The Beautiful Ones - Silvia Moreno-Garcia Page 0,101
way he shook his head that made her want to dig her nails into his face. There was derision there.
Yes, yes, you should get on your knees, she thought.
“How dare you!”
“How dare you, Valérie.”
“Is this not what you wanted?”
“I wanted you to go away with me, to marry me, to be happy with me,” he said, and for a moment she held her breath as his eyes fixed on her, intense and full of an awful feeling. “But I would never hurt her again, not like this.”
“She is nothing,” she declared. “They’d mock you with such a wife. The little dolt and the entertainer. You’ll be humiliated if you chase after her.”
“Valérie, don’t you dare say anything against her.”
The quality of his anger surprised her, not the emotion itself. She had expected anger; they were no strangers to it. But this was black and ice cold, not the red-hot anger they had shared. It was dead, festering.
For the first time, she doubted herself, and this doubt made her sputter, her voice too shaky for her own liking. “Try to pretend all you want. You still want me. You want me and not her.”
Hector scoffed and glanced down, as if examining the pattern of the rug beneath his feet.
Valérie’s hands twitched at her side. Close to panic, she shivered. “We both know it,” she told him.
Hector did not reply and she grasped his arm, maneuvering to ensure that he was looking down at her.
“You think me beautiful. Thrice as beautiful as she might ever be.”
Valérie was indeed magnificent in that moment, anger making her eyes shine like a delicate glaze had been applied to them, every line in her body harmonious. He looked at her, appreciative, and she was aware he recognized this perfection, that he could not turn from it.
“You are beautiful, Valérie. I don’t think you’ll ever cease to be beautiful, and you’ll continue to drive men crazy with your beauty. But there is no goodness in you, just poison, and a desire to wound,” he said without malice, as if he were explaining a difficult arithmetic operation.
She faltered, astonished at how painful it was to speak, how her heart coiled and snagged. But she did find words aplenty after a minute, each one bathed in animosity.
“And there is goodness in your virgin girl? What do you hope to gain? Blood on your bedsheets, the clumsy caress of a child. She has no more wit than a fish snatched from water, and a face as enticing as a piece of blank paper. You’ll be tired of her within a fortnight.”
She looked at him in triumph, satisfied by her speech, her indignation neatly laid before him. Her experience told her now he would reply with equal fury, and that, being familiar territory, she could navigate with ease. She could guide him through the waters of rage.
But he looked more confused than angry, and then he didn’t look angry at all.
“You know what is wrong with you, Valérie? You think everyone has the same low opinion of the world that you have. But the world need not be cruel and everyone in it a jackal. And affection need not be a terror and a curse and agony. It is only that you wish it to be that way.”
Pity.
He was looking at her with pity, the look one might spare a beggar holding up a grubby, shaking hand.
Her palm collided with his cheek. He stood unmoving. Caught in his cold stare, it was she who was forced to retreat, to blink away the salt from her eyes.
“You’ll regret crossing me,” she whispered.
“I am sure of it.”
Valérie snatched her hat from the chair and put it on, rushing toward the door. She stopped by the entrance to give him one last look. “Best forget about the girl, Hector. I won’t let you have her. Ever.”
She was dazed by the weight of their conversation, and when she found herself back in her home, she stumbled into the conservatory. She stood there, the sun shining through the glass, the scent of roses invading her nostrils.
She took in a mouthful of air and pressed her hands against her face.
The cloying scent of the roses made her turn and look at the precious white blooms that she’d carefully reared. Yet, now that she leaned down, she saw one of them was blighted. One of her roses was slightly imperfect.
She took the shears the gardener used to trim the plants, carefully snipping off the offending bloom.