by Myra Scott
When he was gone, Bart gave a hearty chuckle, but Gage elbowed him in the side as I raised an eyebrow at Diego.
“Diego…”
“Shall we get down to business?” he said, desperately trying to change the subject. “I would like to revisit this issue of the lounge bar, if you all still have time. And I believe you had some questions about how security personnel staffing will be handled in the shared area?”
There was a tense pause among the five of us, and all my guys exchanged glances before I cleared my throat.
“Could I get a moment to confer with Mr. Castillo?” I asked, and the three of them raised eyebrows and gave quick nods before moving off, leaving me relatively alone with Diego. I stepped closer to him and lowered my voice.
“Diego, what was that? Is everything alright? That wince…”
“Everything is fine,” he said quickly, giving me the most restrained look I’d ever seen from a man. “I understand how it looks, but…” He waved a hand vaguely, trailing off. “We really do have limited time, so we should move along with this. Gentlemen,” he called the guys back, “if you please?”
We gathered back together to start discussing business, but I couldn’t stop looking into those dark, wounded eyes of his and wondering.
If that was the surface of their relationship...what was it like beneath that?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN - ZANE
Working out wasn’t doing enough to get today’s meeting out of my mind.
I felt the burn on my bare biceps as I lifted the forty-pound weights into a slow, steady curl, held them a few seconds, then lowered them again. I kept strict count and stuck to the usual workout routine that gave me the body I was so proud of.
Exercising at home was one of those few things that gave me pleasure to do in private. Ever since high school, I did it to relieve stress and keep myself in peak physical condition. Now, doing it all in the privacy of my home, it was the closest thing I ever did to meditation. It let me focus my mind on one thing, my body, and all my energy went into that.
On the best of days, it could be a reset button for my mind. Whenever things were buzzing around in my head like angry bees, I could rely on a workout to re-center me and make me feel quiet inside.
It was not working this evening.
I set the dumbbells down and swung my arms back and forth to limber up, taking deep breaths as I strode shirtless into my kitchen. I kept every part of my house absolutely spotless, just because the feeling of walking into a clean room was that therapeutic to me. The smell of the cleaner my maid used was fresh in my nostrils, but even that couldn’t distract me.
Diego had winced when Alvaro turned on him. I kept going back to that. I wondered if I had just seen his reaction the wrong way, or maybe he had been blinking funny, like something was caught in his eye.
But no, no matter what other explanation I tried to come up with, there was no way around the fact that Diego had winced at Alvaro. What kind of relationship was that?
I didn’t want to think about it, but I knew where I had seen that kind of reaction before. Growing up around a lot of other kids around school, it was seemingly inevitable that some of them had bad home lives. Some were worse off than others, and when some of the kids had fathers who were physically intimidating…
I didn’t want to think about that option, but I knew that it was totally within the realm of possibility. Alvaro was Diego’s first relationship, and Diego had clearly been very anxious about coming out when he did. I had no idea what the LGBT scene was like in Spain, but it couldn’t have been as open and plentiful as it is in America.
In that kind of situation, it was easy to see how Diego could get cornered by the wrong man.
I shook my head as I ran my hand through my hair. I was in no place to be throwing around judgments like that. I had no idea what Diego’s home life was really like, and I couldn’t deny that I had some ulterior motives that might make me want to suspect that Diego didn’t know what he was doing or how to escape his situation. He was a competent, assertive man, and I was probably just jealous.
But I had also been a good judge of character since I was a kid. I could always tell when someone in class was going to turn out to be a bully or a genuinely nice person, and I was always right. I followed my gut with these things, and I had yet to be proven wrong.
And it was the most obvious thing in the world that things were at least tense between them. I’d seen relationships teetering on the edge, but I rarely saw them so blatantly hostile as that, and there was no avoiding the fact that Diego was a different man around Alvaro.
And it wasn’t in a good way.
But I was guilty enough over what we did--if Diego did have a handle on things, I didn’t want to make it worse.
I wound down the workout, took a shower, and hit the bed, expecting to get a full night’s rest to let the day wash away from me so I could give things clearer thought tomorrow.
Sleep was just about to claim me when the doorbell woke me up with a start.
I blinked my eyes in the darkness, hopping out of bed. “What the hell…?”
It was after midnight. There was no way I was expecting company this late. I glanced at my phone...and my eyes widened as I realized I had four missed calls from Diego.
I hurried to the door and pulled it open, still wearing nothing but my sleeping boxers.
My jaw dropped, and my eyes widened.
Diego was standing in the doorway, still wearing the same suit he had been in earlier, but it was ragged and half-unbuttoned. His hair was a mess, and he looked exhausted the way he was standing there, an arm propping himself up against the doorframe, breathing unevenly and shaking.
“Oh my god, Diego, I was asleep, I missed your calls,” I gushed, taking him by the arm and guiding him inside quickly and shutting the door behind us. “What in god’s name happened to you? Were you in an accident?”
“Zane, I…” he started, and I realized he was keeping his face turned away from me. “I am so sorry for short notice, but...Alvaro and I are fighting. Do you mind if I stay here tonight?”
