by Leylah Attar
“Sing to me,” she said, snuggling closer.
I didn’t know what was going through her head. Was she relieved to finally meet her father? Was she disturbed by what he’d done? Whatever her reaction, sleep didn’t elude her for too long. Children have the remarkable ability to digest, adapt, and take things in stride. Her arms slackened around me and her breath turned long and peaceful as I sang MaMaLu’s lullaby.
I breathed in her scent and closed my eyes, stroking her hair. She was my calm in the middle of chaos, a little piece of innocence untouched by the turbulence of the past. I didn’t know how Damian’s presence was going to affect our lives, but I knew things were going to change. I’d had her to myself for seven years and all I wanted to do was hold on to that moment for as long as I could, her cheek next to mine, the weight of her leg securing me from leaving.
A floorboard creaked in the room. I opened my eyes and froze. Damian was standing by the door. The expression on his face was so painfully intense, so filled with longing, that the words to the lullaby I was singing left me. It wasn’t the raw carnality with which he’d assaulted me earlier. It was much deeper, as if all of his happiness was contained in that one scene before him: Sierra sleeping beside me, while he stood at the threshold, cut off from it all.
A lifetime ago, it had been me, him and MaMaLu, curled up like this.
I didn’t have any words, and neither did he. He tried to say something, but his throat clenched, so he turned on his heel and left. A moment later, I heard the soft click of the door as he let himself out.
THE GATES TO CASA PALOMA were open. It looked vastly different from the last time I’d seen it, but I had no time to admire the changes. I marched up to the front door, surprised to find it was also unlocked.
Damian was in the study room, poring over some papers, when I barged in.
“What’s the meaning of this?” I waved my bank statement at him.
“Good morning to you too,” he said, without looking up.
Seeing him in the space I had always associated with my father was strange. Of course, my father had not been around much back then, and when he was, I knew better than to disturb him in the study. Damian did not seem the least bit perturbed by the intrusion. He let me fume for a few seconds before turning his attention to me.
“It’s for Sierra,” he said.
I almost wished he’d go back to his papers because he was looking at me like he’d been up all night, thinking about me, about what had almost happened the night before.
“And you didn’t think to check with me before making a deposit?”
He obviously had all kinds of information on me, including my bank account number. I’d blinked twice when I’d seen my balance, but the teller had assured me it was no mistake. Someone had transferred a small fortune into my account. Guilt money. Damian had seen where I lived. He knew how much I made, how much I paid the women in Valdemoros, and what I struggled with to make ends meet. It infuriated me that he didn’t think I wasn’t making enough. Sierra and I weren’t living in the lap of luxury, but how dare he make me feel like I wasn’t giving her the kind of life she deserved?
“She’s my daughter, Skye. The daughter you kept from me. I have a lot of years to make up for. You can expect a deposit every month, so get used to it.”
“I’ve been taking care of Sierra without your help all this time. If you think you can use her to get to me, you—”
“I don’t need to use Sierra. I get to you just fine.”
We both knew he was talking about my fevered response to his kisses.
“Last night changes nothing,” I said.
“Last night changes everything.”
Our eyes clashed, gray on black.
“Fine,” I said. “Make your deposits. See if I touch a single penny.”
Damian got up and walked around to my side of the desk.
“It’s very simple. You want the deposits to stop. I want you and Sierra,” he said. “Marry me, Skye.”
“Marry you?” I blinked. It was the last thing I’d been expecting. Proposals were supposed to be epic—grand moments that swept you off your feet, not negotiated like some business transaction. “You’re out of your mind.”
“Am I?” He swept one arm around the small of my back and pulled me in. “Tell me you haven’t missed me. Tell me you haven’t stayed up nights thinking of how good we are together. Because right at this moment, all I want to do is push you up against the wall and take you so hard that I can’t tell where I end and where you begin. I ache where you’re supposed to be, Skye, and I’m not going to stop until you’re mine. So we can draw this out or we can quit wasting more time. Either way, we’re going to end up right here. Me about to fuck you.”
“Is that what this is about? You want to fuck? Let’s do it, Damian. Let’s do it right here on my father’s desk. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Nailing his daughter on his desk. You’ve taken everything else—his company, his home, his life—so why not his daughter? He’s gone, Damian, but you’re still trying to prove a point.”
“This is not about that,” Damian growled. “You and I have never been about that, so let it go.” He clamped down on my wrists as if trying to make me drop it.
“Really? Let it go? You couldn’t let it go with MaMaLu, but you expect me to just move on when it comes to my father?”
“I did let it go.” He spoke slowly, each word punctuated with razor sharp control. “I let you go. Back to your father. I left you in that supermarket, but you tracked me down. That’s something that you conveniently omitted from your statement. I knew they were working on you, and you let them coerce you. You picked a side, Skye, and it sure as hell wasn’t mine.”
“I was protecting you.”
“You couldn’t even look at me in court.”
“Because I was pregnant! Because you can read me like a book.”
His hold softened on my wrists and he tugged me towards him. “Precisely. So I know you still want me. I can tell by the way your breathing changes. The curve of your spine changes. Everything in you is screaming for me, Skye. So why are we fighting?”
