Part 3
I backed up against the cold marble wall of the bathroom, my hand clamped over my mouth as the tall, muscular stranger slowly turned around.
Except he wasn't a stranger. Those dark, piercing eyes were the exact same ones I had looked into every single day for the past twelve months.
"Clara," Don Baste said—only his voice wasn't a gravelly, wheezing rasp anymore. It was deep, smooth, and resonant. He grabbed a white towel, wrapped it around his waist, and took a slow step toward me. "Don't be afraid. It’s me."
"How...?" I whispered, my knees trembling as I looked from his sculpted chest to the heavy silicone prosthetic suit lying in the sink. "The scars. The wheelchair. The three hundred pounds... it was all fake? For a whole year, you watched me scrub your floors and wash your feet while you were wearing a costume?!"
Hot tears of humiliation stung my eyes. I turned to run out of the suite, but he moved with terrifying speed, gently catching my wrist and pulling me back inside before the hallway cameras could see us.
"Listen to me, Clara, please," Sebastián said softly, holding both of my hands. For the first time in a year, he looked at me without an ounce of cruelty—just pure, raw emotion. "Five years ago, when my yacht exploded off Key Biscayne, it wasn't an engine failure. Somebody planted three pounds of C4 under the hull."
I stopped struggling, staring up at him in shock. "Someone tried to murder you?"
"My cousin Victor—the Vice President of my company," Sebastián said, his jaw tightening. "When I survived the blast with minor burns, I realized that if I came back healthy, the people on my board who helped Victor would just try again. So I hired a former CIA Hollywood prosthetics specialist. I became the 'Pig Millionaire'—a morbidly obese, crippled recluse who couldn't even walk to his own board meetings. The second Victor thought I was pathetic and dying, he got sloppy and started embezzling millions through underground poker rings."
My breath caught in my throat. "Underground poker rings... like the one my dad owed $3.5 million to?"
"Victor owns that casino, Clara," Sebastián said gently. "Your father didn't owe me money—he owed Victor. And when your father offered to sell you to pay off his markers, Victor came to me laughing, suggesting I marry you to fulfill my grandfather’s trust clause. Victor’s plan was to use your father to turn you into a spy inside my bedroom."
"I didn't know!" I cried out. "I swear to God, I had no idea!"
"I know you didn't," Sebastián whispered, reaching up to gently wipe a tear from my cheek—the exact same way I had wiped the sweat from his forehead on our wedding day. "I treated you terribly the first few months because I thought you were in on it. I tried to break you so you’d run back to Victor. Instead, you defended me against your own father, washed my feet with gentle hands, and protected my dignity when three hundred people laughed at me. I fell in love with you six months ago, Clara."
My heart was hammering against my ribs. "Then why take the suit off tonight?"
Sebastián walked over to his mahogany desk, picked up an iPad, and turned the screen toward me. It showed a hidden security camera feed from the mansion’s guest wing, recorded just two hours earlier when my father, my stepmother Lydia, and Victor had dropped off their luggage for tomorrow night's anniversary gala.
"Because an hour ago," Sebastián said coldly, tapping play on the video, "your father and my cousin handed my head chef fifty thousand dollars in cash to put lethal doses of potassium chloride into my anniversary champagne tomorrow night—and they plan on framing you for the murder so your father can claim your widow's inheritance while you rot in prison."
