by Vicki Savage
Then slowly, as we began to dress, reality settled around us, and I realized that all good things must eventually come to an end.
“Well,” Miles said as he took my hand. “I suppose we should go pay a little visit to your friend now, shall we?”
Chapter Eight
Rafe
The little bell over the door jingled as we entered the corner shop. It was determined that I should be the one to do the talking. Miles’s temper was far too strong, and Carina had been through enough. According to Miles, I had the most level head, and therefore was the most likely to get us all though the ordeal without anyone throwing punches.
I didn’t want Carina to come with us, but she had insisted. She still seemed convinced that Mr. Rodriguez was her only means of income and that without him, she would have no way of providing for her daughter. We had argued, but I had eventually caved when Miles said he would protect her if things got ugly. We agreed to discuss more about her future—and our place in it—later.
Once inside, I immediately spotted Carina’s bottles of sand, as well as a few other knickknacks that had seemed to have been painted in the same flowing style. I had picked up one of the bottles and was studying it when a tall, round man hobbled into the room.
“I told you to come alone,” Mr. Rodriguez said to Carina as he took the bottle from my hand. “If you touch, you buy.”
I glanced at Carina to confirm this was the man she had told us about. As I watched her huddle closer to Miles, I knew without a doubt that this man was the one who had made such an outrageous offer.
“You will have to come back later,” the shop owner said, drawing my attention back to him. “I was just closing up.”
“We are not here to shop,” I said. “We are here because you have been taking advantage of the poor people in this area.”
The man sputtered. “What? I do no such thing. I help them by selling their wares.” He scowled at Carina. “I ship them to places they couldn’t get to on their own.”
“For most of the royalty,” Miles muttered.
I took a menacing step forward. “I know that you charge twenty-five dollars for those little painted bottles, but you give only two-fifty to the person who crafted it.” I fisted my hands at my sides. “That’s a ninety-percent profit.”
Mr. Rodriguez frowned at Carina as he spoke. “Everyone is aware of the terms and signs a contract with me before I sell their crafts. She has agreed—”
“She agreed to the terms because she had no choice,” I said.
Mr. Rodriguez ground his teeth and turned toward me. “If she does not like the terms, she does not have to sell with me.”
“Where could they sell, then?” I asked. “There is no other storefront selling collectibles in this section of town, and the people here are far too poor to travel by taxi or subway to the tourist spots on the other side of the city.”
“You keep them poor so that they are forced to sell to you,” Miles said. “Then you take advantage of them when they don’t have enough money to live on.”
“Is that what you have been telling them?” Mr. Rodriguez asked as he took a menacing step forward. “What other lies have been spewing from that dirty little mouth?”
“Only that when she fell on hardship, you offered her to make up her side of the contract with sexual favors instead of painted bottles.”
Mr. Rodriguez’s cheeks turned red as he glared at me. “I did no such thing! I would never want such a dirty little whore to touch me.” He wrinkled his nose at Carina. “This woman was once married to my close friend, so I did her a favor by offering to sell her wares in my store.” He waved at the shelf of painted bottles. “You can see how little my customers want her trinkets. They are worthless, just like she is worthless.” He spat at her feet.
Miles lunged for the round man, arms raised as if to punch him. Part of me wanted to let him beat the shop owner. The foul man deserved it for the hell he had been putting Carina through. Beating him wouldn’t solve anything, however, and could only make things worse for Carina. I put my palm on Miles’s chest, stopping my friend before he did something that landed both of us in jail.
“Enough.” I turned toward Mr. Rodriguez. “If you think so little of Carina, then you have no problem releasing her from her contract.”
Mr. Rodriguez widened his eyes. “Why would I do that?”
“You said yourself that her bottles were not bringing in money. It would be foolish to keep such a terrible business relationship going.”
Mr. Rodriguez pressed his lips together and turned toward Carina. As he dragged his gaze over her body, I could tell he didn’t want to release her from her contract. Immediately, everything became clear. Not only had the shop owner been underpaying her in royalties, he had probably been lying about how many bottles he sold. He had purposefully kept her destitute so she would be indebted to him and beg for an advance on her bottles. Then, he could do what he probably wanted to do for years, even back when she was married to his friend. He’d fuck her. He’d use her body for his own sick and twisted pleasure and then cast her aside.
Or he wouldn’t. Perhaps he intended on stringing her along, paying her just enough to get by in return for sexual favors. Either way, this Mr. Rodriguez was a horrible human being.
“You little whore,” the shop owner said as he took a step toward Carina.
Miles started to move to intercept him, but it was too late. I was already moving. Pulling my arm back, I let all of my anger and frustration pour into my fist as it came down hard on the side of his head. Mr. Rodriguez sputtered and turned with the punch, his pudgy body flailing until he flopped on the floor in a heap.
I was done with this shop and this horrible little weasel of a man. This entire situation disgusted me. Fisting my hands, I moved to finish him off, but suddenly small, feminine fingers pushed at my chest, giving me pause.
