141
The loneliness had thickened around me like fog, clinging to every corner of my existence no matter how many distractions I filled it with. But then, Isabella Reyes happened.
It was a mistake. Our meeting. One of those accidents the universe throws at you when you least expect it.
I had been in Madrid, wandering through the back alleys of La Latina, half-drunk on expensive wine and an existential crisis, when I saw her. She was sitting outside a tiny, hole-in-the-wall café, arguing with a man who was twice her size. Her Spanish was rapid, furious, laced with exasperation, but what caught my attention was her face: dark brown eyes sharp with fire, lips pulled into a snarl, thick black curls cascading down her back. She was struggling, barely keeping her composure, her hands tightening into fists on the wobbly café table.
It wasn’t my business. I should have walked away.
But something in me, the same reckless part that craved danger, that leaped from cliffs and raced motorcycles into oncoming traffic, stepped in.
I didn’t even know what the fight was about. Didn’t care. I slid into the chair across from her and smiled at the man. “I think she’s done talking to you.”
He glared, spat a curse under his breath, and stormed off.
I turned back to Isabella, expecting gratitude. Instead, she stared at me like I was the most annoying thing in the world. “Who the fuck asked you to do that?”
I laughed. It had been a long time since anyone had spoken to me like that.
One drink turned into two. Then three. Somewhere between our fourth round of whiskey, I learned she was thirty-six, had moved to Spain from Colombia five years ago, and had been working three jobs to send money back home. A waitress, a housekeeper, and sometimes, when desperate, she cleaned nightclub floors after drunken tourists had pissed all over them.
I listened. She had this way of talking. Sometimes animated, sharp, slightly bitter but never self-pitying.
I don’t know what possessed me to offer her a job. Maybe it was the way she downed her whiskey like she had nothing left to lose. Maybe it was the fact that, for the first time in years, I wanted someone around, not just a body in my bed for a night, not just a voice on the phone handling my business affairs.
"Come work for me," I said. "I have a place in the Catskills. You won’t have to clean piss off nightclub floors anymore."
She laughed in my face.
But two months later, after a few more conversations and a wire transfer into her bank account that covered her family’s debts, she showed up at my estate in New York.
It was a sprawling piece of land, vast and secluded, surrounded by dense forest and hidden from the world. The mansion itself was old-money beautiful, three stories of dark wood and stone, massive bay windows, and balconies that overlooked the endless green. Ivy crawled up the walls, wrapping around the iron railings like nature was trying to reclaim it.
Inside, it was everything I wanted, grand but empty. High ceilings, hardwood floors, fireplaces that hadn’t been lit in years. It was a house meant for a family, but it had only ever belonged to ghosts.
Isabella moved in, and at first, it was strictly professional. She took care of the house, managed the staff, cooked when she felt like it. She never asked questions, never pried into why a woman as young as me owned a place like this and lived in it alone.
And then, one night, she made hot chocolate.
I don’t know why it hit me so hard. It was a small thing, cinnamon-dusted, made the way my mother used to make it when I was a child. But the moment I tasted it, something inside me cracked. I barely made it to my room before I broke down, sobbing into my pillow until my head pounded.
I hated her for that. For bringing back something I had buried so deep, I thought it was gone forever.
At first, I avoided her. I kept my distance, let the silence between us stretch into weeks. But Isabella was stubborn, patient in a way that irritated me. She didn’t push, didn’t demand anything. She just… stayed.
And eventually, I let her in.
Months passed, and she became the closest thing I had to family. She was rough around the edges, brutally honest, but she cared in a way that wasn’t suffocating. She called me out on my bullshit, made sure I ate, told me stories about her past that made me laugh.
I started to think, maybe I could keep her. Maybe I didn’t have to be alone.
But then, she started asking questions.
It started small.
"Why don’t you ever talk about your family?"
"Why does someone as young as you have all this money?"
"Why don’t you have friends? Lovers?"
I brushed them off at first. Gave vague answers, changed the subject. But she kept pushing.
One night, we were sitting in the library, drinking wine. The fire crackled, the room bathed in golden light, and she just… looked at me.
"Eleanor." Her voice was softer this time. "What happened to you?"
I froze.
It was the way she asked it. Like she already knew there was something broken inside me, something ugly and unspeakable.
The walls slammed up instantly. My chest tightened, and for the first time in years, I felt like a cornered animal.
"That’s none of your fucking business," I snapped.
Her face didn’t change. She just studied me, eyes unreadable. "You trust me enough to let me into your home, but not enough to tell me who you really are?"
That was the final straw.
That night, I packed a bag. I left without saying a word.
I moved into my New York penthouse and never looked back.
That was two years ago.
Now, I was suffocating in the backseat of a car that wasn’t mine, my legs numb from the dead weight of a ten-year-old, while Tina, looking like she had personally fought death and lost, was slumped in the front seat.
Log in with Google Account
Chapters
Favorite
Settings
