Page 2 of Veiled Amor

My daughter will make you a great wife; let’s get it arranged as soon as possible.

Not this time, dad.

She’d been there, got the t-shirt and the bad fucking memories.

Being her father, she stupidly loved him. But didn’t like him all that much. Funnily, she discovered she was cut from the same cloth because why else was she trying to escape in the middle of the night if she didn’t have some of her father’s fighting instincts? She wouldn’t lie down and take his dictating anymore.

Lucia would take a running guess that her second arranged marriage wouldn’t be quite the same as her first. That slimy goat downstairs would insist on her giving him children.

Double ick.

Once she was packed, she tossed her PJ’s on the bed before she dressed in patterned yoga leggings, a tank top, and a white hoodie. Next, she slid her feet into a pair of Michael Kors tennis shoes.

Her father might lack giving affection and genuine love for his child. But his one good grace, as you might call it, was he’d never been skimpy on anything she wanted. She had an unlimited credit card, only because he refused her to work.

It was degrading to know she was twenty-six and had no say in her own life.

She felt sick admitting she was a trophy. Athing. Not treated as a person.

The plan to spend a lot of his money, until he insisted she earn her own, backfired because he’d smirked over the dinner table and told her. “You had a good month, Lucia.”

Ugh, like he was proud of her frivolous ways.

But of course, a man like Nicholas Cole would equate fun with spending thousands.

She was stifled in a privileged life many would kill to have.

If only they knew.

She lived in a gilded cage, did Lucia.

Her leash was only so long.

Couldn’t date.

Couldn’t travel without her father.

Not permitted to work or have an apartment. Even during her brief marriage, she lived in an estate villa with guards always close by.

In part, it was because of her father and the danger his lifestyle brought.

But why should the daughter pay for the father’s sins?

She refused to be his chess piece again.

Santiago was dead.

Her then nineteen-year-old husband was dead because of her father.

The entire Mercado family was dead.

All except for one man.

The one who might have saved her life again tonight.

She missed Giancarlo like it was a gaping sore.

At times, she fooled herself into pretending that night didn’t happen so she could breathe without it hurting.