Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

Rafe

A bby fled the room, and I stood there, stunned, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened.

She’d been warm and responsive and so fucking beautiful as she’d come on my tongue.

Then something had come into her head, some thoughts or doubts or who the hell knew what, and she’d grown cold. Well, cold and then did her damnedest to insult me and push me away.

However, she’d said she wanted me. And I’d seen the internal struggle in her eyes about what to do before throwing my words back at me.

I swore there’d been longing, too.

Something had spooked her, and my best guess was that something from her past was messing with her head. Probably something to do with that asshole who’d hurt her.

Regardless, I was determined to find out what.

After walking down the hall, I stopped outside her door and was about to knock when I heard Abby crying. My heart clenched at the sound, and I debated what to do. The easy route would be to leave her be and hide behind my work.

However, each quiet sob tugged at my gut, and I knew I couldn’t leave her like this. Even if we weren’t a true couple, I remembered something my dad had told me: “Never run away from an argument or go to bed angry with your partner, Rafael. Talk, always talk, and everything should be okay.”

I hadn’t thought of my dad in years. Usually the memories were too painful and caused guilt to crash down over me, to the point I’d rush off to drink and have sex and find ways to dull the pain.

But today? His words only made me more determined to be brave and find out what was wrong with Abby. Even if she’d only agreed to be my wife for a year, part of my job as her husband was taking care of her. Orgasms were all well and good, but I wanted her smiles and laughter, too.

Taking a deep breath, I knocked. The crying stopped, and I knocked again.

Eventually, Abby’s muffled voice came through the door. “Go away.”

“Not until you tell me what’s really going on. Because I wasn’t lying earlier, and I need to find out why you don’t believe me.”

She gave a strangled laugh. “Says the world-famous soccer player who’s dated models and actresses and trust fund ladies.”

“I don’t want to have this conversation through a door, Abigail. Let me in. Please.”

For a few seconds, I thought she would tell me to get lost. Eventually she said, “Come in.”

I entered and found her sitting on her bed, wrapped in a light pink bathrobe dotted with cats wearing ridiculous outfits. I couldn’t help but smile. “You still like cats, I see.”

Frowning, she glanced down at her robe and hugged her arms around her body. “It helps me feel cute sometimes.” She looked up at me, her swollen eyes stabbing my heart. “What do you want, Rafe?”

I leaned against the dresser, keeping a distance between us. “You’re upset, and I want to know why. Because I don’t like it.”

“Right, because I should just bare my soul to you whenever you want it,” she drawled.

“Of course not. But if we’re to live together and play the part of a couple, then we need to be able to talk and resolve things. If you won’t believe me when I say a simple truth, such as about how beautiful you are, then it doesn’t bode well for when some of my past catches up to me and I have to explain it.”

Fuck. Had I really mentioned my past so easily?

Abby tilted her head. “What do you think will catch up with you?”

I shook my head. “Not until you tell me why you don’t believe me when I say you’re the most beautiful woman in the world to me, Abigail.”

She searched my gaze, huffed, and looked down at the quilt on the bed. As she traced the boxes making the design, her voice was low, so low I barely heard it, as she replied, “I’ve been burned so many times, Rafe. I’ve been too trusting, too na?ve, and it culminated in me being with a man who, as soon as I fell in love with him, proceeded to change me little by little. He criticized me, made me feel inadequate, and I kept trying to please him, to change for him, only to be tossed aside and humiliated.” She paused, met my gaze, and whispered, “I find it difficult to believe anyone outside of my family, and even then, it’s sometimes hard.”

I itched to cross the room, pull Abby close, and vow to be better than that. Hell, to treat her like she deserved.

But as she was staring at the quilt again, hunched into herself, I knew that would be the wrong approach. Probably. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, but I had to try something. I wasn’t about to become a shitty husband on the first day of living together.

Not to mention I’d rather stab my own heart than see Abby with tear-swollen eyes ever again.

Memories of another time tear-filled eyes had looked at me and begged me to stay, after my parents’ funeral, flashed into my head. I’d failed my sister for too long. I wouldn’t fail in this, too, even if it was a marriage of convenience.

Which meant sharing some hard truths, things I’d not shared with anyone before.

After taking a deep breath, I finally spoke up. “I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of, Abby. I hurt my sister, my parents, and even the friends I had here in Starry Hills. I isolated myself for over a decade, thinking if I did that, I couldn’t hurt anyone ever again. And you know what? That made everything worse, as I found out with Emmy.” Her gaze met mine, full of curiosity, and I pushed on. “Part of how I isolated myself was by wearing a persona, a mask, where I pretended to be a playboy, a charmer only looking for a good time. That’s how the press saw me, at any rate. But I wasn’t happy. Not really.”

All the years of wanting someone to confide in—to drop the act and be a little less perfect and charming and sexy—had been fucking difficult.

“Rafe…”

Abby’s voice brought me back to the present, and I knew I needed to keep going before I chickened out. “I know you’re probably wondering why the hell I’m unloading this on you. Well…” I rubbed the back of my neck and said in a rush, “I haven’t told anyone this before. No one. I’m sharing it with you to prove that I’m not perfect, that I lived a lie for so long it became exhausting, and I just want that phase of my life to be over.” I stood and crossed over to Abby, before kneeling before her. “I want to be me, Abigail. Just Rafael Charles Mendoza, the man with a dodgy knee, a sordid past, and a loneliness that I’m working on. I’m trying to be honest, especially with you. And if you won’t believe me when it comes to something as simple as me thinking you’re beautiful? Then I’m not sure anyone will ever believe me, the real me, instead of the fiction I lived for so long.”

Her eyes searched mine, and I held my breath. Because if sharing one of my deepest secrets wouldn’t convince Abby that I wanted to be truthful, then I wasn’t sure what else I could do.

So I waited for her response, my heart racing, hoping that maybe, just maybe, she’d believe me and confide more in me, too.