are all your abuela and I talked about. She told me everything there is to know about you, Angelina. Your favorite foods, that you dislike the color yellow, that you love to dance and sing, that you were in choir and have the voice of an angel, that you love dogs, and cats and every kind of animal. That you would rather cut off your own hand than hurt another living being. That you—”
“Then you know me as a child,” Ildaria interrupted. “I’m not that girl anymore, Juan. Just look at what I did to the last Enforcers you sent after me. I have changed. And I do love G.G., big child or not.”
He stared at her with bewilderment. “But you are my life mate.”
Ildaria sighed, and said more gently, “I’m sorry. But I do love G.G. and I have hated and been afraid of you for two hundred years. You could not imagine that would change in a matter of minutes? Perhaps in time, if there was no G.G., I could have adjusted my thinking. But he is here, and I love him, and my feelings for you are conflicted at best.”
She shook her head firmly. “I cannot be your life mate. I already have one.”
Juan sat very still for a moment, and Ildaria waited, half expecting him to explode in a fury. Much to her surprise, he didn’t though. Instead, he said quietly, “Then I will just have to wait.”
“For what?” she asked uncertainly.
“For you,” he said simply and then stood and said, “I have waited two hundred years for you, Angelina. I can wait thirty years or so more. It will give your mind the chance to adjust the image you have of me, and clear the way for us to be together.” Juan then bowed as if to royalty and said, “Be happy, mi amor. I will find and comfort you when the time comes.”
He then straightened and left the room. They were all still sitting there in silence when the sound of the front door opening and closing reached them. Juan was gone and she was free, Ildaria realized with something like wonder.
Sixteen
“I’m so glad everything turned out so well for Angelina.”
“She prefers Ildaria, Mom,” G.G. murmured, eyeing the red light that was holding them up and delaying his return to Ildaria. She had opted to wait at the apartment with H.D. so that Sofia could open the Night Club while G.G. took his parents to check out of the hotel they’d apparently checked into before coming to find him and Ildaria in her apartment, naked on her kitchen floor.
G.G. had learned about the hotel on the drive back from the Enforcer house. He’d been surprised to hear they’d already checked into a hotel, and had seen no need for it when he had a guest bedroom for them in his apartment. And his parents had been more than happy to check out and stay with him instead when he made the offer.
G.G. might have thought twice about making that offer if he’d realized just how long it would take to drive to the hotel, collect their luggage, check them out, and drive back. City traffic was a grind at this time of day, and then it had taken forever to get his parents’ things together and out to the car. After that, they’d spent a good half hour trying to get them checked out. The woman manning the registration desk hadn’t understood why they wanted to leave when they’d only arrived that day. Was the room not up to par? The bed uncomfortable? Etc.
G.G. had kept wondering why his father didn’t stop answering the questions, and simply take control of the woman and make her get on with it. But since he hadn’t, G.G. had been forced to patiently answer her questions, assuring her that everything was fine, they just wanted to spend more time with their son.
“Not really,” his mother said now, pulling him back to the conversation. “In fact, before we left she was thinking she might revert to Angelina now that she didn’t have to hide anymore.”
“Really?” he asked with interest. It was the prettier name to him, and suited her. She was his angel.
“Yes. She’s very relieved to be done with all that hiding and running business,” Mary said with a faint smile. “And I’m happy for her.”
G.G. mumbled agreement, but the subject reminded him of the meeting with Juan Villaverde, and his claims that Ildaria was his life mate