Chapter Twenty-Three

Ivan knew it was over before the door swung shut behind him.

Maricela was waiting for him at the table in her sitting room. She’d been waiting for him just like this after they’d had their moment in the temple, her spine perfectly straight, her hands folded in her lap, her expression careful, polite, precisely gentle and completely distant.

Back then, he hadn’t understood what the expression meant. He hadn’t understood until he’d spent interminable days at the Reyes estate, watching her deploy it on an endless stream of suitors, her rejections so soft and adept most of them never felt the sting.

Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Did you have a good time?”

Too good of a time. He’d relaxed and let his guard down, had let insidious, devastating hope bubble up inside him.

Hope was always a fucking lie.

She was still staring at him, waiting for an answer. He didn’t know how to disappoint her, even now. “It was fine. Was everything okay with your sister?”

“Not really.” The smile vanished, and she clenched her hands until her knuckles turned white. “We were right before. We can’t do this.”

It broke something in him, something worse than the feeling of hope being snuffed out. She was hurting, her sheltered heart bruised, her sweet brightness dimmed.

He didn’t have to wonder what had happened. She’d told Isabela, or Isabela had found out from someone else--if the Riders were whispering, maybe the guards were, too. Nothing they’d tell an outsider, but few people in the sector could defy Isabela.

Not even Maricela.

Zeke had been right all along. Gideon and Isabela might want the Riders to pursue happiness, but that didn’t mean they got to start with their beloved baby sister.

And Ivan had done this to her. He’d done it the first time he crossed the line, and he’d known how wrong it was with every inch he pushed past it. He was the one who understood the harsh realities of who they were and how vast a chasm separated a Rios princess from a Rider with traitors’ blood.

He was the one who’d set her up for a broken heart.

“It’s all right,” he lied, crossing to the door that led to his quarters and her bedroom beyond. “We just won’t talk about it again.”

She went very, very still. “We won’t?”

He couldn’t bring himself to walk out of the room with her staring at him like her world was crumbling, but he couldn’t comfort her either. He couldn’t touch her. Couldn’t fold her into his arms and bury his face in her masses of brown hair and promise it would be okay.

He could do nothing but watch her heart bleed and hate himself for getting both of them into this mess.

“Won’t it be better that way?” he asked gently.

“I don’t know. But we--” She sank her teeth into her lower lip. Slowly, her confusion faded into something even worse--horror. “You never said it.”

“I never said what?”

“Of all the things you told me...” She rose and faced him fully, every movement precise and careful. Like it hurt. “Do you love me, Ivan?”

Stillness filled the space between them. The silence burned.

She was right. He’d never said it.

And now he couldn’t.

Tears brightened her huge brown eyes, and he curled his fingers toward his palms. Telling her now would be selfish cruelty. It would be sheer manipulation.

Worst of all, he was tempted.

Six steps. That was all it would take to cross the vast, echoing emptiness between them. He knew her body. Whatever Isabela had said to Maricela, he could erase it if he wanted. Drive it from her mind with his hands, his mouth, his tongue. He could make her feel, the way no one else had ever even tried. Alive, wild, wanted.

He could convince her to stay with him.

And then what? Turning Maricela away from her sister would shatter his vows. He’d be just like his uncles, a traitor to the Rios family. There’d be no place for them in Sector One.

And that was assuming Gideon didn’t kill him, straight out. Not a safe assumption to make.

If her family wouldn’t support them, then all Ivan could offer Maricela was a hard, brutal life on the run. The allure of browsing in a marketplace or dancing in a dingy bar would fade rapidly when faced with the stark reality of life without the luxuries she knew.

Ivan didn’t even like seeing mud on the hems of her pristine dresses. How could he subject her to that?

The tears in her eyes gathered on her lashes as the silence stretched and stretched, straining under the pressure. He knew what he had to do. A swift blow, a clean cut, a wound that would heal.

Maybe hating him would give her some comfort. “We’re supposed to meet Nita soon--”

“No.” Maricela’s spine straightened. “Not until you answer the question.”

He reached for the blank numbness that had been there his whole life but got painful, prickling misery instead. Apparently, these newly intense feelings weren’t something he could turn back off when they were inconvenient. That seemed unfair.

This lie was going to hurt. “I care about you. I respect you. You’re my princess. But I warned you there were some things I could never give you.”

She bent over a little, like she’d just taken a sucker punch to the solar plexus, and the pain of it ripped through Ivan, like he’d plunged a knife into her heart.

Like he’d plunged one into his own.