“Please,” Carina begged as her face filled my vision. “Don’t do this. He isn’t worth it.”
All of the anger seeped out of my body when I saw the fear in her eyes. I didn’t want her to look at me like she did Mr. Rodriguez, like she feared I’d might hurt her, and yet that was exactly what she was doing in this very moment.
“He won’t hit him again,” Miles said as he took her hand and grinned at me. “Rafe is a lover, not a fighter.”
I snorted and relaxed my muscles. “You’re right.”
“I know I’m right.” Miles glanced down at Mr. Rodriguez, who was scrambling along the floor, trying to get away from us. “You’re lucky it was Rafe who punched you. If it was me, you wouldn’t be able to get up.”
“Get out of my shop,” he said as he scrambled behind the counter. “Get out before I call the cops.”
The threat might have meant something if similar occurrences didn’t happen all of the time in this section of town. The police were so overwhelmed with calls that it would have easily taken hours for them to arrive. By that point, we’d be long gone.
“We’ll leave,” I said. “But only on one condition.”
“Name it.” He poked his head up from behind the counter and stared at us with his beady little eyes.
“We’ll leave if you release Carina from her contract and never bother her again.”
“Yes, of course.”
“If you see her or her daughter on the street, you better run the other way,” Miles said. “If we hear that you approached her in any way, we’ll be back.”
“Yes—I mean no, I won’t see her. Now get out of here.” He waved us toward the door.
Miles patted me on the back and steered me toward the door. “Take it easy, Rafe,” he said when we got to the sidewalk outside. “It’s over.”
“I know.” I let out a long breath and forced myself to relax. “Thanks, Miles. I appreciate you holding me back.”
“I wasn’t the one who did that.” He nodded to Carina. “She did.”
“Thank you so much,” she said as she threw her arms around my neck. “I appr
eciate all you two have done for me.”
“That’s just the tip of the iceberg, sweetheart,” Miles said as she turned and hugged him, too. “You can expect a lot more good things to happen to you and Angelina from now on.”
She giggled and looped her arms with each of ours. We talked and laughed on our way back to her apartment, and I sensed that she had never felt so good, or so free, in a long, long time.
Her mood was infectious. It had been many years since I had felt so good about myself and the direction my life was taking. In fact, the last time I had been anywhere near this happy was in college, when I was with Miles.
Our good moods were short lived, however. As we approached the apartment complex, we noticed a limo sitting on the street outside. Large men in long, dark jackets stood next to the limo and at the doors of the building. As we got closer, a sinking feeling erupted in my chest.
“Shit,” Miles muttered under his breath.
“What is this?” Carina asked. “What’s going on?”
Suddenly, the door to the limo opened, and a tall, balding man stepped out onto the sidewalk. After adjusting his spectacles, he turned toward us and smiled.
“Miles, there you are. We have been looking everywhere for you.”
“Father.” Miles nodded to the old man as he pulled away from Carina and me. “What are you doing here?”
“You shirked your responsibilities and ran away from your mother and me. You stole a car and disappeared for days, leaving us worried. Your mother is a mess, and your cousins noticed your absence at their fundraiser down on the coast. It was embarrassing trying to cover for you.”
“I’m sorry, Dad, but I never asked you to—”
“I think you’ve done quite enough harm for one vacation, don’t you think?” Miles’s dad frowned at Carina and me. “Now it’s time to say goodbye to your little friends. I’ve come to take you home.”
Chapter Nine
Miles
Shit. In the back of my mind, I knew that this moment was going to come someday. My parents had always bragged about the fact that they were so close to the English crown. My father in particular, liked to tell whoever he met about his royal ties. This was ironic, considering that the royal blood came from my mother’s side of the family. Sometimes I wondered if he only married my mother so he could tell people that he was royalty.
We were distant relatives at best, but that didn’t stop my dad. From the time of my birth, he had plotted his way into Buckingham Palace, and made me associate myself with my second cousins as much as possible. He had hoped that if I was around enough, if I was well behaved enough, then the Queen might grant us some special privileges. Perhaps, we would be granted some royal authority he could brag about to his friends back home.
None of this happened of course. Nevertheless, he had raised me alongside my cousins, insisting that I take the same classes in social etiquette, history, and government as they. I had hated every minute of those lessons, but that didn’t matter. All my father cared about was keeping up appearances, and showing the Queen just how royal and stuffy his family could be.
The first time, I realized there was life beyond royalty was in college. Rafe didn’t realize it, but in his own way, he had shown me that there was a whole world outside of the royal family. He had opened my eyes and allowed me to experience all of it. Nothing was too risky or outrageous. Rafe never judged, never told me I couldn’t do something. Instead, he stood by my side and let me do as I wished. It had been exhilarating. Through him, I had the freedom to be myself. I experienced things and discovered who I was meant to be. No matter how crazy things got during our adventures, Rafe gave me the strength and the safety to keep me from going over the edge.
