Chapter 6

“Scented and so lined up this early? I know, go to Lupe's house.” Amelia sees him fixing his shirt cuffs and looking very vain about going out.

“Yes, I need to move things forward between us. I've been here for a long time and I've been climbing the walls, I've never been without it for so long...”

"A woman." Amelia completed his sentence with a smile on her face, marked by time.

“Exactly, this girl has become such an obsession that I can't even look around me. I want it, and I will have it!”

“Guadalupe is not a woman for you.”

“How is it not for me? I already told you, at the end of the day, blind or not, she is a woman like any other and easy to deceive.”

As agreed, I got dressed and went to her house, I needed to convince Guadalupe to live with me and I wouldn't spare any small talk for that.

I decided to go on horseback taking a look around and thinking about her, I knocked on the door of that humble house very early.

“Atilio?” Esther asked as she opened the door and why didn't she expect him to come so soon.

“Forgive me for coming so early, but I came to speak with Guadalupe for a moment. Of course, if your daughter wants to see me!”

"My daughter has nothing to deal with you." Leonel did not want to admit that encounter.

That stupid Leonel couldn't have broken our deal, but in the end, it didn't matter if he'd told her the real cause of his sudden arrest.

Maybe it would show her what I'm capable of to get what I want.

"Daddy, I'm not incapable and how many times do I need to remind you?" Guadalupe, she was embarrassed to have to defy her father in front of that man, but at that moment it was necessary.

"But this man..." Leonel was still muttering.

“Mom, Atilio, and I will walk around the ranch for a while.”

"It's okay, daughter, but don't stray too far from home."

"Let's go Atilio?" Guadalupe walked safely ahead of him.

Atilio

So independent and determined, she always impressed me, and with that attitude, she seemed to be falling very quickly into my courtship.

We walked a little until we approached an old wooden swing.

“Gabriel and I used to come here, until one day he knocked me off the swing, and after that, he never wanted to play for fear of hurting me again.”

“Come sit down.” He asked.

I guided her gently to the wooden swing on a huge mango tree, but Guadalupe was reluctant.

"Don't trust me as you trust him, why?"

“I trust you, but Gabriel and I were raised together. You (pause) have arrived now and we know little about you.”

" Then sit on the swing and I'll tell you a little more about myself."

Guadalupe took a deep breath, very afraid she sat down and held both sides of the rope and I touched her hands warming them slowly.

“Now I'm going to rock you slowly, I'm a city man as everyone knows and I've always dreamed of living in a place like this. Quiet and have lots of kids.” He himself was surprised at the power of persuasion he had.

My ability to lie was enormous and maybe it wasn't even a lie at all, since one day we all have to have children.

Guadalupe

Atilio started to rock me slowly, I felt the wind touch my face and little by little my fear went away as he talked about his wishes and dreams.

"It saw? I just want you to trust me in every way you can.” Atilio spoke close to his ear and her scent made him daydream.

"I trust."

“Remember what we talked about in church? Loneliness has been keeping me up at night, so much so that I came here so early to see you and talk a little.”

“You can always come here to see me and talk to me, we can be friends and I think we already are.”

“If you would go home with me, if you really trusted me, Lupe.”

“Please don't talk about it anymore, sir! How could I live with a man I have no commitments to?” Guadalupe once again imposed itself.

“You've turned down every marriage proposal you've been asked! Even from Gabriel, whom he has trusted so much and has always been!”

“ But that doesn't give you the right to think you can make love to me, God wouldn't be pleased with that. I know you would treat me like a friend, but what would people think of the two of us under one roof?”

"Of course, I would respect you as a sister, I don't care about the rest of the world if I have you by my side..."

“Do not insist any longer!”

I stopped swinging Lupe and stood in front of her kneeling and holding the ropes of that swing.

“What if I ask you to marry me? Being my wife would change everything!” My panting breath made her black hair ruffle.

Kneeling at the feet of a peasant woman, who would have thought that one day I would go so far for a wish?

"I can't make a decision like that without thinking."

This girl played with me, how could she ask for time to think about being my wife? Everyone knows I'm the best match in this region, even more so for a maiden like her who, despite being beautiful, was blind.

“Two days I can wait.” He said getting up.

Atilio

I helped her up off the swing, we walked back to the house there was a rock and I let her stumble.

I grabbed her tightly against my body, pressing her against me.

He touched my breast, I was scared at the same time that being in his arms felt different and good just like I felt before.

“Don't touch me like that! You are very bold!" Guadalupe said, but deep down she might have enjoyed it.

“ I'm sorry, I just wanted to help you not fall.”