By the time she straightened, she’d blinked away her tears. Without them, her eyes were flat. Dull. “Yes, you did warn me. I’m sorry that I misunderstood. I didn’t mean to make things difficult for you. I’ll speak to Gideon after dinner--”

“It’s not necessary,” Ivan interrupted. If Maricela went to Gideon looking like this, her brother really would murder him, and he’d deserve it. But the scandal would taint her for years. The best thing Ivan could do for her was vanish from her life as neatly as possible. “I’ll take you and Nita to meet the architect, and when we get back, I’ll talk to Deacon. He’ll assign you a new guard.”

Maricela nodded vaguely. “Whatever you think is best. But I--” She indicated the door through his room to her own. “I need a minute, please, before we leave.”

He stepped aside and let her flee.

He tracked her movements as the pain sank into him. Soft footsteps across carpet. The loud slam of her bathroom door closing. The sudden gush of the water in the sink.

She was probably crying.

Ivan dug his nails into his palms until they cut the skin. His knuckles ached. He wanted to ram his fist into the wall, through the wall, any sort of tangible expression of the emotional wreckage inside him.

He didn’t. He’d done enough damage to her perfect world.

»»» § «««

Maricela was keenly aware of image. You couldn’t grow up in the Rios family--in any of the noble families--and be ignorant of the fact that people were always watching you. One ill-timed frown could set off a flurry of gossip.

The same was true in the company of your friends, but for a different reason. If you seemed upset, they couldn’t help but want to make it better. So she was careful to prepare herself for meeting Nita. After crying until her chest hurt, she’d washed her face, pressed a cool cloth to her eyes, and steeled herself against the pain that made it hard to stand up.

It didn’t work.

Desperate to avoid Nita’s questions, Maricela stared out the car window and kept up a steady stream of inane chatter. It was exhausting, but she didn’t know what else to do.

After a particularly chipper comment about something she already couldn’t remember, Nita’s hand crept across the space between them and squeezed hers.

Anything but that. If Nita comforted her, she’d break down again, and she couldn’t. Not with a stone-faced Ivan in the driver’s seat.

She pulled her hand free and turned to Nita. “Your brother made me an offer.”

Nita blinked. “My broth--you mean Rafael?”

“Yes. Your mother is...determined.”

Nita’s gaze flickered briefly to Ivan, who had a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. “I’m sure she is. Rafael is growing into a good man. Papa used to be hard on him. He never liked being outside with the rest of us, and he hates to ride, but he’s smart. He researches things in the old archives. More efficient irrigation, stuff like that.”

“I’ll have to ask him about it.” Not that it mattered. Gideon and Isabela could choose her spouse, and she’d make the best of it.

Not the most romantic notion, but Maricela was too tired to care. Her own judgment was too suspect to be trusted--Ivan had made that much clear the moment he’d looked her square in the eye and admitted that everything he’d given her, he’d given out of obligation. Because she was his princess.

Because he couldn’t say no.

She bit her tongue until it bled.

Nita glanced at her again, quiet sympathy in her eyes. But her voice was relentlessly cheerful as she launched into a rambling monologue about the pottery sets she was making for the refugee homes, and Maricela made a mental note to thank her.

Later, when it was safe to finally unclench her jaw.

Pulling up to the refugee housing provided a welcome distraction. There were dozens of shipping containers now, some already under renovation, placed in gently curving rows that seemed to surround a central courtyard. She couldn’t see it very well from the car because of the placement of the containers, but she caught flashes of green as Ivan parked a few feet from the contractor’s vehicle.

“They’ve planted the garden already,” she murmured.

“They’re rushing to have it ready for harvest,” Nita said, reaching for the door. “We can--”

“Wait,” Ivan snapped, his voice lashing through the vehicle. Nita froze as Ivan slid from the car and dropped to check under the contractor’s truck, as if someone might be waiting to lunge out the moment Maricela set foot outside the vehicle.

That single-minded focus on her safety reminded her of too many other things now--including the way he’d applied that same focus to touching her. She swallowed a curse, pushed open the door, and climbed out of the Jeep.

He glanced up, his lips flattening into a disapproving line. But he didn’t snap at her the way he had at Nita, just finished his inspection and rose, a silent, painful shadow.

Nita watched them both nervously for a few seconds before inching out of the Jeep after Maricela. “Come on, Murph’s waiting for us.”

The man was even more nervous than he had been at their last meeting, but he was eager to show them the progress his crew had made. Maricela listened carefully, asking questions as he began to lead them around the complex.

Forcing her attention on the matter at hand helped her ignore Ivan’s quiet presence at her back.

Almost helped her, anyway.