“What’s wrong with your voice?”
I reached to Diego’s chin and turned his head so he could face the light, and I gasped at what I saw.
Diego’s lip was swollen and busted open, a steady trickle of half-dried blood running from his lip to his chin.
“Oh my god,” I breathed, and fury started boiling to the surface. “Diego, did...was this…?”
“Please, don’t be angry!” Diego urged me, and I was heartbroken to hear him say that with such worry in his eyes as he held his hands up. The fury I felt toward Alvaro melted away, replaced by the need to take care of this man.
“No, Diego, that’s not what I mean,” I said soothingly, leading him further into my apartment. “Come on, let’s get you taken care of. Of course, you can stay here. Christ!”
I took Diego to the living room and sat him down on one of my long, soft couches before I slipped his jacket off for him and removed his tie. He sat there almost numbly, looking both dazed and ashamed.
“I should not have let things go so far,” he mumbled.
“I don’t want to hear it,” I said firmly but calmly. “Diego, whatever happened tonight was not your fault. You don’t have to tell me anything more than you want to, but just bear with me while I get you cleaned up.”
Over the next few minutes, I played doctor.
I got a few cotton balls, rubbing alcohol, and water, setting it all on the coffee table while I sat next to Diego and pushed his head back so I could see the injury better.
It was my turn to wince.
“God, he got you bad,” I grumbled.
“I never said it was him,” he tried to say, but I gave him a flat look.
“Diego, I know your instinct is to protect him,” I said as I wiped his lip clean gen
tly, careful not to harm him as much as possible, “but don’t try to lie to me.”
“It was my fault,” he said. “I tried to keep him from getting involved, he hates getting pushed like that.”
“He hates it when you stand up to him,” I clarified in a very serious tone, looking Diego in the eye. “Diego, I know what I saw in La Torre this afternoon, but I had no idea it could escalate to this.”
“We have been together a long time, Zane,” he murmured. “Couples fight, they always do.”
“Not like that,” I said. “How long has this been going on, Diego?”
He was silent, and that spoke volumes. I finished cleaning him up, then took him to the kitchen and sat him down on a stool.
A moment later, I had some ibuprofen and water for him. While he took that, I dug around through the freezer and took out a bag of frozen peas.
“Here,” I said, wrapping it in a cloth and handing it to him. “You’ll want to keep this on that lip as much as possible.”
His face looked...wrong. This was a statuesque man who was built like a Greek statue, not someone who deserved to get pushed around by some monster with slicked-back hair that was already starting to recede.
“Diego,” I said, taking his hand and looking him in the eye. “This is not normal. This is not natural. You do not deserve this.”
“Zane…”
“You told me yourself that things are not the way they used to be between the two of you. Those were your words, weren’t they?”
He didn’t respond.
“How long, Diego?”
His lip started to quiver, and he lowered his head into a hand as a few sobs escaped his powerful chest. I wrapped my arms around him and held him as his sobbing intensified. I felt my jaw clenching.
Alvaro was going to pay for this.
“I don’t know if there has ever been anything between us,” he confessed. “I thought there was, that it was all normal, but...he was all I had.”
“It was easy for him to take advantage of you,” I said, nodding. “What he did was wrong. He’s not a good person, Diego, it isn’t that you’re weak. Not in any way. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
“I’ve wanted to end things with him for so long, Zane,” he sobbed. He was such a strong man, but no man is invincible. “That was what I wanted to say by the pool, but I couldn’t, because I knew he was coming here. Why do you think I have adjusted so well to Vegas? Without him, I know I can do better, but…”
“But nothing,” I urged him, taking both his hands in mine. “You deserve so much better than this, Diego. Nobody deserves to be spoken to like Alvaro talked to you in La Torre. I knew it, all the guys knew it—”
“Oh god, your partners all saw that,” he said, burying his face in his hands again, but I squeezed his shoulder.
“Do you know how close I was to knocking Alvaro out right then and there? How close all of us were to that? We all knew that wasn’t right. We’re not perfect either, but we can tell abuse when we see it.”
That word made Diego wince, and he shook his head. “No, no that could never happen to me, it’s not like that.”
“Diego, you’re nursing a bloody lip,” I pointed out, and for once, he was at a loss for words.
We sat there a long time in silence punctuated by the occasional sniff from Diego.
“What can we do?” he finally asked, and I squeezed his hand with a firm, resolute look. I had never been more sure about this than anything in my life. The fury I had suppressed to take care of Diego was burning back to the surface with all the more heat.
“We’re going to go to your house and kick that son of a bitch out.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - DIEGO
I pressed the bag of frozen peas to my face gently, my hands shaking a little. My eye and lip hurt like hell, and I could feel my cheek starting to swell, too. But it wasn’t the pain that had me trembling. It was the fear.