“Just because we have mind-blowing sex doesn’t mean I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
“Need I remind you? You said you would always, always love me.”
“I do. I always will. But it’s not enough.”
“Mind-blowing sex and love? That’s enough for a damn good start in my book.” He bent his head and said it in my ear, sending icy shivers down my skin. “And I’m not even throwing in the fact that we have a daughter. Say yes, Skye. Tell me you’ll marry me.”
“I don’t trust you, Damian. That’s the problem. There was a time when I would have followed you to the ends of the earth. I fought for you, but you know what you fought for? Vengeance. Retribution. Revenge. Even when you were in prison, you couldn’t let it go. You didn’t just bring down my father’s company, Damian. You ruined the lives of all the people who worked there, who depended on it for their livelihood. They were real people with real lives—kids, dreams, mortgages. Some of them were just weeks from retiring. Some depended on the health benefits. Do you ever think about that? Does it ever keep you up at night? Or are you still caught up with your own needs and your own pain? Open your eyes, Damian. There’s a bigger world out there and it’s not all about you. I’ve finally got my life together and you waltz in, expecting me to rearrange it because it suits you? Well, guess what? It’s not going to happen. You want to see Sierra? Fine. I won’t stand in your way. But stop trying to strong-arm your way into my life. That’s a right you have to earn.”
For a second, Damian stared at me. The raw desire in his eyes gave way to something else. Respect. He stepped back and allowed me my space.
I was almost out the door when I heard him speak.
“It’s not over, you know. It never has been,” he said. “Whether you say yes or no, you will always be my forever.”
If anything gives amateur cra
ftsmanship away, it’s wonky stitches. Hand stitching is what made my brand stand out from mass-produced goods, so it was a skill I held regular workshops on. Anyone could attend, including the prisoners that I didn’t employ. I hoped that learning a new trade would help them when they got out. A lot of the lifers took the workshops too. It broke up the daily drudgery of prison life, and many of them ended up joining the production team afterwards. They used the money to buy small comforts that made their lives more bearable. Some of them were brute, hardened women, prone to fits of rage. I’d been plagued by second thoughts when I first started, and I’d had my fair share of panic attacks. There were times when I’d wanted to drop everything and run back to San Diego.
Now the guards welcomed me and the women were protective of me. I was showing them how to saddle stitch when I looked up and lost my train of thought. Damian was standing in the center of the compound, scanning the walls. He was the one constant, rooted thing in the middle of all the commotion. People were milling all around, but they gave him wide berth, clearing a small circle around him. His eyes were open, but he was lost to everyone and everything. I sensed it was the first time he had visited Valdemoros since the night he’d found out that MaMaLu was dead. Had he stood in the same spot then? Had my Esteban died there?
I wondered when my heart would stop aching for him, when my body would stop reacting to him, when my soul would stop humming around him. Why do we fall for people who are no good for us? Why, when we’ve been there, done that, and we know better? I was about to turn away when he shifted and stared straight at me. He could always freeze me with a single look, but he did something different then. He smiled. One minute, his face was frozen in the past, and the next he looked like he had found a ray of sunshine.
Damn. When Damian threw one of his rare smiles your way, it took a few moments to catch your breath.
I fumbled with my words, trying to recall what I’d been saying. It didn’t help that he made his way over, stood at the far end, and watched me interact with the women for the rest of the workshop.
“What are you doing here?” I asked when it was over.
“Opening my eyes. Seeing the bigger world around me.” He started picking up the scraps of rawhide that littered the floor, scraps that I saved for smaller projects like key chains and coin purses.
“I’ll give you a ride home,” he said, when I had bundled up all the material.
“I can manage.” I juggled four bulky bags, two on each hip, as we stepped outside.
He didn’t push it when I joined the line at the bus station. It often took two or three buses before I caught one that wasn’t brimming with passengers, leaning dangerously off the sides.
“Sierra stopped by after school today.” He stood next to me, on the side closest to the road, shielding me from the dust that stirred up as cars went by.
“Good.” I didn’t want any misgivings between Damian and me to affect her. “How was she?”
“Cocky. She said she was glad she kicked me in the balls the first time she saw me. I deserved it because her mama only has nine nails to paint instead of ten.”
“She kicked you in the balls?” My lips twitched at the thought.
“Damn near took out my junk. Today, she threatened me some more. Said she’d make it hurt worse if I did anything to hurt you again.”
“Typical father-daughter conversation, then?”
“She talked. I listened. Then I made her something to eat and dropped her home.”
I thought about the last time Damian had cooked for me. Plantains on hot stones, under an inky sky. When we’d been the only two people in the world.
“My bus is here.”
He took one look at it and grimaced. I knew he wanted to haul me over his shoulder and throw me in his car. He gave me a curt nod instead and watched me board. Then he followed the bus all the way to my stop before driving on to Casa Paloma.
Damian came to Valdemoros again the next day. He didn’t talk or hang around the booth where I worked, but he showed up when I was ready to leave and joined the line at the bus stop with me.
