“Something to do with the special-order furniture,” I said, fixing my hair in the passenger visor mirror. Mauricio had tried to sit me in the back by myself like a little old lady, but I’d refused.
“Rafa’s probably ready to kill someone then. Let me call over and see what’s going on.”
“I’ll call him,” I said, looking for my phone, but Mauricio was already talking to security before I could find it, so I watched the sun set over the Bay in the mirror as I touched up my makeup and listened in on Mauricio’s clipped, cryptic conversation. He hung up, a puzzled expression on his face.
“Agustín is there and he says it’s pretty quiet. No deliveries. Rafa’s been in his office with the door closed for a while.” He shrugged his shoulders. “You sure there’s a problem?”
A minute later Mauricio and I pulled up to the new front entrance of Madrina’s, renovated so extensively that it looked like an entirely different structure. Rafa had been right to spare no expense, as Miami’s elite would feel right at home amidst its understated opulence. Fully grown Royal Palms lined the long, expansive drive all the way up to the new façade, a Baroque inspired design that Rafa said reminded him of the cathedral in front of the apartments he grew up in. I’d seen a great deal of that type of architecture in my travels across Europe, and while Madrina’s had certainly been inspired by the traditional Baroque style, it also had a Moroccan or even Tuscan flair to it that was masculine, sensual, and chic.
I loved how it turned out, and my only suggestion to Rafa had been to add brighter exterior lighting, but Rafa had declined, reasoning that it was important for Madrina’s most important clientele to be able to maintain their privacy as they entered and exited. At ground level there would only be ambient lighting to code for safety, with the greatest number of lights pointed upward to highlight the high arches and curves of the structure, and more lights around the main bronze fountain in the center of the circle drive. I asked Rafa why he’d chosen that particular fountain, one of a man with two dogs at his feet, when there were so many more aesthetically pleasing feminine ones to choose from like the gorgeous ballerina fountain inside. He explained that unlike Doña Delfina and Santería practitioners of her generation who felt the need to keep their prayer space private in a back room, Rafa wanted the entire property and grounds to serve as a massive public altar, and all of the art inside and outside to represent the Orishas and corresponding saints, as they were one in the same to younger people like him. It wouldn’t be long, he said, before people started to leave offerings near the art, and they might be things that looked intriguing to me, but I should never touch anything left by the fountains or paintings.
“Wow,” I said aloud, taking it all in. Mauricio nodded in agreement.
“Wow is right,” he said, opening the front door for me. “Rafa wants us to be seen, to be the ones in position to—” He stopped himself, unsure how much Rafa confided in me.
“Go on, Mauricio. Rafa tells me everything.”
“You know, help others, now and in the future with his philanthropy and support of the arts. It’s all he ever talks about.’
The inside was just as spectacular. I peeked inside El Santuario and saw that all the furniture had been delivered, and even though the endless plastic wrap clearly the leather was perfect, and every piece had been manufactured as specified. The cigar lockers, the oval table for thirty and all my books were in perfect order, with at least a dozen boxes of imported cigars still waiting to be unpacked in a corner. The main salon was also in great shape, just as lavish and inviting as the members only area, the dinner tables, stage, bar and kitchen all gleaming for the party tomorrow night. Empty until six in the morning when staff would flood the building, start cooking and turn on all the lights and fountains, this was the eerie quiet before the storm. I checked out every public room downstairs except for the one that had served as Doña Delfina’s private consulta, a space I knew Rafa had insisted on keeping untouched, exactly as she’d left it. With Mauricio right behind me, my last stop was Rafa’s office.
“Could he be asleep on the couch?’ I whispered to Mauricio. “Everything’s so quiet.”
“Yeah, he takes naps in there sometimes late at night.”
I nodded and turned the knob quietly so as not to wake him. I never minded coming to Madrina’s or to see Rafa, but I was going to have to have a talk with that girl Lisa about scaring me for no reason.
