“Sofia.” My grandfather stopped short when he saw me. He didn’t say hello. He didn’t smile.
The stranger’s gaze slid over my uniform before returning momentarily to my face. Then he looked away, releasing me from my prison.
“Go to your room.” Although Grandfather spoke to me, his eyes remained on the man.
I opened my mouth to speak, wanting to say something, anything, against the command more fitting for a five year old.
I saw one side of Raphael Amado’s mouth curve upward as he watched me.
“Now!” Grandfather barked.
I turned and bounded up the stairs, forgetting the reason I’d come down in the first place. Everything seemed suddenly so inconsequential.
“Six months, old man. I’ll be back then to take what’s due me.”
I heard Raphael Amado say that right before I reached my room. The front door opened and then slammed shut. I went to my window, saw Raphael climb into the backseat of the SUV, and watched as it disappeared toward the property gate.
An hour later, my grandfather sent for me, summoning me into his study, a place I’d only been invited into a handful of times. When I walked into that dark room, I found him sitting behind his large, antique desk, his face gray, his eyes like steel.
I’d imagined a different sort of reunion after four months away at school. I hadn’t even come home for the Thanksgiving holiday. Although life was never any different here, even during the holidays. At least I went away to school. Lina had to live here. I sometimes didn’t understand why he wanted that, why he bothered with the private piano lessons for her. I never got the sense he wanted to encourage it or her—he’d never been that kind of man—but once he’d discovered her talent, he’d hired her the very best teachers. I didn’t like leaving her behind. Didn’t like the feeling of my little sister unprotected and alone here without me. Thank goodness for Marjorie.
“Close the door and sit down, Sofia.”
A deep sense of foreboding settled like a cement brick in my belly as the door clicked closed behind me. I took the seat he pointed to. He’d barely looked at me when he’d said it, and when he spoke, it was more like a business transaction than a handing off of his granddaughter to a stranger. I learned who Raphael Amado was, at least what Grandfather was willing to tell me. I learned my fate. A future decided for me, the reasons for which I was not allowed to know. And as my heart grew heavier and my stomach felt like it would heave the lunch I’d eaten, I knew my life would change—had already been changed–irrevocably.
I didn’t even hear him after a while. He spoke almost on autopilot, like the cold, heartless machine he was, and all I could imagine, all I could picture, was a deep, dark canyon and me standing on a cliff that crumbled beneath my feet, moments from falling into the chasm, my life forfeit.
Six months.
I had six months before he’d come to take me.
I was the thing Raphael Amado felt he was due.
I was what he meant.
He’d come on my eighteenth birthday. The same day as my graduation from St. Sebastian. What should be a day of celebration would become the day of my sacrifice. Because I no longer belonged to myself. My life had been traded, exchanged. And I belonged to him now.
My grandfather, a man who should protect me, would give me to a stranger.
With the meager details Grandfather allotted me, I wasn’t sure whom to hate, whom to blame, whom to pity. All I knew was that in six months’ time, I would be taken out of my home and forced to marry Raphael Amado, to become his property, the payment of a debt my grandfather owed.
The image of the two of them in the hallway came to mind. I’d never seen a man stand nose to nose with my grandfather. Raphael Amado hadn’t cowered. The opposite. He’d stood in my grandfather’s house as if it was his. As if he had every right to it. And he’d told my grandfather what he would do, leaving no room for discussion, no doubt as to what would happen.
Any man who could cause my grandfather to yield was formidable.
I knew Raphael Amado was a man to be reckoned with.
And in six months’ time, I’d be his.
Chapter Two
Sofia
June twenty-third. Just one week to graduation.
“That’s all, ladies and gentlemen. Well done. We’ll run through it again tomorrow.”
Sister Lorelai excused us, and ninety kids, this year’s graduating class, broke out into chatter, our shoes loud on the wooden platform erected in the east garden of the property.
“There’s a party at the pool later,” Cathy whispered to our group of five. “Invitees are handpicked. We’re all on the guest list, of course.” She winked, locking arms with Mary.
“Swimsuit optional?” Mary asked.
“Absolutely!” Cathy said, leaning her head in close.
They broke out in giggles. I didn’t feel much like laughing myself.
“Sofia, come on. You’ve missed the last three parties! You can’t not go tonight,” Cathy said. “Exams are over, you have no excuse.”
I smiled at her, my mind elsewhere. “Sorry, tonight?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Party? Boys?”
“Um…”
“I just got a new bikini in the mail yesterday!” Mary said. “I’ll show you.”
“I’m going to run to my room first,” I said, breaking away from the group when we reached the mansion where we were housed.
Mary muttered something, but I didn’t care. They had no idea what would happen to me in a week’s time. And attending a party was the last thing on my mind.
It was a little after seven in the evening. Dinner wouldn’t be served for another half hour, but I wasn’t feeling very hungry. I climbed the stairs to the second floor where Cathy and I shared a room, grateful I’d be alone.
One week before my eighteenth birthday.