I smiled maliciously and her blindness had its advantages, I lifted Guadalupe's chin gently with my fingers, those beautiful green eyes filled with tears and I didn't know why.

"Go home Atilio, I promise I'll give you an answer in the time you asked for."

"I hope you think carefully about everything I said, in two days I'll be back and I want an answer."

Guadalupe

I ran home, entered the room, and lay down on the bed, weighing in on the proposal he made me.

“What happened daughter? Where is that man, is he gone? Did something to you, didn't it? I shouldn't have let you go out together!" Esther laments, touching her daughter's thigh, who lying on her side letting the tears flow.

“He wanted to join me and for me to go home with him saying that we would live like brothers.”

“Without getting married, like a dishonored woman? This man is really sick!”

“I told him no, he insisted and he then, Atilio asked me to marry him.”

“And you accepted to be his wife?” Esther questioned panting and dreading the answer.

“I asked for time to think about everything.”

“Do you think he really likes you? Even after a disgusting proposal like that?”

" I know you're listening to us, daddy..."

"I'm sorry, but I don't like this man and I couldn't refrain from hearing what I said about him." Leonel was at the bedroom door.

"You don't have to try to deceive me anymore, I know that Atilio set you up to send you to jail because of me." Guadalupe revealed what her parents thought they were hiding from her.

"How do you know that? Who told you?” Leonel asked embarrassed.

"I heard the talk of the lord and mother I may be blind, but my hearing is fine."

“Then I don't need to tell you who he is, get away from that animal before he dishonors you, daughter! It's all he wants and if I knew how he looks at you disrespectfully (Leonel clenched his fists) if I could I would kill that monster with my bare hands."

“Atilio is a powerful father, rich and he has already proved to us how cruel he is. We cannot defeat an enemy as none of us can.”

"Not alone, but if you marry Gabriel he would leave you alone." Esther tells her daughter, trying to bring her a solution.

“No Mom, it would hurt him too. Gabriel is like a brother to me and I cannot marry him.”

"Let's pack our things and get out of here today." Leonel did not want to leave the lands, but saving his family it was perhaps the best solution.

“I will accept the proposal and marry him!”

"Have you gone, crazy daughter?" Esther gets angry.

“It's my future and I knew from the first time I heard his voice, that our destinies needed to cross even though I don't know why. I have dreamed of his music on the piano, Atilio is a powerful man and we are too humble to fight him. ”

“After all, are you in love with him? If you think of him and if you dream, then it can only be that... love.” Esther says.

"I don't know how I feel mom, but my heart says I have to accept my fate for you."

"I couldn't give you to him, so fragile and even more..."

“Blind? Don't be afraid for me daddy, I'll learn to live with him. You and my mother will stay here in peace, and he won't do you any harm as long as I'm his. At least I got him married, it would be much more humiliating to have to live with him without marriage.”

"If you decided that, may God give you strength, daughter." Esther, give the blessing to the daughter and they go to bed.

Atilio came home angry as usual in the last few days, because nothing went as he wanted.

“That asshole asked me for time, so you think I go around proposing all the time?” He throws his hat on the living room floor.

“So Guadalupe hooked you for good? Who knew I'd hear you say you're going to marry someone.” Amelia smiled, making him even more possessed.

“Nothing is forever, marriages also end. I'll enjoy it with her until I'm completely satisfied and then I'll give her and her parents a decent home.”

“And you think that would clear your conscience?”

“Yes, of course!”

"I think you're falling into your own trap son, you're already in love with this girl and you don't want to see, in the end, that the blind man is you!"

“ I just want to see the face of that idiot Gabriel, when he knows that the little princess he protected so much will be all mine!” He was smiling.

"It's capable of killing you long before you say yes to her."

"He dares, before that, I can give him a good spanking."

“Do that and you will lose the bride!”

“You're right, but after she's mine. I have his whole face smashed!”

Amelia left smiling and making me very angry. Where have you seen yourself? I the most womanizer of all men, being lassoed by a blind and poor rustic!

I took a shower and lay down, I couldn't control my thoughts. I remembered the smell of her skin and the soft touch of her full breast, I found myself excited and imagining what it would be like to sleep hugging her naked body every night.

See those green eyes when you wake up every morning, your kisses…

“As I long to taste your lips and your entire body, you have to tell me, yes or I'll go crazy soon! Just tell me yes Guadalupe!”

I slept hugging the pillow.

At home, Lupe paced around the room, wanting to have other options for her life, but she was faced with a marriage proposal.

“What if I'm wrong? Would he leave me alone if I said I didn't want to get married? There are so many doubts inside me, I don't want my parents to suffer!”

She lay back on the bed on her side and kept remembering that day, the touch of his hands holding her body so she wouldn't fall.