I cracked open the door and saw Rafa at his desk in the far corner of the room, head tilted back in profile, the elegant silhouette of his neck interrupted only by his prominent Adam’s apple and the stubble on the underside of his chin. He looked different to me, more beautiful than ever, the way only a stranger can be, and in that moment, I was reminded of the way I saw him the first night: foreign, sultry, otherworldly.
At first, I thought he’d fallen asleep sitting up, but as the door opened just a fraction of an inch more, I saw that Rafa’s hands were not on the armrests of his chair or his desk, but on the lower back of a buxom redhead straddled across his lap. I gagged when I saw that her legs were wide open and resting atop his thighs, her obviously enhanced breasts dangerously close to his face. He took her hand from somewhere between his legs and held it, then something she said amused him and they laughed together, giddy and familiar. The mere sight of them so close prompted a sour, acidy bile to rush up into my throat, but it was when she leaned in and kissed him with an open mouth that I was forced to run outside or get sick right there.
I put my hand over my mouth and Mauricio, having now observed the repulsive scene himself, quickly ushered me out of the side exit where I threw up every bit of food I’d eaten earlier. I heaved until nothing else came out, grateful for the extra cover of darkness behind the restaurant. With pity in his eyes, Mauricio offered me the only thing he had, a cloth he kept in his pocket for wiping his sunglasses.
Standing under the awning behind Madrina’s, beside the garbage cans and no farther than twenty feet from the rancid dumpster, I was dazed and emotionless, every ounce of blood in my body dropping to the tips of my French manicured toes. For some reason, standing here, staring at my feet, I felt nothing but shame, the stupidest woman on earth punched in the gut by the cruelty of life again. Mauricio steadied me by the elbow, his face twisted in concern.
“Are you going to pass out?” he asked.
“I don’t think so,” I said, taking a step in the direction of the door we exited.
“No, no, no,” said Mauricio, blocking my path. “Not that way.”
I thought about whether I should go back inside and risk seeing something far worse or leave with my dignity. Reading my mind, Mauricio ushered me away from the door, guiding me gingerly around the side of the building as if I were incapable of walking on my own. “Don’t go near that trash. Talk to him alone later.”
The sharp crunch of the gravel beneath our feet was the only discernible sound until we reached the SUV up front, where I allowed Mauricio to put me in the back seat for the drive back to the house. There in the semi-privacy of the car, after the door snapped closed, I finally allowed myself to collapse and feel something. I wanted to hide my face, knowing there was no comfort for me anywhere, my greatest joy since William now gone in the blink of an eye. I lay in the back, only half of my former self, reliving the scene over and over, consumed by the sight of his mouth on hers.
I couldn’t understand what was happening, the range of emotions ravaging me all at once. If I left now, how many different ways would they fuck? Where else would he kiss and touch her? Suddenly I felt murderous, unhinged, capable of anything. I wanted to hurt them both, but more than anything I wanted to pull that disgusting whore off him by the hair and scratch her face until there was nothing left.
I saw Mauricio pause outside and make a quick call, giving me time to react. Just as he hung up and went to get in the car, I opened the door and bolted out past him to the front door, but Mauricio was faster, and before I could get close to the entrance he
was on me again, not the least bit surprised by the fury he expected to erupt sooner or later.
“You’re not going back in there,” he shouted. I couldn’t believe it, but he had the audacity to grab me by the wrist and pull me back toward the car with him.
“Get your hands off me!” I screamed, cracking him across the face. I waited for him to let go or get angry, but instead he spun me around and held me still from behind, my own arms wrapped around myself as if I were in a straitjacket. He waited a few seconds for me to stop struggling, then spoke calmly.
“Sandro is thirty seconds away with a group of people, and he knows what’s going on. Do you want them all to see you like this?”
“I don’t care!” I shrieked, kicking my legs. “I’m going to kill her!” I raged like a caged animal, but Mauricio was incredibly strong and refused to let go.