How would he do it? Would I get to go home first? Would he just show up to take me? Send someone for me?
I shuddered, the memory of his cold blue eyes still fresh in my mind.
I’d dreamed of those eyes often in the last six months and every night in the last two weeks. Those rage-filled, arctic eyes. He was my enemy, although I didn’t know why. No, that wasn’t true. I did know why. Because my last name was Guardia. All it took was my name for him to hate me because I shared it with my grandfather.
I’d always wondered why Lina and I had my mother’s last name and not our father’s. I understood now. It was required for the inheritance. The inheritors of the Guardia fortune had to carry the last name.
In the study that day six months ago, I’d learned my mother had run away from home to marry my father. And I knew I was right. That our grandfather had felt little emotion toward us apart from ownership of us. Taking us in was not a kindness. It was his victory over my dead mother. Over her sin of falling in love with a man he’d not approved of.
I’d learned that he’d had business with Raphael’s father that left Lina and I exposed, vulnerable. That was all he’d said. He’d told me Raphael was in a position of demanding something “quite dear”—as if he’d ever held me dear—and that if I wanted what was best for my sister, I’d better comply. It was the only way to save Lina, he’d said.
That’s all he’d needed to say.
After that one time, we hadn’t discussed it again. I hadn’t told Lina about it for a long time, and when I finally did, I only told her what I needed to and had kept my reason for agreeing a secret. That Christmas had been as bad as the one when we’d lost our parents because now, I would be losing not only my sister but myself as well.
Since my grandfather couldn’t afford to pay Raphael the money he owed, Raphael would take me instead. He would marry me for my inheritance—fifty percent of the winery would belong to me on my twenty-first birthday.
This…transaction, it wasn’t about me. It was between Raphael Amado and my grandfather. I was collateral damage.
I knew my grandfather wasn’t telling m
e the whole story. There had been too much anger, too much rage in Raphael’s eyes for this to only be about money. My grandfather had done something terrible to Raphael. I knew it. I just hoped Raphael wouldn’t punish me for his sins.
After returning to school in January, I called nightly to talk to Lina and didn’t even go home for winter break. Lina had been allowed to come to the school to spend it with me, for which I was grateful. That was when I’d told her about the agreement that would bind me to Raphael Amado.
I finally reached my room, and my woolgathering ended. I frowned. The door stood open a crack. That was odd. Cathy and I were both good about locking up behind us. The sisters had a strict policy on not tempting anyone to sin—in this case, that sin being stealing. Each of the doors had locks on them. I guessed in all the rush and excitement, Cathy had forgotten to lock the door behind her. Although it could just as easily have been me. I was so distracted these days.
I pushed the door open and gasped, my hand going up to cover my mouth.
He looked too big standing here, my room suddenly too small and emptied of oxygen.
Raphael Amado closed the book—my book—and set it down on the nightstand. He’d cut his hair since the last time I’d seen him but had what looked to be two days of growth across the hard line of his jaw. He wore dark jeans and a navy button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, looking more casual than he had the last time I’d seen him. Dark hair dusted powerful, tanned forearms. My gaze traveled upward, and I imagined the contour of his biceps, chest, and wide shoulders.
All the while, he studied me.
And I stood like a trembling mute before him.
“Sister Amelia let me in,” he said, his tone relaxed, his body at ease. He cocked his head to the side, and a small smile played at the corners of his lips. “I hope you don’t mind.”
When he spoke, I forced my gaze to his face. His eyes looked just the same as they did in my nightmares, although they weren’t as fierce as they had been that day at Grandfather’s house. Not as angry. A hardness still edged them, though, and my mind screamed its warning inside my head.
This man was dangerous. His soul was dark. And if I wasn’t careful, he would drag me down into his hell.
“I do,” I managed, my voice quaking. “I mind.”
He didn’t respond. Instead, he let his gaze circle the room, making me see it through his eyes.
He took a step and picked up a bra hanging half off a chair, then dropped it back down. “You’re messy. Or is that your roommate?”
“I wasn’t expecting an inspection.”
“Not an inspection. Not of your room, at least.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Curious, I guess.”
“It’s not time yet.” It wasn’t, I was sure. I had until graduation. And I wasn’t eighteen yet. He couldn’t take me until my eighteenth birthday. I had seven more days.
He stopped his perusal of the room and turned his gaze on me, slowly taking me in from head to toe. I swallowed, blinking fast, lowering my gaze momentarily when his found mine but forcing myself to look at him.
I couldn’t cower, no matter what.
I wouldn’t.
“I like the uniform.”
“What do you want?”
“Come inside. Close the door.”
I shook my head.
“I said come inside. Don’t worry. You’re still safe from me. I won’t touch you.”
Touch me? God. He would touch me soon enough.
I bit my lip, searching his face, imagining this man close, his face to mine, his hands on me. His mouth...
“Sofia.”
His deep, low voice made a command out of my name. I stepped into the room and closed the door behind me, keeping my hands on the doorknob at my back.
