I knew this moment was coming. I thought I would be ready for it. I thought I would be able to fend it off with sly words and steely determination, but now that I am confronted with it, I know that I had been a fool. A little girl, letting dreams get the best of her.

I want to throw up. I want to scream. I want to pick up the porcelain plate in front of me and smash it to the ground. I want to stand my ground the way I always do.

But I don’t do any of those things. I stare down at my plate and hate how small I feel. How helpless.

“I’m not ready,” I mumble. I am never going to be ready. Sebastian and I have been betrothed since I was all of six years old, but I have given marriage nary a passing thought since then. And at that age, I hadn’t the foggiest idea of what that word even meant. I just thought it was another occasion to wear an unreasonable dress and eat cake. I didn’t know what came after. That wives and husbands were meant to … do things.

My father reaches a hand across the table to settle on mine. I hadn’t even realized I’d made a fist until he gently starts to pry my tense fingers open.

“My dear … you are a woman grown now.” Yes, that is most certainly the voice he uses with his mare, Estrella, when he can sense she’s about to bolt. “I have given you all the time I can, but the future cannot be held at bay forever.”

I nod, a little too rapidly. The movement makes my mostly empty stomach churn. I can imagine that single unhappy lump of bread roiling on the waves of my bile. I dab at the corners of my mouth—rather unnecessarily—before pushing myself to stand. My hands smooth over my skirts, needing something else to do lest they curl into fists and begin beating at the walls of the villa until it crumbles down around us.

“Kiki…” Alejandro’s voice is kind and soft and in that moment, I hate him for it.

I do not want his kindness. I do not want his softness. I do not want his pity.

He will marry for business or politics or whatever reason our father can concoct, but it’ll be different for him. It’s different for men. It always is. They don’t understand. They will never understand.

“If you’ll excuse me…” I clear my throat noisily. I can see one of the servants in the corner of the room wrinkle her nose at how indelicate the sound is. “I have to…”