Page 17 of Surrendered Hearts
His chest rises as he takes a long, rough breath, and then falls as he says, “I spoke with them.” He throws the rest of his whiskey down his throat before pushing his chair back and standing. “Go and talk with them and your father. Show them how fucking happy you are.”
With that, he stalks away from me, his shoulders rock hard.
I chalk this conversation up to another small victory.
Javier might be an asshole, and he might have some control over me, but he doesn’t have all the control he’d prefer.
And that’s exactly how I’ll keep it.
8
JAVIER
“We still haven’t located Perez,” Lorenzo informs me as we walk to the elevator after dinner. It was the longest dinner of my life and I’m in no mood to hear bad news.
“Why the fuck not?” I demand, jabbing the button for the elevator.
“Maybe because he’s an asshole who’s fucking good at evading us.” The glare he shoots me matches the glares I receive from Emilia these days. “The fuck is wrong with you tonight? You’re being more of a motherfucker than usual.”
We step into the elevator and my sense of being caged in is stronger than ever. The restraint I’m practicing in all areas of my life is close to breaking point.
I need Perez found.
I need this wedding to take place.
I need Emilia to fucking submit to me.
“Just fucking find him,” I bark.
Lorenzo continues glaring at me as he turns silent. We ride up to his floor without another word and he exits with “I hope you wake up in a better fucking mood tomorrow.”
I reach my floor and stride into the suite, every muscle strained, every thought strained, every fucking sense strained.
Emilia tested every ounce of patience I have tonight.
She defied me at every possible turn.
Her shoes.
The conversations she had with people in which she talked about living in New York after our wedding rather than dividing her time between America and Colombia.
Her refusal to stay with me after dinner when I requested her presence during a conversation with our fathers.
She needs to learn that I will tolerate a lot from her, but that I won’t tolerate everything.
And she needs to learn that now.
I find her in the library on her laptop. When I enter the room, she looks up at me like a wild gusty storm blew in. Eyes wide, she swallows hard and has the good sense not to utter a word.
“Tonight did not go well,” I say, my tone harsh, my angry stare harsher. “In future, when I request something of you, you will give it to me, no questions asked. Am I understood?”
She puts her laptop aside and stands. “You have always been perfectly understood, Javier. That is not our problem here.” She takes a step toward me. “Our problem is that I’m a woman who likes compromise in a relationship and you have never been a man who can do that.”
“You need to move past what happened two years ago, Emilia.”
“I won’t ever move past that. I loved you. I gave you my all. I would have given you my life. And you threw it all away for reasons you never shared with me and turned up on the arm of another woman at a dinner hours after breaking my heart.” She takes the last few steps to stand in front of me. Jabbing her finger angrily into my chest, she continues, “Until you tell me why, and until you figure out how to compromise, our marriageis going to be nothing but a headache for you. I promise you that.”
I don’t fucking doubt her.