### Chapter 5
Dustin's voice cracked through the room like a whip.
"Enough! Drop the act! Gabriella's timid. Seeing those disgusting scars of yours traumatized her. She has nightmares every single night."
"You love putting on a show so much? Then get the hell out of this house and stop scaring her!"
He was waiting for me to crumble. Waiting for me to beg, to surrender with my own mouth.
I looked at his face, twisted and warped with rage, and felt nothing. Still water. A dead lake.
I didn't argue. I didn't cry.
"I'm leaving now."
I grabbed my suitcase and walked right past him.
Dustin stared at my back. When he saw me open the storage room door without so much as a flicker of emotion, his jaw clenched so hard I could hear his teeth grinding.
He stormed after me and ripped the suitcase from my hand.
"You really think I won't touch you, Delia?"
"Let's see who in this entire city would dare take you in once you walk out that door!"
He lifted the suitcase over his head and slammed it into the ground.
The impact split one corner open. Something tumbled out and skittered across the floor.
An emerald brooch, encrusted with diamonds.
The Simmons family heirloom Les had given me.
I bent to pick it up, but a pale hand got there first.
Gabriella's eyes lit up as she held it to the light. "What a gorgeous brooch! Dustin, I love it. Can I try it on?"
She was already pinning it to her chest before the question left her lips.
That brooch was the only thing in this world that was mine.
I didn't hesitate. I extended my hand toward her, my voice cold as a blade. "I've given up everything else. Not this. Give it back."
Gabriella flinched like a startled rabbit and shrank into Dustin's arms.
He pulled her into the crook of his elbow, a nameless fury surging through him.
"The jade bracelet you could give away. The ruby earrings you could hand over. But this worthless trinket is suddenly off-limits? Gabriella likes it. Give it to her!"
I opened my mouth to refuse, but Gabriella's eyes flickered. She unclasped the brooch.
"It's fine, Delia. Here, I'll give it back."
Her eyes turned red on cue.
"You can make things as hard for me as you want. Just please stop putting Dustin in such a difficult position."
"You've always loved money more than anything, haven't you? I'll give you every cent I have. I'm not like you. All I want is Dustin's heart."
Tears brimmed in her eyes, her expression the picture of sincerity and devotion.
As if I really were nothing but a money-grubbing wretch.
She held the brooch out to me. Then her fingers opened.
It hit the marble floor and shattered into pieces.
Every drop of blood in my body went cold.
Gabriella pressed a hand to her mouth.
"Oh no, you didn't catch it! What a shame. That was such fine emerald, too."
I stared at the fragments scattered across the floor, and the pain ripped through me like something tearing open inside my chest.
I couldn't hold back any longer. My hand flew up and cracked across Gabriella's face.
"Ah!"
She shrieked and stumbled into Dustin's arms.
The next second, a far harder blow came whistling through the air and landed on my cheek like a brand of fire.
"You have a death wish, Delia!"
My vision went black. My body pitched sideways and plunged into the freezing pool beside us.
Gabriella's wail pierced the air.
"It hurts! It hurts so much, Dustin!"
He held her tight. He watched me thrashing and gasping in the water, and the only thing in his eyes was fury.
Albert came running at the commotion, his face draining of color.
"She can't swim!"
Dustin stood at the edge of the pool, his voice rolling with the force of a gathering storm.
"Anyone who helps her can get out with her."
Icy water flooded my nose and mouth. Through the churning surface, I saw Dustin lower his head to Gabriella's swollen cheek and blow on it gently, his face full of tenderness and heartache.
Then he scooped her up, still sobbing, and carried her inside.
He never looked back. Not once.
But the strange thing was, my heart didn't hurt anymore. I just felt tired of it all. Tired, and done.
Albert couldn't bear it in the end. He sent someone to pull me out.
I knelt on the pool deck, retching up the ice water that had filled my lungs, shaking so violently my bones rattled.
"Let me take you to the hospital!"
I pulled the towel he'd draped over my shoulders tighter around myself, teeth chattering. "Thank you, Albert. I'm fine."
I gathered my scattered belongings and limped toward the front gate. "From now on, I'm not your young madam anymore."
Albert hurried after me, frantic. "Where will you go?"
"Anywhere. As long as it's away from him, anywhere is good enough."
The old butler stopped in his tracks. In the bitter wind, I heard a single, grief-stricken sigh escape him.
The villa gates closed slowly behind me.
I walked into the howling wind, trembling from head to toe, but I didn't look back. Not at that gilded cage where I'd spent five years living and five years imprisoned.
My feet sank unevenly through the snow. I didn't know how long I'd been walking when my phone screen lit up.
A message from Les.
Sweetheart, I came early. Twenty minutes out. Are you ready?
Snow crashed down in white sheets, and the wind cut through me like I was already turning to ice.
I kept going, shaking so hard I could barely control my limbs. My legs grew number with every step, each one like walking on the edge of a knife.
Just as my vision was going dark and my knees were about to buckle, a car came speeding toward me from the opposite direction.
Tires screamed against the road, skidding to a halt inches away.
The door was thrown open from inside.
"Delia?!"
A man leaped out and sprinted toward me, heedless of the storm.
He caught me just as my body gave way. One look at me, soaked and half-frozen, my skin mottled blue and purple, and his eyes flooded scarlet with rage.
He stripped off his warm coat and wrapped it around me until not an inch of cold could reach me.
"Was it that animal Delgado? He did this to you?"
His voice shook with barely contained fury and raw, bleeding pain. "I will tear apart everyone who laid a hand on you."
I sagged against his solid chest, my face numb with cold.
"I'm sorry. The brooch you gave me. I couldn't protect it. Gabriella destroyed it."
The thought of the Simmons family heirloom in pieces on that marble floor made the guilt unbearable.
"It's just a thing. No matter how valuable, it's nothing compared to you. If you liked it, I'll have a new one made."
Les lifted me into his arms and settled me gently into the back seat.
He climbed in beside me and told the driver to turn the heat up as high as it would go. Then he drew me into his arms, peeled off my soaked shoes and socks, and pressed my frozen feet between his burning-hot palms.
"Don't cry, sweetheart. I'd hate for my bride to show up at her own wedding with puffy eyes."
It wasn't until he said it that I realized tears had been streaming down my face.
I reached up to wipe them away, and then I froze.
My pupils blew wide. I jolted upright out of his arms like I'd been electrocuted, my head nearly slamming into the roof of the car.
I stared at the man in front of me, standing, whole, perfectly fine.
"You... aren't you supposed to be impotent and paralyzed?!"
The black SUV tore toward the airport, vanishing into the storm.
Meanwhile, back at the Delgado villa, the atmosphere had curdled into something suffocating.
Dustin sat on the living room sofa, staring out at the falling snow, his face carved from stone.
His grip on his phone was white-knuckled, the casing creaking under the pressure. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore. He typed out a message and hit send.
Had enough? Then get back inside. Remember. There won't be a next time.
He waited.
And waited.
The sky darkened from gray to black.
No reply. No figure appearing at the door.
He ripped his tie loose and hurled the cup of tea a servant offered him against the floor.
The clock on the wall read eight in the evening.
It had been nearly four hours since he'd thrown me into that frozen pool.
