Chapter Eight
This time they left the cleared path that wandered around the estate and struck out into one of the grassy meadows. The sun was still high, but instead of intense heat, it gently warmed her back as they walked. Marco had taken her hand in his, and resting it there made her feel secure and wanted.
They walked in a comfortable silence, crossing the meadow at a leisurely pace, no hurry or urgency to get to their destination. The walk allowed Senna to clear her head and appreciate the beauty of this rugged land.
It was a land that had seen war, bloodshed. Millennia of people passed through, called it home. She couldn’t comprehend what it would have been like to be a Medina woman hundreds of years ago. Life was probably comfortable compared to most, but it must have been lonely in this large family stronghold. Could money save you from things like disease or poor nutrition? Roaming marauders? Religious persecution? Family duty? Probably not.
Marco’s family would have had it easier than most, but not even bags of gold can save a woman from a difficult childbirth or heal a child of a vicious disease. For his family to have survived and thrived for this long was a testament to their strength. A ripple of pride coursed through her. Their son was a part of this, and he would be a part of this family’s legacy going forward. How much more security did she need?
Her thoughts swirled chaotically. She had worked so hard to erase any feelings she had for Marco. Maybe that was the problem. Those feelings were back, and her body yearned for him.
Deep in thought, she suddenly collided with a solid wall of warm muscle.
“Easy there.” Marco wrapped his arm around her shoulder, steadying her in the process. Still lost in her thoughts, she looked up. The sun glinted in his dark hair. She liked the way he wore it now, a little longer, a little more casual. The wind picked up a few stray locks only to lay them back down in a sexier mussed arrangement, making him even more dashing.
She really, really wanted him to kiss her again. She stared at his face with his casual smile and mirthful eyes. She was speechless. Struck dumb. Her body strained to be even closer to him.
“What’s going on in that head of yours? It’s not like you to be quiet for this long.” His teasing grin snapped her out of her reverie.
“What? Nothing. Sorry.” She immediately tried to remove herself from his firm grasp, but he didn’t seem interested in letting her go just yet.
“I hope you were thinking of me.” His free hand cupped her jaw, lifting it slightly, ensuring she couldn’t turn away. She tried to keep her eyes lowered. One look in her eyes and he would see the truth. The truth that was increasingly difficult to contain. She would be vulnerable. But like magnets fighting an attraction before snapping in place, eventually he drew her eyes up to lock with his.
Slowly he lifted her hand and ran his lips across her fingers. His eyes stayed locked with hers. She didn’t know how long they stayed like that. She was sure time marched forward, but nothing outside of being close to him really seemed to matter.
Eventually, Marco tore his gaze from hers. “Come on, we’re almost there.”
Something had passed between them. A feeling? A conviction? Senna couldn’t identify it with just words. But suddenly she felt like she belonged with Marco. That whatever path had led them to this place and these moments was predestined and planned. It was as comforting as it was daunting.
Senna allowed herself to be propelled forward. About five minutes of walking in silence and Marco stopped once again. This time Senna made sure to avoid a collision.
“This is what I wanted to show you.”
They were at the bottom of a small hill. At the hill’s peak stood a compact structure, no larger than one room. It was built of the same ancient limestone as the Medina stronghold, but the material had been hewn by the ravages of time into smooth walls and corners. It had a small steeple with a cross at its apex.
“It’s a chapel.” Senna couldn’t help the reverence in her voice.
“Yes. A special one. Come.” They set off toward the chapel as Marco began to speak. “As the story goes, my ancestor, and Max’s, Juan Alonso Medina, was set to marry Marie Marguerite, a rich merchant’s daughter from Marseille. Her father wouldn’t let them marry until Juan Alonso had built a home and a chapel for worship. So he built a small residence, which no longer exists, and this chapel.”
They stopped at the intricately carved wooden doors that heralded the entrance.
“After they married, Juan Alonso became a merchant himself. He brokered alliances with trading companies all over the known world and created a network of merchants along the Mediterranean. That’s when our family’s wealth began to grow. The main estate was built about seventy-five years after this chapel.”
“It’s beautiful.” Senna tried the ancient door hasp, and it creaked ominously. “Can we go inside?”
“Of course.” He added some force to the door, and soon they were inside the small chamber.
For such a modest exterior, the chapel was exquisite on the inside. Small, hand-carved wooden pews flanked a wide aisle. At the end of the aisle stood the altar and a large stained glass window that cast beams of light across the small room. It looked untouched, almost otherworldly.
“It’s lovely, no?”
Senna wasn’t an overly religious person, however, she couldn’t help but revere the small, holy space. She thought of all of the Medina weddings performed here, all the baby christenings, all the funerals. Hundreds of years of Medina ancestors surrounded them. It made her feel small, just a tiny postscript in a huge volume of history.
She couldn’t respond to Marco. She found herself drawn to the front of the church and took a seat in the first pew. Marco followed her, sitting across the aisle from her.
“It’s so quiet in here.”
“It’s a great place to sit and think. I tend to find myself out here when I need to work something out.” He tilted his head upward, rested his eyes on the large cross hanging on the wall. “My mother used to say, ‘If you can’t find Marco, he’s probably saying his prayers’.” He laughed. “I think my father was terrified I’d become a priest or something.”
Senna realized Marco had brought her somewhere special, a place that meant something to him.
