I immediately retreated backward into the doorway of a shop, hoping the shadows would hide me, and watched the scene unfold. There was no way I wanted her to see me again; she’d probably leap out of the car and finish what she started.

Mateo walked around to her side of the car, with the same clothes on as last night, and she rolled down the window.

She said something to him. I couldn’t read her expression because she had sunglasses on.

Mateo put his right hand at her jaw, holding her intimately, like a husband would with a wife, nodding at whatever she was saying.

Then he kissed her.

Right on the lips.

A soft, sensual kiss.

And she kissed him back.

My lungs dropped to the floor, the fractures in my heart all blowing up at once, shattering every piece of me, shards slicing me from head to toe. All while my eyes stayed wide open, glued to the scene.

Finally he pulled away and smiled. But there was no time left in this universe to decipher what that smile meant, if it even meant anything.

Because I realized what that thought had meant, what it was trying to tell me, trying to get me to pay attention to.

I was watching Mateo and his wife, or soon-to-be-ex-wife, act affectionate with each other. I was watching them act like they’d been married for years, because of course they had been. I was watching this and I was dying inside, my heart stomped on and crushed, my veins full of black liquid jealousy, choking me from the inside out. I was feeling like I was never going to survive this.

And that was wrong.

Because they had a daughter together.

And me and my feelings, I was standing in the way.

I never wanted my father to leave my mother, not deep down. If there ever had been a way to spare me of all the pain I went through, I would have wanted it. Right now, I was the obstacle between Mateo and Isabel’s marriage. If there was ever a chance, even the smallest chance, that the two of them could ever get back together, I couldn’t be the one to get in the way of that.

They had a family together.

I needed to do the right thing, for everyone.

Fuck my own heart.

I had to leave Spain.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

I managed to make it back to the apartment, hurrying along so that Mateo didn’t see me. I wasn’t sure how long he was spending at the car with Isabel, and I didn’t want to know. I felt as if I was going to die with each step, barely holding myself together as I got into our building. Once in the elevator, I started to keel over, holding onto the railing for dear life, trying to keep myself upright. The pain was so overwhelming I was seeing stars again.

As I fumbled with my keys and tried to stick them in the door, I kept dropping them. And then the tears started coming, streaming down my face, making me see through a watery filter. I tried to keep my sobs inside, tried to bury them deep in my chest, so determined not to lose it in the hallway. If I lost it, I would collapse right on the floor and I’d never make it inside.

Somehow the key went into the lock and the door handle turned. I burst through and immediately collapsed to my knees on the hardwood floors, not even feeling the pain that was shooting up through me. Physical pain was preferable; it could be handled. What I was feeling was being ripped apart right down the middle until there was nothing inside me but agony.

I leaned back against the door, shutting it with my back and letting the sobs tear through me. I couldn’t breathe.

I couldn’t breathe.

I was dying.

There was nothing.

My chest was being crushed and I was dying.

Breathe, I tried to tell myself. Please breathe.

But I couldn’t. I gasped for air and only cried out instead, overcome by the pain and the sorrow and the utter destruction of my new life.

I had to say goodbye to everything. I had to go back home. I had to leave Mateo. I had to do this to us to save us.

It was over.

I screamed, loud, shrill, bloody murder. My body shook, my hands and arms shaking, my chest still twisting and turning as I tried to breathe and cry and scream at the same time. I couldn’t take this, I couldn’t go on. This was the annihilation of every soft part of me; it was brutal and swift and gory, and I was being eaten alive, made to feel it all, every cut and slice and stab, and the wound in my chest was growing bigger and bigger.

Feeling swept away by the rage and the madness, I tore my purse off my shoulder and flung it across the room.

I screamed again and collapsed onto the ground, my fingers trying to dig into the floor, to give me something to hold on to.

“Please,” I cried out loud to no one. “Please make this stop, please make this stop.” I sobbed, my cries getting caught in my mouth, in my throat, in my lungs.

I barely heard the door opening behind me, barely felt it push against my backside.

“Vera?” Mateo asked from above me, his voice breaking. “Vera, my god. Are you okay?”

