Marry the Spare, Not the Heir

Chapter 2

Camila didn't remember deciding to go back inside. Her body simply turned, feet moving on their own, drawn toward the one place she knew Diego would be once he heard she was gone.

The study.

She stopped just short of the open door, her hand pressed flat against the wall, when she heard his voice.

"She'll be fine," Diego was saying. "She's always fine. That's the whole point of her."

Another voice answered, low and even. "The whole point of her is that her father owed this family eleven million dollars he could never pay back. That's the only reason you were ever engaged to Camila Reyes."

Camila's breath caught somewhere in her throat.

The second voice belonged to Rafael. She had only met him twice since he'd returned, both times briefly, both times with the sense that he was studying the room rather than standing in it. She had never once heard him raise his voice, and he didn't now, which somehow made every word land harder.

"You make it sound ugly," Diego said. "It wasn't like that. Her father needed help. Ours offered it. Marrying her was just how the family made sure the debt stayed settled instead of turning into a war with the Reyes name attached to it."

"You proposed to a woman to guarantee a loan," Rafael said flatly. "Don't dress it up."

Silence stretched. Camila stayed frozen against the wall, her fingers curling into her palm.

"I didn't ask for any of this," Diego muttered. "I didn't ask to be the spare. I didn't ask to be handed a fiancée like a signature on a contract. You were the one who got to disappear for six years and train somewhere safe while I stayed here and did what Dad needed. The least I could have was Valentina."

Camila's knees weakened.

Valentina.

The name settled into place beside the memory of the woman's shoulder curved into Diego's hand in that hospital corridor, and something in her chest folded quietly in on itself.

"Valentina was never meant for you," Rafael said. "She was promised to whoever came back to lead this family. That was always going to be me."

"She doesn't want you," Diego snapped. "She never did. She only agreed to that arrangement because Dad and her father made it before either of us had a say. She's been in love with me since before you left."

"And Camila," Rafael said, "knows none of this."

"She doesn't need to know," Diego said. "As long as she stays in her lane, everyone stays comfortable. Her father's debt is covered, my family looks stable, and once things settle, I'll find a quiet way to end it with her. Something clean. She'll get a settlement. She won't have to worry about money ever again."

"That's not a mercy," Rafael said. "That's a payout for silence."

"Call it whatever you want." Diego's voice hardened. "She lost the baby. There's no wedding to rush toward anymore. This is actually good timing."

Camila's hand flew to her mouth before the sound could escape her.

Good timing.

Her own miscarriage, spoken of like a scheduling convenience.

"You should still tell her the truth," Rafael said, after a pause. "Before she finds out some other way."

"She won't," Diego said. "She trusts me. She's always trusted me. That's the one thing about Camila I never had to work for."

Camila stepped back from the wall on legs that didn't feel like her own. Her vision blurred at the edges. She made it three steps before her shoulder caught the frame of a side table, rattling a vase hard enough that it nearly tipped.

The voices inside went quiet.

"Someone's out there," Rafael said.

Camila didn't wait to be found. She turned and walked as steadily as she could manage back toward the front hall, her pulse a drumbeat in her ears, every step threatening to give out beneath her.

She didn't cry. Not yet. She was too far past crying, standing instead in the strange, hollow space beyond it, where the only thing she could hear clearly was Diego's voice repeating in her mind.

Good timing.

Her father's debt. Eleven million dollars. A fiancée handed over like collateral, a wedding delayed for five years because there had never been any real intention of holding it, a miscarriage spoken of as convenient scheduling.

She had believed, all this time, that she was loved.

She had only ever been owed.

By the time she reached the suitcase still waiting by the door, her hands had stopped shaking. Something colder had settled into their place.

She picked up the handle and walked out into the evening air, and for the first time since she'd woken up in that hospital bed, she didn't feel like crying.

She felt like she was finally seeing clearly.