Page 90 of No Sweeter Poison

“You never really told me in detail.”

“Because I don’t like talking about it.”

“I want to know.” I turn over and fold my hands against his chest where I rest my cheek. “Please?”

He continues running his fingers through my hair. It’s sometime after three in the morning I think but can’t be sure. My phone is on the other side of the room and the clock is behind me. I don’t feel like turning around.

“After Dad died, we spent one miserable summer in Barcelona before Mom brought us back to New York. She’d finally snapped out of her grief-induced haze and decided that none of us would have anything to do with Abuelo or the family business. Abuelo was lenient at first and didn’t intervene. It wasn’t until she started preventing him from seeing us that it became a problem. I was…I don’t know. A teenage asshole,” he tells me. “I was lashing out in all the wrong ways. I’d spent the entire summer playing parent to Lettie and Diego while Mom was incapacitated and I hadn’t had any time to grieve myself. Then she moves us from Barcelona and doesn’t allow us to see our grandparents? My grandmother was still alive at the time. Too many emotions and too much resentment than I knew what to do with at eighteen. Until I discovered partying was an excellent numbing tool.

“I met Regina at one of those parties. We were both college freshman, eighteen years old and mad at the world. Everything just clicked into place for us.”

I know I have no right to feel jealous but I still feel a twinge of it nonetheless.

“We were in New York about a year before Abuelo gave Mom an ultimatum. Either let us choose where we wanted to go or he’d take us by force. All of us chose Abuelo and Mom left. I went to London, finished college there. Regina went with me and I proposed after graduation. Abuelo was in Italy with Diego starting up the new branch of the shipping company and Lettie was going to school in Mexico where our aunt could watch over her. Regina and I were in Mexico for a while before coming back to Barcelona where we lived during the months leading up to the wedding.

“In the beginning, I was so determined to follow in my father’s footsteps. I went to the college he wanted me to go to, got the business degree he wanted, got involved in the family’s affairs. Regina believed in me and that dream. No one was more encouraging than her.”

Finally, he tilts his head, and I can see the outline of his face in the darkness. His fingers skim their way along my jaw, up the side of my cheek, and over my forehead in a touch that feels almost reverent. The way one may caress rosary beads while praying.

“I’d always thought she was a Godsend. I think I loved her obsessively which blinded me to a number of her fatal flaws.”

“Like what?”

He considers his answer. “You know, we were together over five years and she never once told me she loved me.”

I can’t conceal my surprise, not even under the guise of night.

“She found many eloquent, beautiful ways around the word. But she had never actually said it aloud, not explicitly or directly. Not until it was too late, anyway. She lived in fear of the word and the power it could have over her.”

“I don’t fault her for it,” I admit.

He shakes his head. “No…neither do I.”

“What else happened?”

“Well, everything came to a head the week of our wedding. Regina is many things but a liar isn’t one of them. However, she’s very crafty when it comes to working her way around the truth. She has a sister, Montserrat, and it was Montserrat who told us they were orphaned and had no family. Not Regina. Diego never liked or trusted her so he did some digging into her background and comes to find out she’s related to the Sandovals.

“Diego hadn’t gotten as far as the how they were related part but any relation to the Sandovals was a threat. I didn’t want to see reason. I kept thinking it was either a mistake or there was an explanation. When I confronted Regina, she said they were only related through marriage because her mother had married a Sandoval but that was it. “

“And you believed her?”

He nods. “I believed her. She promised me it was the truth.”

“And was it?”

“It was a version of the truth. The next morning, I’m waiting at the altar and Diego tells me there’s still time to back out. I tell him he’s fucking crazy and that he can either be a good brother and stand by my side or get the Hell out.”

“Sounds like Diego.”

“Yeah, well, he was right. Because almost an hour goes by and everyone starts to wonder where she is. And then Sandro shows up.” He keeps touching my hair, as if focusing on something other than the story he’s telling will preserve his sanity. “Son of a bitch never looked so smug. He has the pleasure of announcing to the entire congregation that there won’t be a wedding as his sister has decided to back out. As you can imagine, things quickly descended into chaos.”

I almost smile. “Did you kick his ass?”

“Broke his nose and three of his ribs.” He answers matter-of-factly then shrugs. “I had a temper when I was younger.”

“Oh, I’m sure.”

“That night, Regina finds me and asks me to run away. At this point she has to come clean about everything. How when she met me in New York she didn’t know who I really was, not until much later because in the beginning, Mom made us use her maiden name. And that by the time she found out, she’d already fallen in love with me. Then Sandro finds out we’re together and…” He shakes his head. “More chaos I don’t care to relive.”