"Ah, I didn't know you had it in you," Álvaro chuckled, voice curling around the ivy like it had vines of its own. "All these years playing the dignified De La Vega daughter, dressing in silk and walking like a church bell at dawn, but now look at you. Calculated. Cold. Selling yourself for his legacy. Truly, I underestimated you."
María José didn't flinch or smirk. She didn't scream or cry or shove him away. She simply looked at him like a marble statue carved into poise.
I couldn't tell what was worse; his gloating or her calm.
I wanted her to scream or slap him. To do something that told me she still belonged to me in some way. That she felt something for me.
But she just said, "Then you clearly never knew me at all."
Álvaro smiled. Bastard. And then, casually, he brushed her cheek with his knuckle like it was nothing—like he had the right.
