16. Chloe
16
CHLOE
I slipped underwater, both to avoid continuing this conversation and to cool off. The humidity was so cranked up in this room that I felt overly warm. Or maybe the discomfort of feeling so hot was internal, due to the oh, shit sensation I tried to hide.
Once I surfaced, I realized that the women weren’t satisfied. All three of them looked at me, and I felt horrible to have changed the mood so drastically. In other circumstances, it could’ve felt more like I was hanging around on an ordinary afternoon. Now, it seemed like I’d crashed the party.
“I’m… I’m sorry I mentioned it,” I said, looking at Nina. She seemed the most troubled about the news and I felt like an ass. The last thing any pregnant woman wants to hear is about the loss of a baby, even one that hadn’t developed past a couple of days since conception, according to what my gynecologist told me then. No matter the timing or age or any other details, miscarriages and child loss were serious causes of pain.
Eva frowned, looking off to the side. She was clearly uncomfortable, but Tessa stayed by my side and looked ready to offer me support.
“It’s hard to be a statistic like that,” I told Nina. “But it’s true. So many women suffer from miscarriages and…” Okay, I don’t think I’m helping.
Nina nodded and rubbed her big belly. “I was so, so nervous in the beginning of the pregnancy,” she admitted.
“Did you suffer any difficulties in the first trimester?” I asked.
“Just the usual. Some morning sickness. Fatigue. Danicia and my Ob-Gyn kept telling me that my pregnancy was coming along as expected. No worries. No concerns.”
“But it’s hard to accept that and know there’s nothing to worry about,” I commiserated.
“Yeah.” She furrowed her brow. “And now that I’m getting closer to the end, I’m obsessing more about the fear of the actual process of childbirth and all that.”
“I think every woman on the planet feels like that the first time,” I said. I caught myself from saying anything about how scared I was. They were under the impression that I didn’t have a child. They were in the dark about Caleb. I couldn’t offer personal advice or general suggestions and platitudes about childbirth if they didn’t know I had a child. “Every woman probably feels like that any time they’re getting ready to have a baby.”
Tessa nodded and smiled. “Yeah. So this one can be a practice round,” she joked with Nina. “Then when Dante knocks you up again, you’ll know what to expect the next time.”
Nina laughed dryly. “No. I don’t think I’ll be in a rush.”
Tessa rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right.”
My nervousness faded the more that the focus shifted to Nina, but Eva brought it all right back to me. “Chloe?”
I faced her, anxious about how closely she looked at me. It felt as though she was searching for a clue on my face.
“This baby you lost. Was it Franco’s?”
I consciously forced myself not to freeze or flinch at her direct question. They were all watching me so seriously that they’d be able to pick up on any tell I might show.
“No.” I swallowed hard, hating myself. Again, it wasn’t a lie. The baby I lost in the early-stage miscarriage wasn’t Franco’s. But it felt like such a crappy coverup to the fact that I did have Franco’s baby.
“I met a guy in college and the condom broke and…” I shrugged as though to show how little it affected me. It did, but it didn’t. I already had Caleb, and the fight that I had to endure to keep him alive and with me was such a horrendous one that the miscarriage for an oops of a baby with a stranger hadn’t caused too much distress.
“When I went to the doctor’s office after the miscarriage, I debated very strongly about having my tubes tied.” As a single mother, I wanted no chances of another pregnancy any time soon. “They refused to tie my tubes because I was only twenty—too young, according to their policies.”
“Does Franco know about this?” Eva asked.
Shit. She was too damn good and chasing for answers. Eva was observant and quick thinking, so close to being on the right track.
“No.” I shook my head. “It happened after he and I… after we broke up.” More like after I broke up with him, but they didn’t need to know those things to the finer points. “I never thought I’d run into Franco again, especially not like this, and it hasn’t come up.”
The idea of talking to Franco about pregnancies made me sweat. If I were to bring that topic up, it’d be to tell him that I had been pregnant and carried his son.
“But this is important,” Tessa said. “A miscarriage is a big deal, even if you have accepted it and moved on from it.”
Not as big of a deal as hiding his son from him…
“And if you’re going to be staying with Franco and…” Nina cleared her throat. “Reuniting…”
I shook my head. “No. That’s not… I can’t even begin to think of how I’ll stay and just hop into his life like this.” It was already so hard seeing him the way I did, out of the blue and at the moment I needed him to save me the most, but thinking about staying here for good was a torturous tease.
I didn’t know what I was doing with him, sleeping in his bed and having sex. It was natural. We were still crazy for each other and drawn to each other with such a fierce instinct. But…
“I’m only here to be protected until whoever ordered that deli to be shot up is caught.” I licked my lips, hating the sound of this fate. “The only reason I’m here is because I witnessed that attack and they want to investigate.”
“Well, sure,” Nina said. “That’s part of it.”
“That’s all of it. I’m not going to stay here for long.” I hated saying such a thing. Now that I’d found Franco again, I felt drawn to keep him forever this time around. If he were to kill Wes this minute, I would still have obstacles in my way. I would still be stuck with the lie of having his son and not telling him about it.
“Do you want to stay with him?” Tessa asked. She raised her hands. “I don’t know all the details and all, but even I can see how different he seems.”
“Franco is a different man,” Eva confirmed. “You meant so much to him when you were both younger and so in love. He has never gotten over you. Even with how your parents tried to tear you apart.”
God, if you only know the whole truth about that.
“I’m not sure that you’re right when you claim that you can’t stay here for long.” Eva narrowed her eyes. “Do you want to?”
I swallowed hard. Having a real future with Franco sounded too good to be true. I would love to be included in this family, with these women and enjoying their companionship. I would be thrilled to come clean about being a mother and be here for Nina to give her the support I wished I had in a sister or friend in the childbirth stage. I would be so thrilled to bring Caleb here and know he’d be accepted and safe.
Deep down, though, I struggled to convince myself that I’d ever fit in. No matter how much I might wish for this happily-ever-after I destroyed ten years ago to actually have a successful retake now.
Despite everything that lured me to want to stay for good, to tell Franco that I loved him and I always would, I couldn’t shake this nagging little warning that it wouldn’t work, that I was too different from this closeknit group. That I was an outsider looking in.
I’d spent too much time being forced to stay on the other side of the fence—on the “good” side, the legal side. I was taught to always keep the Mafia thugs out of my life.
After a lifetime of being discouraged from associating with Franco and the people he called family—all very protective and generous people I wanted to get to know better—I struggled to overcome the sense of going for the forbidden, going for what I wanted and saying to hell with the rest of the world.
If my parents could go so far as to send a man to bring me home once, what would they do if they tried to extricate me from the Constellas now?
Fear for my life—and Caleb’s—mounted all over again. I was under the illusion of safety here. I was behind locked doors and kept secure by patrolling guards. Franco would defend me.
But my parents would never give up their hatred of the people they called criminals and thugs.
How far would they go if they learned I was defying them by staying with Franco and the Constellas?
I wasn’t sure I could risk their wrath and find out.