“Amanda! Stop!” He lifted me up and deposited me in the backseat, and before I could even sit up we were peeling out of the parking lot. By the time I realized there was no turning back, I was in full blown meltdown, shaking and crying, screaming at Mauricio, myself and no one in particular. I grabbed everything in sight and threw it at the back of Mauricio’s head.
“He was kissing her, oh my god,” I sobbed. “Turn this car around!”
“I saw it.” His eyes darted from the highway back to me in the mirror, then narrowed. “Do. Not. Throw. That,” he hissed, eyes glued to the heavy iPhone in my hand.
“I’ll do whatever the hell I want! I should have you arrested for attacking me!”
I clutched my head in my hands and started rocking in the backseat, wiping my tears and runny nose with the back of my hand. What do I do? I’d never been deceived by anyone like this, much less by someone who ruled my body and soul. We were so close that I’d have trusted him with my life, I had in fact, and he’d taken it in just the blink of an eye. I’d been alive when I walked into Madrina’s a few moments ago, and now I was dead, my heart outside my body, scorching and disintegrating in that office with his every caress.
I’d been so stupid to believe that a man like Rafa could ever be happy with one woman, much less me. Of course he could have his pick, and any woman prettier than me, more aggressive, more alluring, more persuasive would always have the upper hand. Time and again I’d seen how women fell to their feet for him, literally begged for his affection, but Rafa only shrugged them off with the confidence of a man who knows there will always be another. I knew my wealth meant nothing to him. It hadn’t when we met and certainly not now. But I’d never imagined I would be the one to feel the sting of his rejection. I’d consumed him with every fiber of my being, devoured him without thinking, famished for affection, giving little thought to the consequences of my obvious desperation. My face reddened with humiliation. What must he really think of me?
The cruelty of what he’d done was utterly disorienting. As the car sped down the highway my body remained upright but my heart and mind had spiraled into an abyss of blackness with no sense of up or down, no wrong or right. Oh, the things I’d let him do to me in the name of love, so high from his prowess that I would have permitted anything. He’d been getting me ready, slowly preparing to take me in the most intimate, submissive way possible and I was going to let him. In fact, I wasn’t just willing, I was wanting. I knew his methods now. Rafa could make a woman so weak with desire that what once seemed like too much eventually wasn’t enough, his gift of pleasure meted out in small, addictive doses until it was too late to turn back. What would I do without it now? How could I maintain my dignity in the face of such obsession? If he came to me and said all the right things, it was possible that I would betray myself. This is exactly what would happen, and instead of building me up, Rafa would now begin to tear me down, both of us knowing who was the weaker. I had to get away from his power over me, the greater the distance the better. Only time could free me of his power.
I thought of calling Ken, but then second guessed myself. He and Kieran would be full of anger and pity, possibly lash out at Rafa in some way and then begin to feel the weight of responsibility for me. When they’d arrived home from Japan, my brother and Ken had spoken as if I were an old spinster, trying to decide how to take care of me now that Kieran had made his own family. I loved them for their concern, but it would be too much. I resolved to show strength, the greatest lie I could tell at this moment. If I didn’t, they wouldn’t leave me alone to grieve. Again.
“Hey, sweetie,” came the voice on the other end of the line. It sounded like he took a swig of wine, which could only mean Kieran was there with him.
“Ken, how are you, babe?” I tried my best to stifle my sobs as I focused on the Miami landscape, Mauricio’s stern gaze still fluctuating between the road ahead and the rear-view mirror. Inside he had to be laughing at me, too.
“Amanda? What’s wrong?” I took too long to answer, so Ken freaked out. “Fuck, Kieran come here,” he said, the sound of a glass hitting the floor. “It’s your sister.”
“Ken, wait,” I said, catching my breath. “I’m fine. I just—Rafa and I broke up.”
“Oh, honey.” I heard him address Kieran again in a muffled voice. “No, let me talk to her first.”
“What happened?” asked Ken. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” I said, my shaky voice divulging more than I wanted him to know. “I walked in on him kissing some whore, Ken. At the restaurant. I should have known.”
