Chapter 12
Isaw his rejection coming.
“You can’t or you won’t?” I sound like some desperate college girl and, in truth, I am one. A girl who desperately wants the man she needs to want her back.
No, not quite.
He does want me. He just doesn’t want me enough to take me.
“I can’t,” he says as he takes a step back. His lips are swollen from our kiss, his face is flushed from arousal, and his eyes aredilated to a darker green, that nearly seems black.
I would have chewed on those lips if I knew they’d utter such stupid words next.
“Why?” I push my luck. I watch it bounce against the fortified walls where he keeps all his secrets, “You better tell me why, Fabio, and don’t you dare go silent on me,” I stab my forefinger at him.
“We should leave,” he turns but doesn’t walk away, “After you, Eva,” he gestures with his head, and I chuckle.
“It’s easy for you, isn’t it?” I strut to him, my eyes catching my damaged camera on the floor, and the sight depicts a visual representation of my heart, “You think I wanted this?” And by this, I mean to be in love with him.
No one chooses these things. They just happen.
Nobody asked me if I wanted to be in this situation—to be helplessly in love with Fabio, knowing there were so many restraints. And the most painful part about all of this is that, if I were allowed to choose for myself, I still would have chosen him a thousand times over.
I would have chosen him because every other person would have felt wrong. Every other person feels wrong.
I move until I am in front of him, balling my fists and tampering with the itch to punch him.
“Do it,” he quirks an eyebrow and I hate that he knows me well and accepts me the way he does. He makes it hard for me to hate him as I wish I could. Hate him for all his rejections that cut so deep they left scars that I, someday, hope to wear as a warrior’s spoils when he finally allows us to happen.
“Do what?” I dig my fingers into my palm.
My brain halts as a thought hits me. But can he take it if I hurt myself?
I lift my hand and smack my cheek hard, the sting firing through me and pinging in my head like some broken church bell.
His eyes fly wide, “Don’t you fucking…” I hit again, trapping his words, and he is unto me, clasping my wrists behind me with one of his hands and driving me back until I am pressing against the rocky wall behind us. “Don’t you ever,” he grits. “Don’t ever do that again,” he jerks me, and tears collect in my eyes.
It’s the first time I have seen, felt, his anger directed at me; I both hate it and want it. He should feel what he does to me. He should feel how helpless I feel.
I don’t care that I am throwing myself at him. I don’t care that many people out there would say a lady should have some self-control and let the man be the one to throw himself at her feet. I don’t care for such things.
With Fabio, I don’t care.
I want to do it all. I want to let him see it all. This is war. And I plan on coming out victorious.
He is fighting against us, and I am fighting for us.
“It is my body, and I will do what I want with…” he swallows my word with his lips covering mine, and I melt into him. He kisses like he wields his gun the few times I have seen him do it during target practice. It’s commanding. It’s enchanting. It leaves no room for any argument about whether he is skilled.
He pulls away and curses under his breath.
“I am sorry,” he groans, the sound animalistic but not surprising.
“I deserve more than your stupid apologies,” I stamp my feet, and the fight leaves him.
He nods, “You do.”
“But you won’t tell me?” I stomp to my camera and pick it off the floor, picking up my heart in the process.
“I will,” he clears his throat and looks into the distance as if he needs some higher authority to whisper to him and tell him it’s okay to tell me.
“You know what?” Thinking through it, I don’t want to hear it anymore if it feels like I am forcing him to open up to me about something that affects us. “Die with it,” I dust my camera against my dress. I cannot do the same to my heart, because it is shattered.
“I will tell you, but I have to get you to a nice restaurant and put your dress to good use,” he steps aside and gestures for me to go before him. “You get cranky when you are hungry.”
I do get cranky when I am hungry.
“I don’t want to go to a restaurant with you, I don’t want to go on a date with you if you won’t do the right thing,” I strut ahead of him. “But I need food, and I am willing to eat in the car,” I holler over my shoulder.
Knowing he has a big reveal to make is part of the reason I feel bloated after having just a bite of my vegan burger.
I want to hear him, but I feel like my body won’t be able to digest my food when he is done talking. That or Fabio just makes things a lot heavier than they should be.
“I am done eating,” I drop the burger into the paper bag, sip my coke, and then drop the cup back into the cup holder.
