But it was amazing how little money and security mattered in the long run when your own heart wasn’t being loved.
I had no illusions about Esteban loving me. I knew he didn’t. I knew that he might hold some affection for me and that perhaps his attraction to me was based more on one-upping Javier, having what he had, that envy he felt for his boss.
I also had no illusions about loving Esteban. I didn’t. I didn’t even know if I liked him. But he had been there out in the desert, and he knew what I had needed before I did.
The fact was, I still loved Javier even though it was futile and painful to do so. I was also sure that a part of my own heart was breaking over what I had just done. But despite that, I also knew that I would eventually come to terms with it. And one day I’d be forced to make another choice: to make peace with my life the way it was.
Or to do it again.
I was too afraid of what my answer would be.
When I got closer to the house though, the guilt and dirt I felt on my soul waned a bit. Because there were cars parked outside, and from somewhere in the house I heard a girlish giggle.
I carefully walked down the porch, my footsteps heavy from the boots, and went into the kitchen. Evelyn looked up at me in concern.
“Luisa, what happened?” She quickly put a plate away then scurried over to me.
“It’s fine,” I said, surprised at how calm I suddenly felt. “I was following the horses and I slipped on the hill, tumbled for a bit. I’m okay. Just embarrassed.”
She didn’t seem to believe me so I deftly changed the subject. “Who came in the cars? I thought I heard a female laugh.”
Evelyn looked grave. “You know how boys are,” she said. “They wanted company.”
I gave her a stiff smile. “I’m going to go shower. I might skip lunch if that’s okay with you.”
She nodded, seeming to understand.
As I went down the hall, I heard the laughter again. Two girls now. Thankfully they weren’t coming from Javier’s room but someone else’s. I quickly went into my small bedroom, locked the door, and went into the bathroom. I avoided my reflection in the mirror and stripped, then got in the shower.
I couldn’t get the water hot enough. I turned it hotter and hotter, until the air filled with steam and I was sure it was scalding me.
But still, I felt like I couldn’t get clean.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Esteban
Esteban watched as Luisa climbed up the hill and out of his sight. Though she didn’t know it yet, she really did look like she’d been ravaged. It pleased him to no end to know that it was all because of him. That he finally had done it. And even though fucking her was a means to an end, it wasn’t half bad.
Actually, Luisa was better than he had expected. Sure, she wasn’t wild, but he hadn’t really given her much choice out here. And she protested, which he liked the most. In some ways he wanted her to really fight back. The fact that she hadn’t meant that she’d been thinking about him, needing a good roll in the hay, something he’d only hoped for once.
In time, because they would do this again and again, it would become too much for her. It sickened him to think that Javier had probably screwed her six kinky ways from Sunday, with all his affinity for ropes and knives and asphyxiation. Because of that, Luisa was a hardened champ when it came to pushing boundaries and limits. But eventually Esteban would take it too far, and he relished the moment she became afraid of him, the moment she’d ask him to stop and he wouldn’t.
That would be the moment Luisa realized how truly fucked she was. Because then he would hold all the power. She’d be his dirty queen and she’d get even dirtier, because he’d probably make her sleep with the pigs at that point. He saw it in her face, that former beauty queen, the girl who was a twenty-three-year-old virgin with loving parents and a moral outlook on life. She thought she was above scum like Esteban. Hell, she felt things like guilt. He didn’t even know what guilt felt like.
He couldn’t wait to wipe that smug, righteous look from her beautiful face and make her uglier, inside and out, day by day. It was what got him out of bed in the morning. That, and the look on Javier’s face when he realized how much he had underestimated him. The look on his face when he saw how everything else had been taken away.
Oh, Luisa was playing into his plans so well. He hadn’t counted on her still smarting over Javier’s infidelities, but the woman felt far too much. In that respect alone, she would never cut it as a true narco queen. The real queens of the country knew to turn a blind eye to their husband’s affairs. It was just the price you paid for being married to a patron. Everybody knew it.