Chapter 15
Chapter fifteen
The bathroom door clicks closed behind me.
I brace both hands on the counter.
My skin is flushed, breath still shallow. His come is leaking out of my pussy and my ass because I can’t get enough of him. His devotion to me is intense and the reality of our situation is something I don’t know how to carry.
“I want to marry you. Have a family with you. Grow old with you.”
I blink at my reflection. My hair’s wild. My lips are swollen. My eyes—God, my eyes don’t lie. They’re wide, wet, stormy. Panic has already started its climb up my throat, a low drone rising into a choke.
It wasn’t a real proposal. It wasn’t planned. His words were pure. True. Heartfelt.
Sincere.
He meant it. He wants to make this permanent.
I want the same thing. More than anything.
Which wrecks me more.
I don’t deserve him.
I can’t give him what he wants.
My diagnosis came a year ago. A routine scan after I missed a period for the fourth month in a row. I’d told myself it was stress. I was running a restaurant. Sleeping four hours a night. Burning so hard I forgot how to take care of myself.
The gynecologist was kind. Clinical, but kind.
Polycystic ovarian syndrome. Irregular cycles. Hormonal imbalance. Elevated LH. Likely anovulation. She didn’t say infertile. But she said complicated. Difficult. May require intervention.
All I heard was broken.
I’ve not told a soul. Not Marcella. Or my mother. I couldn’t bear their reaction, they were both already treating me with kid gloves. Besides, it’s not like I had any prospects. What did it matter?
I shoved the folder into my closet and tried to forget. When Marcella got pregnant, I convinced myself I didn’t want kids anyway. I was too busy. Too tired. Too full of ambition and responsibility with the long nights of running the restaurant and ten thousand expectations.
Tears stream down my face as the truth washes over me. In burying my own needs, I’ve become resentful. Short with my family and staff. Mean, at times.
No wonder my family sent me here. They didn’t know why I’ve been so off this past year. Sending me here was their way of telling me: we want Rosa back.
God, I’ve wanted her back too. So much.
Now I’ve met Santiago.
After my diagnosis, his vision of our life together is something I gave up hope for.
It’s absurd, really. I’ve been in Barcelona for less than a month and am hopelessly in love with a man who treats me like gold, gives me everything he has with no expectation.
Santiago has single-handedly rebuilt me and now I can’t stop imagining what our children might look like.
I press a hand to my belly and try to calm the shaking in my limbs.
This isn’t a first-class fling. I love him with my whole heart.
Santiago is my soulmate.
I’m terrified of losing him. Of losing this.
At the same time, I don’t want him to waste time loving someone who can’t give him what he wants. He’s older than me, he won’t want to wait. He’ll want me pregnant as soon as possible.
If I let him love me, he’ll build dreams on a fault line I already know will crack.
A careful knock pulls me out of the spiral. “Rosa?” He sounds hesitant. “May I come in?”
“Uh, give me a minute.” I scramble for casual. “I’ll be out in a second.”
Silence. Then another knock.
“Please let me in.”
I hesitate. Then unlock the door.
Santiago slips through the narrow gap and shuts it behind him. His expression is open and tender, though his brow furrowed like he already knows something is very wrong. He studies my face and sees something. Or maybe he detects the absence of everything I usually wear to mask it.
The two of us stand stark naked and exposed in his bathroom about to have a conversation which will burst this bubble we’ve been living in.
“I scared you,” he says.
Immediately, I shake my head. “No. I mean…yes. But not the way you think.”
“Tell me.”
I bite my lip and cross my arms over my breasts. “I don’t want to ruin this.”
He steps closer. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not built to give you a future like the one you want.” My voice fractures. “We’re on borrowed time here, Santiago. I go back in one week to my life and I won’t have time for long mornings or lazy afternoons or—any of this. Let alone marriage and kids.”
He reaches over to brush my hair back from my cheek. “And?”
“And…” I look down. My chest seizes.
“There’s more to it, I may not have known you long, my love, but I know you well.” He strokes my chin with his thumb. “Tell me.”
“I found out last year it’ll be really hard for me to have children.”
He stills.
I rush on. “I don’t mean impossible. But close.
When I found out, I was already so exhausted and I wasn’t with anyone so I convinced myself I didn’t want a husband or a family.
So, I ignored it. Buried it. And now you’re here saying things like marriage and babies and I’m—I’m unprepared for any of it. I can’t be what you want. Or need.”
His silence as he wipes my tears away slices me open.
When he finally speaks, his voice is so sweet it wrecks me. “You think I’m here for some dream of what could be? I’m here for you, Rosa. The woman who’s stolen every breath I have. You’re more than enough. You’re it for me. If I lost you, nothing else would matter.”
“No I’m not.” New tears pool in my eyes. “You deserve someone who can give you everything.”
He takes my face in his hands. “Stop this nonsense and listen to me. I want you. All of you. Not a fantasy. Not a child-shaped promise. You’re not broken, Rosa. You’re brilliant. You’re wild and gorgeous and so strong it hurts to look at you sometimes.”
I choke back a sob.
“My marriage fell apart because we stopped talking. We stopped touching. We let silence creep in.” He presses his forehead to mine.
“I won’t let it happen with you. In three weeks you’ve become my entire world.
As crazy as it is, I’ve never experienced love like this and never will again.
I’d crawl through fire to keep this thing we’re building alive. ”
My voice is weak. “Really?”
“One thousand percent. You’re my world. Stop this madness.” He kisses my nose, my cheek, my lips. “We don’t have to figure it all out today. From now on, you don’t have to figure it all out on your own. We tackle life together.”
“I’m scared.” I fall into him.
He squeezes me tightly. “I’m not. Let me ease your fear from now on.”
“I love you,” I sigh into his chest. “So much.”
Santiago kisses the top of my head. “I love you too.”
I want to believe him.
Every word sounds true.
The problem is, I’ve never known love at all, let alone something this intense.
I hope he doesn’t crush my heart.