It had been a special and precious gift, one I didn’t appreciate in my youth. It wasn’t until my father had read the blackmail letter and stopped paying my tuition that I realized what little interest I had in his ambitions. I had felt forced to bend to his will, however. If he had cut me off from the family finances, I would not have been able to afford the lifestyle I was used to living. As much as I had wanted to continue my life with Rafe, things had started to become strained between us because of that impulsive kiss. I hadn’t been sure if he wanted me around anymore, and even if he had, we would have had no way to provide for ourselves. I couldn’t have imagined being without my fancy clothes, sports cars, or high-end electronics. At the time, I had been too afraid to think about what life without all of these comforts would be. So I went home with my father with my tail between my legs, hoping that someday Rafe would understand the huge sacrifice I was making for us both.
I resented my father for taking me away from Rafe, and hated him for trying to turn me into a younger version of himself. For years, I had wanted to break free from his grasp, but it wasn’t until I had met Carina that I figured out how to do it.
Like Rafe, Carina had given me a gift as well. Through her quiet strength and care, she had shown me it was possible to make it on my own with little material possessions, or nothing at all. She didn’t need fancy things to be happy. In a section of town where it would be all too easy to sell one’s body for profit, she had held strong to her ideals and taken the hard path through life. She had provided for her daughter, and was content.
Seeing them together made me content, too. Carina was one of those people who was beautiful both inside and out. She made feel ashamed for taking the easy path through life and made me want to be a better person. Deep down, I knew it was more than coincidence that the three of us had found each other in Rio. It was fate.
Carina and Rafe had shown me that I could live without my family’s money, and if the idea that I had been working on for the past few days came to fruition, I wouldn’t never need that money again.
“Come,” my father said as he waved me to the limo. “Your mother is waiting.”
I glanced over at my friends who had become closer than family these last several days. Carina appeared to be a little frightened of such a display of power and authority. Rafe just looked resigned. I felt bad that I had let him down all of those years ago. As long as I had breath left in me, I was never going to let either one of them down again.
I turned back to my father. “I’m not going.”
“What?” My father took a step toward me. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
My heartbeat quickened in my chest. “I’m not joking, Father. I’m not going back home with you.” I fisted my hands at my sides and held my ground. “I’m not cut out for being a royal like you are.”
“So you want to live here?” my father asked as he waved a hand at the apartment complex. “In this dump?”
“Yes.”
My father snorted. “If you leave, I will cut you off from the family funds. You’ll have no money and need to work for your keep.”
“I know. Money doesn’t matter to me anymore.”
“You will no longer be able to crash fancy sports cars.”
“I won’t need to.”
“You will never gain favor in the Queen’s eyes.”
I shook my head. “That is something that has always mattered to you, Dad, not me. I don’t need someone else to approve of my actions in order to feel good about myself.”
My father pressed his lips together in frustration. “You haven’t worked a day in your life. You’ll never make it.”
“Yes, he will.” Rafe broke away from Carina and came forward until he stood by me.
“Who are you?” my father asked.
“I’m Rafe. I met your son in college. He’s a hard worker and very driven.”
“It’s true.” Carina came up and stood on my other side. “When your son first came to me, he was hurt pretty bad. That didn’t seem to matter however. From the very first day, he has not only help me and my daughter with housework, but has distracted us from our difficult times with his stories.” She took my hand. “Your son has a rare gift. People listen to him and are inspired. It is because of him and Rafe that I am f
ree for the first time since my husband died two years ago.”
I smiled warmly at Carina and squeezed her hand. Then I took Rafe’s hand and faced my father. “This is my family now, Father. They let me be myself and understand me more than you ever did.”
My father stared at us for a long time before he spoke. “This is how you really feel, is it?”
I lifted my chin. “It is.”
“All this time, I thought you wanted what we wanted. I thought you wanted to be royalty.”
“No, Dad, that wasn’t what I wanted. It was what you wanted.”
“You never told me different.”
“You never let me have enough freedom to know what I wanted out of life.”
He flexed his fingers at his sides. “You have given me a lot to think about. I must break the news to your mother. She will be upset you are not coming home.”
“I will stop by to say goodbye before you leave. I will also come visit, but only if you let me bring Rafe and Carina with me.”
My father nodded. “I guess this is it, then. Goodbye, son.”
I dropped Rafe’s and Carina’s hands and went to embrace my father. “Bye, Dad,” I whispered into his ear. “Thank you.”
He cleared his throat and stepped back. “Yes, well.” He glanced over my shoulder and nodded to Rafe and Carina. “It was nice meeting you.”
“You, too,” Carina said.
“We’ll take good care of your son,” Rafe said.
“I know you will.” My father glanced at me and smiled. “You already have.” Without another word, he got back into his limo and left.
“Wow,” Rafe said as the limo pulled away. “That was intense.” He patted my shoulder. “But I’m proud of you. I think you did the right thing.”