Sitting in the passenger seat, I glanced over sidelong at Zane. He was shaking his head, his jaw tightened. I could tell he was gritting his teeth. His knuckles were white as he gripped the steering wheel tightly. I could very easily imagine cartoonish puffs of smoke steaming out of his ears, but even that image wasn’t enough to lighten the mood in his car. I wanted so badly to reach across the console and touch his arm, get his attention in some small way and assure him that everything would be alright. But he was completely wrapped up in righteous fury on my behalf. I felt a pang of guilt again—his time for ever having gotten Zane involved in my relationship drama. Alvaro was my problem, not his. I was the one who had chosen to date him, and I was the one who didn’t walk away when my boyfriend turned cruel.
“I should have seen the signs,” I mumbled, hanging my head.
Zane looked over at me, seemingly startled by my words, as though he had been deep in thought. “What?” he asked softly. He was so enraged, but he somehow amazingly still reserved some tenderness for me. It was remarkable.
I looked at him, wincing as I opened my mouth to speak again. “I should have known my relationship would go this far south. I should have anticipated it. Soy un tonto,” I admitted sadly.
Zane raised an eyebrow. “What does that mean? ‘Tonto.’”
“Oh. It means, uh, stupid person,” I explained.
“You aren’t stupid, Diego,” he told me, shaking his head. “I don’t know if Alvaro has made you feel like you are, but I can promise you that you’re not.”
“No. He is right. I am stupid. I let myself fall into a relationship with a man who was cold to me, thinking that I could be the one to melt his heart and make him kind again. I told myself that if I did everything right, if I was the perfect boyfriend, that it would make him love me,” I told Zane. I bit my lip to fight back the tears stinging in my eyes, but let out a whimper of pain when I bit down on the swollen skin.
“The way Alvaro is… that isn’t your fault,” he said firmly. “You are doing everything right. You are perfect. And if there was any man in the world who could melt an icy heart, it would be you. But some people aren’t fixable, Diego. Alvaro is not a bad man because you made him that way. He’s a bad man because that’s who he is. And no amount of love or devotion from you could change that.”
“I should have seen this coming,” I murmured, closing my eyes. I dabbed at my black eye with the bag of frozen peas.
“You can’t see the future. That’s not your responsibility. You dared to believe that he could be better. You loved him. That’s all you could do,” he said.
“Si, pero I did not leave when I saw the warning signs!” I burst out. “I knew he was getting worse and worse. He called me names. He manipulated me. And still, I stayed with him. I gave him years of my life, knowing full well in my heart that he did not love me.”
Zane reached over to lay a gentle hand on my arm. He glanced at me with genuine sorrow in his eyes. “Diego, I’m so sorry. If I had known how he was treating you before…”
“There is nothing you could have done,” I interrupted softly. “I was so set on pretending that everything was fine. I couldn’t admit that something was wrong. Nobody could have convinced me I was making a mistake. I had to learn it myself.”
“You’re stubborn that way,” he agreed. “But I love that about you. How long has it been this bad? Be honest with me.”
I sighed. “A long time.”
“Has he hit you before?” he asked, looking at me hard.
I shrugged. “Yes,” I said very quietly. “But it wasn’t serious. Just a slap.”
“Why? Why would he have ever…? You know what? It doesn’t matter. I’m going to make him pay for this, Diego. That much I can promise you. He’s going to regret ever laying a hand on you,” he swore. That anger swelled right back up in full force, and I knew better than to say another word. I shut my mouth and leaned back in the seat, focusing on keep
ing my face iced. The rest of the car ride passed by in silence, my stomach twisting in knots while Zane fumed. I knew this was not going to go well. Alvaro was downright frightening when he was truly angry, and I was terrified that he would hurt Zane.
When we pulled up to my house, I felt like I might be sick. Zane turned the engine off and got out of the car, storming up to the front door before I could even get out and follow him. His hands were balled into tight fists and he walked with the aggression of an enraged bull. He pounded on the door and called out, “Open the door, you cowardly piece of shit!”
“Zane!” I gasped, rushing up behind him. “Don’t!”
The door swung open and suddenly Alvaro and Zane were face to face, staring each other down. “Can I come in? I’m coming in,” Zane snapped, pushing past Alvaro into the foyer. Alvaro glared at me as I hovered in the doorway.
“¿Quién es él?” demanded Alvaro, pointing accusingly at Zane.
“Who am I? I’m the man who’s come to kick your ass!” Zane threatened.
Alvaro rounded on him furiously. “Excuse me? I don’t know what you think you are doing, but you are a trespasser here. This is my house. Get out before I throw you out.”
Zane laughed derisively, shaking his head. “I don’t think so, asshole. This isn’t your house. It’s Diego’s house, and you are no longer welcome. Leave him out of it. You want a fight? You got one right here. Come and get it.”
“A fight?” my boyfriend chuckled. “There is no fight to be had here, amigo.”
“Look at his face!” Zane shouted, gesturing toward me. “You did that to him. You hurt him. Don’t even pretend to deny it. I know what you did, you abusive prick.”
“That?” he shot back, shrugging. “No es nada.”
“Nothing? That’s not nothing! You hit him. How dare you be so flippant about this?”