deep sleep.
Small blessings, he supposed.
A quick look out the window told him the sky was still dark, and would be for a while. If all went well, the house would be quiet, and the rest of the people would be asleep, or damn close to it. No one would look sideways at him coming down the hallway in the middle of the night, not if they were already drunk, or sleepy.
An easy excuse—he had to use the bathroom.
Who would question it?
Still, Chris didn’t want to risk running into anyone at all. One or two incidents he might be able to brush off, but if caught in a compromising position with Valeria, then this whole thing would be over.
That was not a risk he wanted to take.
A check of the clock on the bedside table told him it was three in the morning—lucky he hadn’t fallen asleep, too. It would be a long day for him tomorrow with only a couple of hours of sleep, but with Valeria still pressed against him, her taste lingering on his tongue, and the sounds of her bliss echoing in his mind ...
Worth it.
This had been worth it.
Leaning over the bed, he tangled his fingers in the stray waves of Valeria’s black hair that had fallen over her shoulder. Tucking the strands back, he let his fingertips glide over her delicate shoulder, and down her arm. She slept on, unbothered by his attention, lost in her dreams.
Like this, she was peaceful.
He wanted her to have more of that.
Peace.
Someone who gave a fuck.
He wanted to be that person.
Carefully, he dropped a soft kiss to her shoulder, and the corner of her mouth. He swore he saw her lips quirk into a smile in her dreams, but he couldn’t linger any longer than he already had.
“See you soon, sweetheart,” he murmured.
Before he found another reason to stay—wasn’t the woman sleeping in the bed reason enough?—Chris headed out of the bedroom, checking the hallway first. An empty hall stared back at him, thankfully. He closed the bedroom door behind him without making a sound.
Down the hall though?
Another door clicked.
Chris looked that way, but saw nothing.
Someone going back to bed?
God.
He fucking hoped so.
13.
The next morning, Valeria stepped into the large dining room, surprised at how quiet it was considering how many people were staying at the home with them for the weekend. She didn’t have to wonder for long what caused the stillness when her gaze landed on the man sitting at the head of the table.
Jorge scowled at the older man who brought his breakfast to him. “Took long enough, don’t you think?”
“Sorry, sir. Would you like your coffee—”
“Now.”
His voice, slurred and harsh, told the truth. Jorge was hung over, and that rarely spelled good things for anyone else in his direct vicinity. The man loved to drink, but hated to deal with the morning after because of it, too.
The only good thing about his hangover?
Jorge barely paid Valeria any mind.
She joined them at the table, willing to ignore she hadn’t seen her husband at all the night before, and had no idea when he returned to the home. It meant she spent her entire evening and morning without him, and that wasn’t a bad thing.
Not that she had been lonely.
Across the table, Chris worked on buttering a bagel as one servant poured him a cup of coffee. He smiled up at the woman pouring his coffee, nodding. “That’s good, thank you. I’ll prepare it the way I like it.”
“If you’re sure ...”
“No worries, I have it.”
“Where is my cream?”
Jorge’s bellow echoed down the table and silenced the rest of the people trying to enjoy their breakfast. A lot of them weren’t any better or worse than Jorge if Valeria was to believe what Chris had told her the night before.
He had no reason to lie.
She might have been sorry for them and the headaches they had, but she didn’t give a shit. And given her husband was busy snapping at anyone who didn’t move fast enough for his liking, or dared to breathe in his direction, she also had better things to do.
Like stare at Chris.
He looked back.
It was insane.
Foolish.
His wink from across the table was enough to make her crazy, and hot all at the same time. God knew she had spent more than enough hours the night before beneath this man, letting him learn all the parts of her body he wanted, and still ... somehow, she wanted more.
Definitely insane.
There was no other explanation for why Valeria seemed willing and ready to get Chris between her thighs as soon as she could. Not when she knew each time was yet one step closer to being caught, which meant the end of her life.
Not that it mattered.
No one noticed her staring.
Or his.
Chris’s lips quirked up at the edges, and Valeria had to glance down at the empty plate in front of her because of it. The flood of heat that traveled straight down to her pussy, making her thighs clench under the table as she tried to soothe that sudden ache, was dangerous.
And addicting.
She had forgotten what sex should be until Chris. A part of her thought it would never be good again—that she wouldn’t want for it, or a man, again because of the hell Jorge put her through. She had forgotten about the things she wanted, and deserved, because she was too busy trying to survive. Or even, taking care of someone else’s needs, like her child. Although, she didn’t regret that. Ever.
With little effort at all, Chris reminded her that she was very much a woman with needs, and one who wanted them fulfilled. She should be grateful for that, and she was ... but it also scared her.
Everything about this terrified her.
Trust me.
His words rang in her mind.
Valeria wouldn’t soon forget them.
She couldn’t.