“Is that what you do here? Pray?”
His voice was hoarse with emotion. “Sometimes prayer is necessary. The ritual of it is so pure, so peaceful.”
He leaned forward in the pew resting his elbows on the barrier between the nave and the altar.
“Senna, I don’t know what the future holds. And you have to understand that’s completely foreign to me.” He inhaled and exhaled slowly. “Please be patient with me. If I wasn’t promised to Brynn…”
He’s letting me down easy. “Marco, just stop. You don’t need to say another word. I don’t have any expectations here. Other than I’d like you to be a part of Max’s life.”
She wished that were true. It would make life far less complicated. Here she was, lying in God’s house. She half expected a lightning bolt to strike her down, but none came.
He took a deep breath. “Brynn and I are scheduled to marry in about a month.” He made it sound like they were attending dual dental appointments, not a wedding.
“I know, Marco. You told me. I’m very well-informed on your plans to marry.”
Even so, the gravity of the statement hit her with an almost physical force. It was only with great effort that she was able to draw in enough oxygen to speak.
Marco kept talking. “It is not a love match. Our parents made the arrangement for the two of us to marry decades ago when Brynn and I were still in diapers. It’s how things are done in our circle. Businesses thrive or fail based on the strength of alliances made through advantageous marriages.”
Senna suddenly had the sensation that she was not only in a foreign place, but a foreign time as well.
“And people around here just do this? Marry whomever their parents tell them to?”
“Typically, yes. But you should know that I told Brynn over a year ago that our marriage would not happen.” He stopped his pacing and sighed.
“Marco, you’re not making sense.”
Quietly he continued. “I sent my father an email. About a week before the intern dinner. I told him as much as I loved and honored him, I could not marry Brynn. That I had concluded that if I wasn’t going to marry for love then I wouldn’t marry at all.”
Understanding began to take root in Senna’s mind. “And then after the dinner we—”
“We made love.” He paused and stood in front of her. “And we made Max.”
“Did you—”
“Plan on seducing you when I wrote that? I don’t know. I can’t answer that.” He shrugged his shoulders. He looked so young at that moment. His features revealed confusion and pain. She ached to reach out and hold him, comfort him.
“But I knew I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I knew that it went far beyond just a physical desire. You opened my eyes to what could be. And for the first time, I wavered. I thought maybe my future could be my own after all and not what my family decided it should be. But let’s just say those sentiments backfired in an epic fashion.”
How was it that she was the one who’d been abandoned and yet her arms ached to hold him, comfort him, love him. The thoughts sent her reeling. Love him…where did that come from?
“The next morning you were gone, and when I returned to the office there were messages telling me my father had suffered a stroke and wasn’t expected to live. I left for home immediately, thinking that maybe if I told Papi I had changed my mind, that I would do anything he wanted me to do, anything for the family, that…that, somehow, he would live.”
“Marco, you can’t think that your conversation caused his stroke; that’s impossible.”
“Caused it, contributed to it, does it really matter? My father was close to death. We had the priest living with us for two months afterward.”
Senna paused, letting Marco’s words sink in.
When Marco disappeared after their night together, she convinced herself he was no better than her own father, who had so blatantly abandoned her mother in a similar situation. “Why are you telling me this. Especially now?”
“I need you to understand that it was never my intention to leave you, princesa. Even though you left our bed that night, I had every intention of pursuing you.”
Senna’s mind replayed their kiss in the library. The heat of his lips on hers. His hands exploring her like she was new landscape. She felt a flush of heat rise to her face staining her cheeks with abject longing.
How can he cause such a physical reaction in me with just words?
There was a small weathered prayer book on the pew next to her. The leather cover was dull with age, as if thousands of fingers across hundreds of years had worried it to a fine patina. Just like the Medina family, it had withstood the test of time.
“You’re not the kind of man a woman just forgets about, Marco. You…changed me that night. You made me feel cherished, wanted. You made me feel safe. That’s all I’ve ever wanted my entire life, and there you were, offering it. So I took it. And I don’t regret it.”
Her words echoed off the smooth walls, magnifying them, giving them weight, gravity.
Her eyes closed, and she took a deep breath. “But you also scared me. That’s why I left. Once we were together, I knew I didn’t want anyone else.”
She glanced across the aisle only to find his gaze trained intensely on her. Even with her limited experience with men, she could recognize pure desire when she saw it.
“Senna, I can’t control myself around you. Maybe that’s why I wanted to have this conversation in a chapel. When you’re next to me, I have to touch you. When you pass by, I have to stop and inhale your scent. When your lips are anywhere near mine…” His words trailed off, and he scrubbed his face in his hands, unable to continue.
Senna blinked, staring at the virile yet vulnerable man sitting across the aisle from her.
“I didn’t expect my feelings for you to pick up where we left off, but it is patently clear they have. I want you, Senna.”
Quickly, Marco stood and lifted her to her feet, pulling her close to him. His hard planes and ridges were firm against her softness.
He leaned in to kiss her. It was a soft kiss. Not a kiss of passion but one of promise, a prelude perhaps for more kisses to come.
Marco pulled away but still held her firmly. “We’ll figure this out.”
She considered his words briefly before choosing to believe him.
Standing at the altar of his family chapel, reveling in his gentle caress, she felt a profound shift between them, and she knew they were irrevocably bound.