He shut the door behind him and put his arms under mine, pulling me up to my feet.

I gasped and stumbled away from him, holding on to the edge of the kitchen counter to keep me up.

“Stay away from me!” I screamed.

His eyes widened in fear as he looked me up and down. “Vera, please, Estrella, please, what happened?”

“It’s over!” I yelled at him, scared at the ferocity of my voice, at the way it was coming out. I had underestimated my emotions.

“What are you talking about?” he asked with a shake of his head, coming closer.

I put my hands out to keep him back. I pinched my eyes shut, trying to stick to what I knew was right. But he didn’t stop, he came and put his arms around me, holding me tight to him. I froze, rigid, unable to touch him back.

“Please, what is over?” he asked softly. “Please talk to me.”

“Us,” I sobbed into his chest. “We’re over. I’m leaving Spain. I’m going back home.”

He tensed, standing still. I could almost hear his heart stop. “No,” he whispered. “You do not mean this.”

“I do,” I said. “I do. I have to leave you.”

“Why?” he growled. He pulled away and grabbed a hard hold of my shoulders. “Why do you have to leave me? Because of Isabel?”

“You didn’t defend me last night!” I yelled and pushed him back from me. I walked backward into the kitchen, one hand on the counter for balance. “She fucking spat on me, she hit me, and you didn’t defend me!”

“I couldn’t,” he whispered, seeming to be in shock. “Vera, please, I couldn’t.”

“Yes, you could have!” I screamed, my heart shuddering violently. “You could have defended me!”

“You have no idea what I am going through!” he yelled right back, loud, his eyes burning up. “You have no idea at all. You don’t know what I have to do to keep my chances of having Chloe Ann alive! Don’t make me choose between you two.”

I felt like I was turning to glass only to be shattered right away.

“I am not asking you anything!” I roared. “I am not that type of woman! You may all call me a whore and a homewrecker, but I would never ask the impossible of you. And you’ve already made the right choice.”

He put his hands in a steeple over his nose and mouth, trying to breathe in and out, his eyes locked on mine. So much anger, pain, and frustration in them. Finally he lifted them away and said, “You are not a whore. Isabel was upset, like we all knew she would be. I could not defend you and her at the same time.”

“I know,” I shot back. “It would explain why I just saw you kissing her.”

His face fell.

I crossed my arms. “I saw you. Just now.”

“Vera,” he said gently. “No, that isn’t what it looks like.”

I swallowed painfully. “Maybe not.”

“I am trying to keep the peace.”

“Are you leading her on?”

“No,” he said quickly, adamantly. “She knows about us, she knows the marriage is over. She agrees. But I have to play nice. Because of—”

“I know!” I yelled. “I know, I know, I know. Because of your daughter. And I fucking agree with you. I just wish I knew how fucking difficult this was going to be before I came out here, before I gave up my school and my family’s respect and my future. I gave up everything for you only to finish last!”

“You are not last,” he cried out. “Don’t fucking pull that shit with me. This isn’t fair or easy for me and you know it!”

“Shit?” I repeated lividly, my voice raw. “What shit am I fucking pulling? I am getting the fuck out of here and going back to a future I left behind, back to nothing.”

“You are not the only one to give everything up!” he roared at me, his voice shaking me to the bone. He stepped toward me and I backed up until I was leaning against the counter. “You can go back to school! You can go back to your country! I can never get my family back! I have lost everything!”

His face was red, the vein in his neck pulsing hard. I was speechless, trying to remember how to breathe again. His anger, his pain, had stolen my breath away.

I blinked and eked out, “I am sorry. Then perhaps you won’t notice the loss of me.” I tried to move around him but he grabbed my arm.

“No!” he seethed. “You don’t get to do this. It’s hard, it hurts, but you don’t get to leave.”

“I get to leave,” I told him, looking him in the eye, staring him down. “I get to leave because it is my choice to make. I will not be the other woman who breaks up a family anymore. The damage is done, but if I can prevent any further damage, I will. You and Chloe Ann and Isabel are a family. You should be together.”