Glancing across the table again, she found Chris tipping his coffee up for a drink. Over the rim of the mug, while everyone else around them was trying to avoid Jorge’s morning wrath, Chris watched her with a knowing glint in his eye.
That look said soon.
It murmured beautiful things.
It promised, too.
Hope, Valeria realized.
That’s what she was feeling in those moments—hope. As traitorous as it was, and as destructive as it might be. Because what might happen, she wondered, if she did get that freedom Chris promised her.
What would happen with him?
With her?
For her child?
She had never dared to hope before.
Now, it was all she felt.
Because of him.
• • •
“But have you explained to Papá what you’re planning yet?”
“Why, so he can ruin the Canadian deal?”
“Jorge—”
“Samuel, I told you how this will work. Didn’t I?”
The Spanish between the Lòpez brothers flowed fast, and while Valeria was fluent, her years away from Mexico and not needing to speak her mother tongue sometimes made it difficult for her to follow along when two or more people spoke quickly. Her steps slowed coming down the stairs of their ranch home, so she could focus on just the conversation happening between Jorge and his brother in the kitchen.
“He’s already planned Abril’s wedding to Roberto García,” Samuel said, a sigh following his words. “If you think by ruining this arrangement, he’s made with our rivals will only piss them off, then you are mistaken, brother.”
“Have you conside
red that’s what I want?”
“Excuse me?”
Jorge let out a bitter laugh. Valeria shivered. Her husband was a lot of things, and a bastard was at the top of the list. He didn’t care who he had to hurt on his way to the top as long as that’s where he landed at the end of it all.
His family?
People he should care for?
Those he proclaimed to love?
Fodder.
That’s all they were to him.
Things to use.
“That’s what I want, Samuel,” Jorge said, his tone thick with pleasure at his plan coming together. “Finally, this will be the message I need to send for it to be clear where Papá and I stand—he is no longer running this organization. I am.”
“You’re looking for a problem, then.”
Valeria knew better than to spy, and yet, she stayed right where she was. Sometimes, eavesdropping was the only way she got any information. No one ever thought to inform her because what did it matter? She was a woman, nothing more. Jorge’s wife—his thing to do with what he wanted, whether anyone cared what happened to her.
A part of her figured she needed to listen to Abril more and take the woman’s advice. If she planned to make it out of here alive, then she would use everything to her advantage.
“He’s old, and his ways show it,” Jorge snapped. “What is he going to do at his age? Step back—that is his only option, now. To step back and see my way is the better way. And if we have to tear apart the García cartel when this is all said and done to finish it, then so be it.”
“You don’t understand the issue with that at all, do you?”
“No, I don’t understand your issues.”
“They are the same things!”
Jorge’s annoyance came out in a dark grunt. The sound told Valeria that Samuel was walking a thin line with Jorge’s patience. A dangerous thing, no matter which way someone tried to spin it.
Mostly, she tried to stay out of her husband’s way when he was in this kind of mood. Come to think of it, he had been like this for the last week. Ever since they returned to the ranch from the vacation home. She had seen little of Chris throughout the week, other than his occasional walk around the property.
Here, Jorge sheltered her.
It made things hard.
“This is done,” Jorge hissed to his brother, “and nothing you say to sway my decisions will work, so quit before it becomes an annoyance I will have to deal with, Samuel. Do you hear me? Stop.”
“I’m only trying to make you look at the bigger picture. All you see is what you want, but not what will happen because of it, or who will suffer for it, Jorge.”
“I’m done discussing this. The deal with the Canadians will be completed soon. Once it is, and we have the full supply control or all of Canada, we won’t need Papá, or his fucking deal with the Garcías to merge our organizations. And with that much territory behind our name, it won’t matter what the García cartel tries to do to us—it won’t leave a dent.”
“How soon until it’s finalized?”
“Chris will leave by mid-week, or that’s what he explained,” Jorge replied, “so I assume before then.”
What?
Valeria’s heart stopped.
Chris was leaving?
That soon?
Within a couple of days?
Maybe less?
What did that mean for her? Or ... for Maria?
She didn’t give a single shit about the rest of Jorge’s plans—nothing he planned against his own father, or the rival cartel, helped her. It would not get her out of here, and would only force him to seclude her and his child further away from the public while his manufactured wars raged on.
That’s how this life worked.
The conversation continued in the kitchen with her husband and his brother unaware that the fluttering hope she had allowed herself to feel now seemed like shards of glass inside her chest. Her legs became weak, and she slipped down to sit on the step, drawing her knees to her chest as she realized this was over.
They would never get free.
How could they if he left?
Her last hope.
What was hope good for, anyway?
Nothing.
That’s what.
Hope is for the fucking weak. It’s why she had never bothered before now because it all ended the same. So, why did this hurt so much?