He walked over to my desk and picked up the small snow globe. It was a Christmas motif. A family around a tree: mother, father and two little girls, all holding hands, forming a complete circle.
“Late in the year for this, isn’t it?”
I went to him to take it from his hands. When my fingers brushed against his, a spark of electricity jolted through me. I gasped, for a moment frozen. Blinking a few times, I finally found my voice. “That’s not yours.” I took the globe and set it down.
He smiled, moving a little to the side, blocking me between himself and the desk. He stood too close, his body too big. He used up too much of the oxygen, so all I could do was suck in gulps of air.
“But you are.”
His gaze searched my face, settled on my mouth.
“Mine, I mean.”
My skin prickled, every nerve ending alive, my body at attention. “Why?” I asked, unable to look away from him. His eyes, they held so much that I wanted to know, in spite of the warnings going off in my brain.
“Restitution.” His gaze remained steady, watching me process.
But he and my grandfather spoke in riddles, giving me bits and pieces of a puzzle I couldn’t put together without more information.
He stood so close. I picked up the scent of aftershave, alluring and treacherous and very, very wrong. Like him.
He smiled with one side of his mouth, and I flinched when he raised a hand. But he gave me a small shake of his head before tucking the hair that had come loose of its clip behind my ear.
“Soft Sofia. Pretty Sofia.”
He leaned in close, his chest touching mine, making me gasp. He inhaled deeply.
“Sweet, innocent Sofia.”
I shuddered, my nipples tightening, brushing against his hard chest. He stepped back, his gaze falling to the dark peaks I know he saw pressing against my white uniform blouse. I blinked, looking anywhere but at him, feeling too hot, sweat gathering under my arms, beading across my forehead. He was the opposite, collected and relaxed and fully in control of himself, of his body, while mine betrayed me, feeling things I’d never felt with anyone before.
I knew he was twenty-four years old. He was experienced. He was also a criminal, like his father. But one so charming, he’d fooled Sister Amelia into letting him into my bedroom.
“Boys aren’t allowed in this building,” I said stupidly, forcing myself to look up at him.
At that, his smile widened, reaching his eyes, as if he were suddenly, terribly amused.
“I’m not a boy.”
No. No, he was not.
He stepped back, but barely. “Do I make you nervous?”
“No,” I answered too quickly.
He reached to either side of me and placed his hands over mine. I realized I was white-knuckling the edge of the desk.
“No. Not at all,” he said.
I broke eye contact, and he took two steps away. When I looked up, he was reaching into his pocket to take out an envelope.
“I actually came to give you something.”
“What?”
He held it out.
“I don’t expect your grandfather to have been forthcoming, considering. Although you probably know that, given the fact he raised you.”
“He didn’t raise me.” Marjorie had.
He gestured for me to take the envelope. I did.
“What is this?”
He studied me. “Truth.”
A shudder ran through me. I glanced down at the envelope in my hand.
“He won’t miss me, if that’s what you think. You won’t hurt him by taking me.”
He studied me but didn’t reply to my comment. Instead, he reached out and took my hand, startling me. His eyes held mine, that smile remaining on his face as he twisted my class ring off my finger.
I shook myself out of my stupor. “That’s mine!”
He slipped it onto his pinky. It went about halfway down.
“I need it to be sure your wedding ring fits.”
Wedding ring. We were going to be married. Me to him. Him to me.
Every hair on my body stood on end at the thought of what he’d expect from me.
“I’ll be he
re to take you home with me after your graduation.” Raphael turned and walked to the door. “Make sure you’re ready.”
“It’s not home. Not for me.”
“And your grandfather’s house is?” he asked with barely a glance in my direction.
“Can’t you forget what he owes you? What, you think I should repay?”
He turned to me.
“Forget the debt,” I added in a near whisper.
His eyes darkened. “Sadly, forgiveness must precede forgetting, and unfortunately for you, neither is an option.”
His gaze flitted over me once more.
“You should eat. You’re too skinny.” He disappeared out the door.
I dropped onto my bed, clutching the envelope he’d given me, my heart pounding. Footsteps and laughter broke into the quiet, and Cathy and Mary pushed the bedroom door open.
“No wonder you’re not interested in the party!” Mary said.
They had no idea.
Chapter Three
Raphael
They think I’m the monster. The beast who would steal the innocent girl, when all along, they’re the animals. He’s the beast who would sell her to save his decrepit neck.
I gave Sister Amelia a wink as I left. Outside, I climbed onto my bike, glancing up as I started the engine. Two faces peered out of Sofia’s window, but neither belonged to her. Shifting into gear, I sped off the grounds and toward the city, needing the long ride. The freedom of speed. The danger.
The last was one of the few things that cleared my head.
Sofia had lost weight since last I saw her. Her face looked thinner, her uniform looser. It was expected, though. I imagined she was more than a little anxious about her future.
At least I wasn’t a liar, though. At least I was up front about who I was. She wasn’t going anywhere worse than her home. Maybe even a little better. With me, she’d always know the truth. Life with me would not be easy, but it would be honest.
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