He looked no less dangerous in daylight, something built rather than born, assembled from cold materials by someone who valued function above warmth and had never once considered apologising for that choice.
The thought that passed through her next was brief and useless. If only he were a normal man. There was no version of this reality in which Santiago Torres Mendoza was a normal man. Normal men did not keep rooms with bare bulbs and kneeling prisoners. Normal men did not receive news of death with the emotional register of a weather report.
She had read enough romance novels to know how a scene like this was supposed to unfold. Borrowed copies passed between the girls at the club, dog-eared paperbacks with cracked spines and pages softened by too many hopeful hands. She knew the formula too well. The dangerous man. The forced arrangement. The powerless girl sitting across from someone whose wealth could purchase entire cities.