• • •
“What are you do—”
Valeria scooped her daughter up from the ground where she had been playing with the kitten that her father still threatened to take from her. She ignored the nanny’s shout at her back as she turned and headed toward the stables while Maria’s wild black curls flew in every direction.
“Careful, my kitty!”
“Hold him tight,” Valeria told her girl.
Maria did just that, tucking the squirming kitten into her arms, cradling it like a baby doll. Behind them, Carla shouted louder.
“You can’t just take her, Valeria!”
“She is my child. I can do whatever I want.”
“I’ll tell Jorge you said that.”
Fuck it.
“Do so,” Valeria snapped over her shoulder.
Carla’s fish-mouthed stare almost made her laugh. The bitch also wasn’t as important as she tried to seem to be, so Valeria didn’t give her another thought.
Oh, sure, she would pay for this.
Jorge would make her aware.
Valeria didn’t give a shit.
Not right now.
“Where are we going?” Maria asked.
“For a horse ride.”
Away, she wanted to say,
Just ... God, away from here, and this place, and these people. Away from pain, and fear, and the hell that would someday catch up with her. Not that it mattered. Eventually, she would have to come back, and if she didn’t, then someone would come find her.
For right now, though, she was going.
She needed to.
Once she had calmed down earlier after overhearing Jorge’s conversation with his brother, Valeria’s only wanted to get away. It screamed in her heart—to go.
Somehow.
Knowing she didn’t have much time, Valeria took the one horse that someone already tacked up. That way, she didn’t have to waste time getting their favorite riding horses ready.
She put Maria on the horse first, tucking the kitten into a rucksack for her daughter to carry close to her chest, before heaving herself onto the animal, too. They came out of the stables in a slow trot.
“Don’t look back at the house,” she told her daughter.
Maria frowned, tipping her head back to peeked up at her mom. “Why?”
“Because if they know we see them, then we can’t lie later when we come back.”
“Not supposed to lie, Mamá.”
Valeria struggled the most with these moments. She wanted her child to be a good human being—a person with values, and morals. And with one white lie came more white lies, right?
Still ...
“Sometimes, we have to lie, Maria.”
Her daughter blinked. “To Jorge?”
She didn’t miss how it wasn’t Papá when someone couldn’t hear Maria. That just proved to Valeria that her daughter understood what she said even if she wanted her mother to explain it better.
“To him, and people that help him,” she agreed.
Maria nodded. “Okay, Mamá.”
Valeria checked behind them, though she told Maria not to. No one watched them leave, and even Carla had disappeared. No one saw them take the horse out.
It didn’t matter.
Valeria pressed her heels into the sides of the horse and clicked her tongue. That slow trot became a gallop, and she continued looking over her shoulder until the ranch disappeared. Still, no one saw them go.
The ride to the cliffs went by quickly. She should have planned the ride better—attempted to grab food to take with them so that Mari
a could have a supper.
Her daughter didn’t seem to mind.
Maria busied herself with wildflowers and her kitten. She didn’t notice her mother sitting along the edges of the cliffs. Valeria watched the horizon, and the choppy waters down below. They stayed like that, Valeria staring, and Maria playing, and before long, she heard hooves hitting the ground in a gallop.
Approaching.
She just knew.
It wasn’t someone coming after her.
Not to take her back.
It wasn’t Jorge, or his men.
Valeria peeked over her shoulder. She could tell who it was by the way he sat atop the animal, both comfortable and confident.
She also sensed him.
Chris.
Apparently, her heart hadn’t finished breaking.
14.
The risk of following Valeria on horseback to the cliffs was high, but Chris weighed it before he left. Given he was already out on a horse, one he took out around noon when the guards were doing their shift change, nobody saw him leave, and so they wouldn’t expect him to be returning soon, either.
Chris often came and went on the property. After a spread of time on the ranch, it almost seemed like the guards and the family had become accustomed to Chris doing his own thing, and as he didn’t interrupt their business, they didn’t bother his.
That worked in his favor.
Like now.
It wasn’t seeing Valeria on a horse that concerned Chris, as she often took the animals out to ride, but rather, the look on her face. If sadness had a picture in the dictionary next to the word, it would have been of Valeria. A deep ache settled in his heart at the sight, and before he knew what was happening, he had turned his horse around in the field as he had been approaching the ranch, and followed behind.
He’d noticed Maria, too, but the girl didn’t seem to be in the same state her mother was, and she rode on her own horse whenever she took one out. Not today, though. This time, she was riding with her mother.
Chris’s anxiety spiked when he realized Valeria was heading for the cliffs. Since his arrival, he had only visited the cliffs once on a ride. Their proximity to the water, and the obvious danger, kept him from taking the horses out that way. He didn’t need to be urging his fears on more than he already did whenever he felt the need to test himself.