“That dirty motherfucker,” hissed Ken. “I’m going to cut his balls off and put them on my Christmas tree.” Then, presumably to Kieran, he spat, “I’m sorry, but it’s how I feel!” After more muffled conversation Kieran grabbed the phone from Ken and came on the line, but I could still hear Ken in the background calling Rafa a worthless cocksucker among other assorted profanities.
“Amanda, where are you? Are you in a safe place?” In the background I heard Ken whisper to Kieran. “Poor thing.”
“I’m fine,” I said again. “Security is driving me home.”
“Amanda, I’m sending the jet,” said Kieran. “You’re coming here.” I thought about his offer, and although it was tempting to hide in Los Angeles, despondent, in the safe arms of Ken and my brother, I just wanted to be alone.
“No, I’ll take the plane to Charlotte’s house. You remember where she lives. I can’t say right now.” I glared at Mauricio, who was clearly pretending not to eavesdrop.
“St. Tropez? I think that’s a good idea. The car will be there in twenty minutes,” he said calmly. If there was ever someone you wanted on your side in a crisis, it was Kieran. His steely reserve was invaluable when everyone else was coming apart, usually me.
“Tell him to pick up my vodka on the way,” I sniffled. “I don’t have any in the house.”
“Don’t worry about a thing,” said Kieran. “Just make sure you check in with me every day until you feel like going back.”
“I will. Hey, I’m not answering his calls,” I rubbed along my eyebrows feeling a migraine start to bloom. “Don’t tell him where I am.”
“Got it,” he said. “Let me know when you want him removed from the house.”
“Not yet,” I said, picturing Rafa wandering the halls of the mansion he hated so much, lost without me, wondering where I was and when I was coming back. “Don’t get involved. Let me handle it, or I’ll never tell you anything personal again,” I warned.
“I hear you. Don’t worry. Just so we don’t worry, post photos on your Instagram so Ken and I can see what you’re doing and that you’re alright. Maybe we can fly out and meet you there next week.”
“I’ll stay in touch, and really, I can handle it,” I said, almost believing it myself.
“We love you,” said Kieran, with Ken echoing the sentiment from somewhere else in the room. “You’ve been through much worse, Amanda. You’ll get through this.”
At the house I grabbed my passport and only the barest of essentials and threw it into my overnight bag, unable to look at my bed an
d all the things I’d bought for Rafa. On my way out the door I impulsively grabbed one of Rafa’s worn t-shirts from the back of the chair and stuffed it into my bag, then took off my engagement ring and left it on the nightstand just as the lights of Kieran’s car service reflected across the windows of the bedroom.
CHAPTER FIVE
The first thing I remember about that horrible morning was the scent of Amada’s perfume on Mauricio. I expected to open my eyes and find her there, but instead found Sandro and Mauricio hovering above me, calling my name and speaking to each other in hushed tones.
“Just let him sleep,” said Mauricio.
“Hell no,” said Sandro. “You fucked up and he needs to know what’s going on, dumbass.”
“I fucked up? He fucked up!”
In spite of a splitting headache and a body that felt like it had been run over by a truck, I managed to focus on the two decidedly annoying figures pacing my office and pointing at one another.
“What?” I croaked out. “Why do you smell like Amada?”
“Shut up and let me handle it,” growled Sandro. “Rafa, there was a problem a little while ago. Amada was here.”
“Really?” I sat up and coughed, still feeling like hell. “Why did she leave without seeing me?” I ran through all the possible reasons Amada’s smell would be on Mauricio, none of them good, and then panic set in. “Is she OK?” I bolted upright, thinking of Achille and his threat to kidnap her if I didn’t hand over Alex. Fuck, anything but that.
“She’s safe, Rafa,” said Sandro, extending a hand to help me up from the couch. “How much did you drink last night? You look like shit.”
I stood and managed to steady myself but still felt lightheaded. I went to my desk chair and plopped down, mentally reviewing the night’s events—as much as I could. All I remembered was drinking several cups of Cuban coffee.
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