My hands hover uselessly between us. “Ana, it’s okay…”

She shakes her head, short, brusque. “No, it’s not.”

And just like that, a wall slams down between us. That brief flash of vulnerability was too much. Our facsimile of normalcy was just that. A pale imitation of the easy way we used to exist with each other. A shell, easily cracked. The languid grace Ana usually possesses is gone, replaced by a stiff, jerky set of movements that move her farther away from me in more ways than physical. She begins to turn away, but there’s nowhere for her to go. She was right. We are trapped in here until morning. “Ana, please…”

She pauses, her face angled toward me just enough for me to appreciate the way the candlelight loves her features. The sharp line of her nose is gilded by the honeyed glow emanating from the candles. But still, she radiates ice and not fire. She sighs, her eyes drifting shut, as if sealing out the sight of something only she can see. “Just … don’t.”

Ana’s scars are a thing we do not discuss. I know they’re there. I’ve known for years. The first time I saw them was when we went swimming in the pond near the villa. I had stared, like an uncouth child, and she had kicked me so hard in the shin, I knew that to ask about their provenance would be to risk even greater bodily harm.

“You don’t have to hide from me,” I say.

She opens her eyes to meet mine. But almost immediately, she turns to the side, as if holding my gaze is too painful in that moment. “I bared myself to you before. In the orange grove. And you made your stance perfectly clear.”

I don’t know what to say to that. My own gaze drifts down to my hands. The reins have thoroughly abraded my skin, despite the callouses already formed from years of riding. Water and leather is a bad combination, no matter how good you are on a horse. “I am sorry. I never wanted to hurt you.”

“Are you really going to marry him?”

I look up to find her staring at me. Hard.

“Ana…”

“Best-case scenario, we get to the convent and find a girl he’s impregnated. Worst-case scenario, he’s involved with a kidnapping, maybe even murder.” She shakes her head in disbelief. “Would you honestly marry a man like that?”

“Find me a man who’s any different.”

“Your father.”

Touché.

I heave a deep, tired breath. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Why?” She spits to the side. “Because I wasn’t born rich?”

Well, yes, but I wisely don’t say exactly that. “Things are different now.”

“How?”