“You have barely…”
“Fabio De Luca, can you get to the point so I know if I will be able to eat at all for the next year?” I clip, my temper firing.
I want answers and since he has offered to give me some, I need him to get to it before I lose my mind thinking of all the worst-case scenarios. Like him nursing the idea of becoming a priest.
I can’t put anything past him.
“I have a son,” he grips the steering wheel and throws his eyes to the side, avoiding my eyes.
The rock of information floats miraculously in the air, not hitting me like I had thought whatever it was he was going to reveal would. A son?
I pick up my burger and bite angrily into it.
A son?
Is a son the big reason we cannot be together? I am supposed to have my heart broken because he has a son and doesn’t trust that I can handle that information?
I pick up my drink and sip, feeling his eyes swing back to watch me like I am a ghost.
“Did you hear me?” He gruffs, his voice a little too low, like he wished I hadn’t heard him.
I nod, chewing. “You have a son,” I bite again, chew, and then sip.
“Eva,” he turns so he is facing me, his eyes trying to interpret my body language.
But he won’t find the kind of information he is looking for.
“Is my father aware?” I bite again, knowing that if my father knows and Fabio is using it as an excuse, then I will shove the burger down his throat.
“No, just you,” he answers quietly, and a part of me hoards that information. The fact that he is telling me means a lot. I know this is the kind of secret Fabio would rather take to the grave than spill out. “How do you feel?”
“Fantastic,” I shrug, finishing my drink. “Life is beautiful, I woke up today feeling pumped, and here I am having the best meal of my life,” I bite angrily. “It’s a beautiful world, and the possibilities of a fulfilling life are endless…”
“Eva cut the bullshit, please,” he grits.
“You don’t get to tell me to stop,” I snap my fingers. “Help me, please.” He obeys and hands me the second coke.
“I didn’t want to bring you into this mess, you deserve better. You deserve a clean slate and I wanted to give that to you, at the very least. Which is why I can’t marry you.”
Blah, blah, blah.
I roll my eyes, chuckling at his half-baked excuse. Or a stupid attempt at trying to get me to see eye-to-eye with him on this one? It is my life, too. I should be given the chance to choose if I want what he has to offer or not. He shouldn’t make that decision for me. He should have done this long ago and asked me if I had any reservations, and my answer would have been the same as now. I don’t bloody care.
I wish I could tattoo it this instant on my forehead.
The perfect description for my state is stupidly in love.
“How old is he?” I throw the last piece of lettuce into my mouth.
“He is six,” he mumbles that part.
Six. I swing my head from side to side, dallying like my brain hasn’t done the math already that the boy was conceived the year of my eighteenth birthday. That hurts. Perhaps that is the actual truth, the one he is too afraid to tell. The one I have been too scared to think of.
He might have a woman with whom he has created a life.
“You have someone, a woman, a secret wife, or something?” I try to act nonchalant, but inside, I am butchered, and the pain is like hot spices sprinkling on every cut.
“No,” he bites out, his tone telling me he won’t elaborate, but if he knows what is best for him, he better start to.
“You were dating then?” My eyes sting, and my heart shrinks.
“Eva, no,” he grunts in a deep breath, dragging his hands over his face and then deflating his shoulders as he thinks of the best way to make this worse. “After that kiss… I was devastated and went home with the first woman I could find. Mindy got pregnant after what should have been a one-night stand, and neither of us wanted to abort the baby,” he flips his finger in the direction of the cup of coke in my hand, and I pass it to him.
He is not a coke person. This must be hard on him. He takes a sip, curses at the substance, and then passes it back to me.
“She has some health complications, and I wanted to have a child to call my own,” he inhales and exhales, clenching his teeth and fist. “I pay double the child support, so he never lacks for anything… well, he is already lacking in the aspect of a father figure, but I love Jake, I love him.”
I reach out to him, placing my hand on his clenched fist. He opens it and takes my hand, stroking the back of it with his thumb.
“Your father doesn’t know; no one does, and I would like to keep it that way,” he lifts the back of my hand to his lips and gives me the most tender kiss.
“If you have other reasons, start spilling because I am going nowhere, Fabio,” I lock eyes with him.
It is both a promise and a threat.
I dare him to try to make me go away again.