“What are you doing?” I didn’t know what he was playing at, but it made me uncomfortable.
“Catching a ride.”
Ugh. He was impossible.
“I got Sierra started on her homework,” he said. “She has a math test tomorrow.”
I felt a pang of jealousy. The two of them bonding. Every day after school. I had to work around the prison schedule, which meant I got home late. When Sierra first started school, I had a babysitter pick her up and cover the gap. It didn’t last long. Sierra was her own person—stubborn and fiercely independent. Just like her father. I could relate to MaMaLu’s exasperation now.
Estebandido! she used to shout.
When our bus arrived, Damian glowered at a young man, until he got up and offered me his seat. I settled the bags on my lap as I squeezed in between a mother doing her toddler’s hair, and a man holding a glossy red rooster. We’d made six totes in stylish dark-red leather with camel-colored straps that I still had to stamp with my standard logo: WAM!, in memory of Warren, Adriana and MaMaLu. The lady beside me left the comb sticking out of her daughter’s hair to run her hands appreciatively over the hand crafted bags. Damian swayed over me, holding on to the overhead bars through the bumpy ride to Paza del Mar. Most of the passengers got off at the main square. As we left the storefronts and cafes and art vendors behind, Damian took the seat across from me.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he replied. “Just sitting here thinking how far you’ve come, and I’m overwhelmed with how much I love you.”
He stared out the window and my entire world flipped over as the bus rattled on. I looked down at myself and saw a dull, plain version of the person I’d been. I hadn’t had a pedicure in years. My toes were sticking out of a pair of low-heeled sandals that hadn’t made the cut when I’d first designed them. The straps were too bulky, but the soles were soft and durable, so I’d decided to keep them. My thick, waist-long hair was tied back in a careless braid, and I wore a breezy tiered skirt with a crop top. I was a far cry from the fashionista he’d abducted. I wished I could see myself through his eyes. Then again, Damian never looked at me with his eyes. He looked at me with his soul.
I didn’t say anything when he got off the bus with me. He took the bags from my hands and carried them up the stairs to my condo.
“You want to . . . come in?” I asked when he turned to leave. I didn’t want him to go even though a part of me was chanting: don’t let him in, don’t let him in, don’t let him in.
“When you mean it, güerita.” He was gone before I could say anything.
“Was that Bandido?” asked Sierra when I opened the door.
“Yes. And you need to stop calling him that.”
“Bandido,” she repeated.
“Ban-Dad-o.” She mulled over the word as she bent over her books.
“Dad.” She stopped what she was doing and stared off into the distance. Then she picked up her pen and nodded.
“Dad,” she said softly, tasting the word in her mouth again.
For the second time that day, my entire world flipped over.
Was I wrong to shut Damian out? Was I keeping us from being one big, happy family? I didn’t have the answers. All I knew was that loving him had shattered me. I would never be able to piece myself together a second time if I let him break me again.
DINNER AT CASA PALOMA HAD always been served in the courtyard. I didn’t remember when my mother had been there, but the traditions she’d set carried on long after she was gone. My mother had always preferred dining under an open sky. I remembered the last time my father and I had dined there, surrounded by fragrant trees and soft, twinkling lights.
It was odd returning as a guest now, seeing my childhood home after all these years. The last time I had come to see Damian, I hadn’t stopped to admire its beauty—the tall ceilings that had echoed with our laughter, the
kitchen where MaMaLu had made us sweet potato flautas. The renovations had given the mansion a new life, but its bones were still the same. I breathed in the nostalgia of another time as I walked through the house. No amount of paint or sanding could strip away the smell of Casa Paloma. It was in my soul.
“Damian?” I popped my head into the dining room. The table was now a sleek affair in dark wood, but the hutch that Damian used to hide in was still there.
“Sierra?” I followed the sound of her laughter outside, and found them sprawled out under a tree—father and daughter, looking up at the clouds.
“That one looks like a bunny tail,” said Damian.
“Where’s the bunny?” Sierra squinted. “Oh. There. It got sucked up by that dementor. See the ear sticking out?”
“For such a cute kid, you’re one morbid—”
“Mama!” Sierra caught sight of me first. “Come sit.”
It was late afternoon on a Saturday, my day off. Damian had offered to babysit Sierra so I could look after the shipments for that week. Most of my merchandise was going to exclusive boutiques in the States, but after a small piece in a fashion magazine, I was getting inquiries from all over. I sighed as I stretched out beside Sierra. I’d accepted Damian’s invitation to have dinner at Casa Paloma, but I was exhausted and still not caught up on all the orders. I looked up at the glossy, green leaves swaying over me. The yellow blooms were still a few months away, but the breeze was warm and the grass tickled my skin.
I must have dozed off because the next thing I knew, Damian was standing over me.
“Dinner’s ready,” he said, holding out his hand.
His silhouette was outlined against the evening sky. The same silhouette I’d glimpsed through a wooden crate on the boat, where he’d held me captive. I was still terrified of him, but in a different way. He made me miss things that I had bolted down, and every time I was around him, they rattled in their crates, threatening to break free.