Runaway Bride

Chapter 25 Stumbling

I run out of the room so fast, I fail to notice someone in the hallway in time, so I end up slamming into a muscular wall.

“Hey, sister-in-law! Take it easy. Where are you going in that beautiful handmade dress?” taunts Dawson.

I pull the fabric up to my chest; I think the sheet covers even part of my throat. I blush from head to toe. He’s the last person I would have wanted to meet in the hallway in this shape. I should have thought things through before I ran away. It’s all his fault, or at least partly his fault. It’s Dawson’s fault. If he didn’t have a twin with whom it was possible to confuse him, Darío would have believed me and trusted my words, or maybe not.

I don’t know who could hurt him so much and so badly that, even though the truth is before his eyes, he doesn’t believe in it. He does not listen, see or understand. He has shut down and blinded himself, not only physically because of his current condition after surgery, but because in his mind, heart, and soul, Darío no longer trusts anyone but himself.

I was a fool to believe that I could have a fairy tale happy ending. The man I lost my virginity to, the one who made love to me under the moonlight, and the one I loved without even seeing his face, is my own husband. I was so happy and so excited. It was a plethoric, almost orgasmic feeling. As I tasted his lips under the huge Flamboyán tree, he has planted in the garden. I foolishly believed that he reciprocated everything I felt for him. And in some ways, I know he does and that he loves me, at least desires me. Even if it is his body, he is not immune to me, whether his heart has an anti-love vest.

What good does it do me to provoke desire in him if I can’t reach his heart? Could it be that I am the most foolish and deluded of women?

Now more than ever, I need Tere! I’m sure she would know what to do.

“Hey, don’t cry,” Dawson comments, but I’m not crying, or maybe I am.

I don’t even know what to think about myself anymore.

I think my sister was right. I haven’t enjoyed my life, and I’ve trusted the wrong person twice. So something must be wrong with me.

I can’t raise my hand to check if I’m crying, but the thin cold touching my cheek tells me I am. Indeed, I wail.

“Get out of my way. I don’t want to see you or him. What’s more, I don’t even know which of the two I want to see less anymore.” He frowns as he doesn’t understand what I mean. “Don’t play dumb. I know about you and my sister. You’re a fucking abuser! She’s only twenty!”

“Tatiana...”

“Get off, or I’ll hit you!” I growl. My hands feel sweaty, and I clench them tightly; I feel my fingernails through the fabric of the sheet. I am hurting myself, but I can’t help the pressure.

“I’m not going to let you go until you tell me why you’re crying. Did my brother do something to you? Did he...” he scrutinizes me, uncomfortable, and a blush appears on his cheeks, “force something?”

“No! Of course not! Darío’s not like that,” I defend him on automatic. “He’s your brother. How can you even think that? You must know him better than anyone else. After all, you can share women.”

I don’t know why I told him that. Nevertheless, anger bubbles up in my body, and my throat gets a little more dried by the second. I need to escape and get out of the castle. Likewise, I need to seek refuge somewhere else, somewhere far away from the Magghio’s, far away from all this that I was forced to be a part of. I knew from the beginning that I did not belong here. I knew things were going to go wrong for me. This is not what I deserve, it is not what I need, and it is not what I want. I don’t have to be treated

like any other, like a person of little credibility, much less do I deserve to be a wife who can’t be trusted. Even though I know that Darío will need the help of everyone around him right now to recover from the situation he is going through, I don’t have the strength to face him right now. The decision is clear: I need to leave the castle right now.

“You don’t know how I regret what I did, and I don’t have to apologize to you for what happened with Arianna, but I assure you that’s in the past. If my brother decided to marry you, it’s because he’s doing his part to get over her.”

I blink once, twice, three times, four times. I pull the fabric tighter against my chest. I don’t understand what the hell he’s talking about, what does he mean? What does he mean he shouldn’t apologize to me?

He seems to interpret my look of confusion, reaches over, and grabs my shoulder. I put my chin up to let him know not to mess with me and give him a big smack on the right knee. He releases me and bends down to rub the bruised spot.

“You’re crazy!”

“Don’t touch me!” I bawl. “You’re all insane!”

“I’m trying to help you, help you both. I’ve caused enough pain.” He lets out an imprecation and shakes his foot. “Shit, woman! I was only trying to help.” Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

“You grabbed me hard,” I excuse myself as I feel the euphoria begin to fade.

“Never mind. I... I just want you to know... I’ll truly regret my whole life that I slept with Arianna. I don’t know what I was thinking. I didn’t mean to hurt my brother. He’s my brother!” Dawson runs his hand through his hair and closes his eyes.

I see the pain on his face and begin to understand the situation.

“You slept with Darío’s wife?” I question with my throat dry and my pulse racing.

“Weren’t you about to leave with the sheet covering you because he told you his wife slept with me?”

“And what would that have to do with me? It’s both of your problems!”

“I don’t know. I saw you leave, and you said about sharing women... All I thought was that...”

“That I was leaving because my husband was cheated?” Wow, this is worse than a mess. It’s like being in the mouth of a wolf; you bump into every fang and hope to find your way out.

“I don’t even know what to think anymore.”

“Did you sleep with your brother’s wife?” I ask again.

“I was drunk.” Even though he pretends it sounds like a credible excuse, I don’t take it that way.

Drunkenly you slip your penis into your brother’s wife’s vagina? And she didn’t know it was him? Is that why...? That’s the point!

Now I feel more pain. My heart is fading little by little, piece by piece.

Darío compares me to his ex-wife, to his late wife, to the one before me. He compares me to an unfaithful woman because he was whipped and because such a situation hurt his manhood. He thinks I am capable of confusing him. I can’t understand how Arianna mistook one brother for the other. Spending a few days together, I have noticed that even the tone of voice of both of them is slightly different. Darío looks at me with sincerity and a little distant, but his eyes give me that confidence that assures me that everything is fine. Dawson, on the other hand, is different. He has that vital energy,

that desire to change, and that carnal desire that he can’t hide under a suit. They’re so different. I feel like an idiot for even digging into who I slept with that night at the lake and thinking it was Dawson.

There is no room for doubt that Darío is the man I lost my virginity to and married, even if he doesn’t want to accept it.

“Being drunk is no excuse for fucking your brother’s wife.” I walk past him, with the sheet being dragged and my hands on my chest.

“But a woman! You can’t go out like that! Where are you going?” Dawson calls after me, but I don’t turn around.

I’m sick of it.

I’ve tried, and I can explain it better. But, until Darío trusts me, without reservation or parameters, our relationship won’t work.

“Away from you and your hell!”

“Tatiana! Come back!” This time it is Darío’s voice that booms throughout the castle.

I turn and see him beside his brother at the foot of the stairs.

“I’m sorry,” I mutter before opening the door and escaping.