“Stay away from me!” I screamed.

His eyes widened in fear as he looked me up and down. “Vera, please, Estrella, please, what happened?”

“It’s over!” I yelled at him, scared at the ferocity of my voice, at the way it was coming out. I had underestimated my emotions.

“What are you talking about?” he asked with a shake of his head, coming closer.

I put my hands out to keep him back. I pinched my eyes shut, trying to stick to what I knew was right. But he didn’t stop, he came and put his arms around me, holding me tight to him. I froze, rigid, unable to touch him back.

“Please, what is over?” he asked softly. “Please talk to me.”

“Us,” I sobbed into his chest. “We’re over. I’m leaving Spain. I’m going back home.”

He tensed, standing still. I could almost hear his heart stop. “No,” he whispered. “You do not mean this.”

“I do,” I said. “I do. I have to leave you.”

“Why?” he growled. He pulled away and grabbed a hard hold of my shoulders. “Why do you have to leave me? Because of Isabel?”

“You didn’t defend me last night!” I yelled and pushed him back from me. I walked backward into the kitchen, one hand on the counter for balance. “She fucking spat on me, she hit me, and you didn’t defend me!”

“I couldn’t,” he whispered, seeming to be in shock. “Vera, please, I couldn’t.”

“Yes, you could have!” I screamed, my heart shuddering violently. “You could have defended me!”

“You have no idea what I am going through!” he yelled right back, loud, his eyes burning up. “You have no idea at all. You don’t know what I have to do to keep my chances of having Chloe Ann alive! Don’t make me choose between you two.”

I felt like I was turning to glass only to be shattered right away.

“I am not asking you anything!” I roared. “I am not that type of woman! You may all call me a whore and a homewrecker, but I would never ask the impossible of you. And you’ve already made the right choice.”

He put his hands in a steeple over his nose and mouth, trying to breathe in and out, his eyes locked on mine. So much anger, pain, and frustration in them. Finally he lifted them away and said, “You are not a whore. Isabel was upset, like we all knew she would be. I could not defend you and her at the same time.”

“I know,” I shot back. “It would explain why I just saw you kissing her.”

His face fell.

I crossed my arms. “I saw you. Just now.”

“Vera,” he said gently. “No, that isn’t what it looks like.”

I swallowed painfully. “Maybe not.”

“I am trying to keep the peace.”

“Are you leading her on?”

“No,” he said quickly, adamantly. “She knows about us, she knows the marriage is over. She agrees. But I have to play nice. Because of—”

“I know!” I yelled. “I know, I know, I know. Because of your daughter. And I fucking agree with you. I just wish I knew how fucking difficult this was going to be before I came out here, before I gave up my school and my family’s respect and my future. I gave up everything for you only to finish last!”

“You are not last,” he cried out. “Don’t fucking pull that shit with me. This isn’t fair or easy for me and you know it!”

“Shit?” I repeated lividly, my voice raw. “What shit am I fucking pulling? I am getting the fuck out of here and going back to a future I left behind, back to nothing.”

“You are not the only one to give everything up!” he roared at me, his voice shaking me to the bone. He stepped toward me and I backed up until I was leaning against the counter. “You can go back to school! You can go back to your country! I can never get my family back! I have lost everything!”

His face was red, the vein in his neck pulsing hard. I was speechless, trying to remember how to breathe again. His anger, his pain, had stolen my breath away.

I blinked and eked out, “I am sorry. Then perhaps you won’t notice the loss of me.” I tried to move around him but he grabbed my arm.

“No!” he seethed. “You don’t get to do this. It’s hard, it hurts, but you don’t get to leave.”

“I get to leave,” I told him, looking him in the eye, staring him down. “I get to leave because it is my choice to make. I will not be the other woman who breaks up a family anymore. The damage is done, but if I can prevent any further damage, I will. You and Chloe Ann and Isabel are a family. You should be together.”

“But you’re my family,” he cried out softly, pulling me closer to him. “Please, Vera, don’t do this to me. This can work. We just have to push through it.”

“It can’t work!” I sobbed. “You know it. Chloe Ann has to come first and she will. I don’t want to be the one to ruin her life any further.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head, his eyes closed. His grip on my arm never lessened. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Vera. You don’t. Just trust me that it will all work out—just hang on, please hang on. You promised you wouldn’t give up on us.”

Tears spilled down my cheeks, part of me wanting to collapse into his arms and believe him, to believe that everything was going to be all right. But it would never be all right. I had to do the right thing. My own pain, my own heart, my own future and my sacrifices, they couldn’t matter. I’d always been the villain, the black sheep, the black hole. But now I finally had a chance to be the bigger person, to put someone else first.

I had to take it.

This was my karma for my entire life.

“I’m sorry, Mateo,” I whispered.

“Do you still love me?”

I shook my head. “No,” I lied. To tell him the truth would make everything that much harder.

He began to shudder, his eyes welling with tears. “You’re lying,” he managed to say, his voice cracking. “You’re lying. You love me.”

“I don’t,” I said. “And I can’t stay. I can’t stay here and do this to you and your family.”

“But you’re killing me,” he whispered in agony. He tried to pull me closer to him, but I remained as still as stone, rigid as a tree. Unyielding. I would not yield to this, I would not let my selfish heart and emotions win.

“Vera,” he went on, now a tear rolling down his cheek. I looked away, unable to handle the sight of Mateo crying. “Vera, you are my star. I love you. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone. I know this isn’t easy, I know you’re hurting and that I am doing things that hurt or don’t make sense to you. But you must believe me that together we can get through this. It is just a bump in the road, if we just hang on we can make it out alive with each other’s hearts intact. We will be stronger.” He wiped angrily at his eyes and swallowed hard. “Please, don’t leave. Please don’t let this be the end of us. Please just give us, give me, another chance. You are my universe and I have nothing if I don’t have you in my life. Please, Vera. I love you like I love the stars, like I love the sky, like I love the earth. I can’t do this without you. I can’t.”

His voice cracked over the last word and I could barely hold my resolve in check. He searched my eyes with his tear-filled ones and I felt like the whole idea of love was being obliterated into space, leaving a black hole behind. I never wanted to leave him, never wanted to hurt him.

But this wasn’t about what I wanted.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I am sorry, Mateo. I never wanted it to be this way. But I am not strong enough for you. This is just too fucking hard.”

I wrestled out of his grasp, steeling whatever was left of my heart, and headed down the hall to the bedroom, ready to pack.

“You don’t get to leave just because it’s hard,” he cried out angrily after me. “You don’t get to pretend you don’t love me because you think that will make it easier on us.”

But I didn’t stop to answer because there was nothing left to say. My choice was made. I locked the door behind me in case he came after me. I pulled my suitcase and backpack out of my closet and began to pack up my life once again.