LITMIR.BIZ

       Five

      Ellie felt as if something had been crushed inside her.

      She kept pressing her hand to her chest, as if to hold the damaged part back together until it mended. But its sharp edges kept poking into her vitals.

      It had been twenty hours since she’d run out of Rafael’s mansion at midnight...and yes, the irony wasn’t lost on her.

      But she was no Cinderella and her prince had turned out to be a predator. As she should have expected, from all the improbabilities.

      Ever since she’d fled the scene, she’d been counting the hours. The minutes. Waiting for the misery to subside, for the memory of everything she’d had with him to fade. But time only magnified everything and smashed the broken shards to smaller pieces.

      Which was absolutely stupid...and that was precisely what she was. Anyone would consider her the dumbest woman on earth if they knew the speed with which and extent to which she’d been bowled over by Rafael. And that she’d gone further, done something she’d never done before. She’d trusted him. With her safety, with her heart, with...everything. She’d opened herself so totally, had been so completely unguarded, his unprovoked blow had caused that much damage.

      It was pathetic to feel that way when she’d known him only hours. But she’d been so under his spell she’d felt she’d known him forever. Now she knew the truth. What she’d thought a perfect coming together had just been a cheap interlude between a naive moth and a bored flame.

      But even knowing that, she hadn’t been able to stop crying. When she never cried. Tears flowed again every time a memory replayed with such acuteness and clarity. Each look, each touch, each word from him. The man she’d felt so attuned to, so connected to. Who’d turned out to be just another player, only one on a level she hadn’t known existed.

      Not that that was an excuse. Everything inside her fluctuated from regret for all the beauty that had turned out to be a crude illusion to anger at him for being such a perfect fiend to humiliation that she’d been such an eager mark.

      She’d had to run to the bathroom three times while playing with the kids so they wouldn’t see her tears. Not that she’d been able to hide her condition from their anxious eyes. But their frantic questions and hugs had made her feel worse, and angry enough at herself to rein in her rampant emotions.

      For these orphaned or abandoned children to feel worried and sorry for her when it was they who depended on the goodwill and intermittent care of people like her was a slap that had roused her from wallowing in self-pity.

      It also made her knock herself over the head for thinking of canceling her Friday-night entertainment. She wasn’t letting a hoarse voice, a puffy face and a broken heart stop her from giving the kids the weekly bedtime performance they’d come to crave over the past month.

      She now announced that their entertainment was about to begin, and all the kids ran to their beds excitedly.

      They were thirty-six in this ward, from seven to ten years old. She loved all one hundred and twenty kids in Casa do Sol Orphanage, but this ward was extra special and her most enthusiastic audience. And one boy really stood out. She’d clicked with him on so many levels from the first moment, too. But, unlike Rafael, she was sure Diego was who he seemed to be.

      The eight-year-old now helped her make a final rundown of her props, put her phone in the portable dock and sound system, then raced back to his bed with a huge smile of anticipation on his face.

      Once everyone was in bed, she started performing, complete with dramatic music and on-the-fly costume changes. She always gave them her version of fairy tales, and in this one, Snow White was a Robin Hood–like character with the Seven Dwarves as her swashbuckling sidekicks, and she saved Prince Charming from being turned into a heartless monster by the Evil Queen, who wanted him to be her consort.

      Once deep into the story, she forgot everything as she jumped on beds, whirled and swooped and changed voices, wigs and clothes and had the kids kicking in bed with laughter.

      “And they lived interestingly ever after.”

      She took an exaggeratedly deep bow at the kids’ fervent applause as the music ended with a flourish.

      After stowing all the props in her rolling suitcase, she went from bed to bed kissing and tucking the children in. As usual, she left Diego for last. This time she slipped him the eReader she’d promised him so he could read under the covers. He was The Book Gobbler, one of the things they had in common.

      As Diego clung around her neck, he whispered in her ear, “Will you ask your friend to come a little earlier next time so he can visit us?”

      She withdrew to look down at the dark-haired, brown-eyed boy, thinking he’d assigned her an imaginary friend like the one he’d invented for himself. Smiling, she kissed his smooth, olive-skinned cheek. “So what does my friend look like?”

      “He looks like a superhero.”

      “Does he wear a costume and cape?”

      “No, he was wearing light blue jeans and a black jacket with a black T-shirt. And his left hand is in a dark blue splint.”

      Okay. That was pretty detailed. She didn’t know Diego had such a knack for dressing his characters.

      “That’s regular clothes. And the splint is proof he’s not invulnerable. So why do you say he looks like a superhero?”

      “Because

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