Chapter 6
Dante
Months passed, and I was still worried, thinking about Isabella and the things she must suffer at the hands of her husband. Madrid was beautiful at this time of year, so I didn’t have any reason to leave. I walked alone and breathed in the atmosphere of the beautiful city. The Temple of Debod and the Puerta de Alcalá were my favorite monuments to visit. Wandering about the city gave me time to think. After weeks of venturing from one pillar to the next, I made it back to the hotel at the Gran Meliá Palacio de los Duques.
My hotel overlooked the Royal Palace of Madrid. The Baroque architecture made me feel at peace. The sunset gave the mountains in the distance a special kind of beauty, and the way the sky blended with the view of this gorgeous Spanish city helped me to think. It was a somewhat pleasing kind of sadness that I couldn’t quite explain.
I was hoping Isabella had discovered her husband’s bastardliness by now, but whom was I fooling? I knew she wouldn’t have time to focus on her personal life with her company going public last month. I also heard she planned to expand into the Asian market, which would probably be a godsend to her husband.
Sitting here enjoying the scenery of Spain while the woman I was infatuated with, in love with, was being wronged in the worst way possible had to end. If not for her own sake, then for mine, because I knew she deserved more, as did I. I must find a way into her life; she must know of my existence—tangibly. It might not have been my place, but something had to be done about her husband. She had to see the truth. It wouldn’t be enough if I merely exposed his nature to her through videos or photographs. I must trap him in a situation that would reveal everything to her. Although, hiding my involvement would be the challenge.
How could I do this—how? It would mean I needed to get close to him, maybe even befriend him. Thinking about doing such a thing was detestable, but it was something I may have to do. Although if I were to get close to him or even approach him, he might recall who I was. They both might. That was just too risky. I’d promised myself I would not get involved in the affairs of a married couple and would just let the situation play out as it was, but I could wait no longer. What was I to do, sit here and wait for him to give her a disease or end up getting her pregnant? She would be trapped in their marriage, or at least by him, for the rest of her life.
Certainly not—there was no way in hell I was going to allow that to happen. This needed to stop, and it needed to end now. I needed to get my ass back to the US and put my plan into motion before this went any further. The time for lover’s cowering was over. I had to be more straightforward with my feelings for her. I had to tell her how I felt, but only after their marriage ended.
Then again, who was I to interfere in their lives? Should I hold my love for her inside until it no longer existed? My mother told me never to meddle in someone’s love life. Nevertheless, what about my heart? What of my chance at happiness? My obsession with Isabella must be satisfied one way or another. There was the off chance that she wouldn’t even find me attractive. Maybe she would think I was too forceful, or see me as only a friend. After all the broken promises and downright shitty relationships I’d been in, my heart was too fragile for that kind of rejection. And the last thing I wanted was to be rejected by her.
If a man wanted something bad enough, he would be more than willing to risk it all, if only for the slightest bit of success in having it. That was my insane thought process.
Yet again, I was questioning myself too much about this, and it was getting me nowhere. This moral dilemma inside me was killing my chances of ever being with her. Her husband had no morals, ethics, or humanity as far as I was concerned. Maybe it was time I started to act a little more like him. Perhaps I should put my morals off to the side for the time being and do what I must to have her for my own. I knew my letters started to fill her heart with love for another. That was if she even received them. All I had to do was drive that dagger of love a little deeper, and she would be mine. I needed her in my life just as she needed me, even if she didn’t yet realize it.
“Enjoying your solitude again?” asked Gaspard, who always seemed to pop up at the strangest of times, usually when I was alone and lost in thought.
“Nothing, just thinking,” I said.
“Thinking out loud, you mean. I’ve been sitting in the back room listening to you carry on and on with your self-doubt and fragile sensibilities for the last thirty minutes. What’s the problem?”
I gazed at him before I took a sip of water from the glass on the table next to me. “The problem is, I am in love with a married woman.” I sighed.
He chuckled. “I know. I heard you talking about it. You sound like a crazy person out here talking to yourself. I also heard you say something about her husband and bastardliness. Is that even a word?”
I scrutinized the scenery from the balcony of my hotel suite, reluctant to answer any of his questions. But I knew him. He would not give in until he knew everything there was to know. I had to learn to stop talking to myself.
“Well?” He pressed.
“Her husband has cheated on her multiple times, and I’m not sure if she knows. Maybe she knows but doesn’t want to face the truth.”
“Or doesn’t care?” he muttered. I gave him a wide-eyed glare. “Listen, Dante, if you care for her so much, then why are you here in Spain? Why aren’t you over there telling her this? Regarding the whole cheating bit, I just have to ask—are you insane? What the hell is wrong with you? If you had a lover who was cheating on you, wouldn’t you want someone to tell you about it?”
I was taken aback by his bluntness. He had a point. “Yes, but it isn’t my place to go barging into their home and breaking up their marriage, regardless of what I’ve seen.”
Gaspard shook his head and placed his hand on my shoulder. “Look, you love her, right?”
“Yes . . . I do.”
“You want to be with her, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And her husband is a cheating piece of shit, right?”
I nodded.
“Then what’s the problem? Get over your self-loathing and moral dilemma and do what you have to do.”
“And what is it that I have to do?”
“Push the cheating fils de pute into a busy highway in the middle of rush hour and whisk her away to Paris where you two will live happily ever after,” he said, laughing. His joke put a smile on my face.
I knew he was kidding, but he was right. If I were as tough in the affairs of the heart as I was in business, I was sure Isabella and I would be in Paris this very moment. I always doubted myself in the face of love—a nasty habit that I needed to break. This was the first time I’d felt something such as this for a woman.
It had to have been her innocence and beauty that bewitched me into this state of insecurity. I would take Gaspard’s advice and head back to the US. The only question was, should I whisk Isabella into my arms, or should I expose her husband’s infidelities first? I knew Gaspard would probably say . . . Why not do both? His advice right now was like a shining light in a sea of fog—and I was thankful for it.