Chapter Twelve #2
Mara knew too well how much that unknown could mark you, and she would not let it stand for Julia.
Agustin glanced her way, and Mara clutched her bag to give herself some strength. “I came to say goodbye to Julia,” she said. “The car is waiting.” She walked over to the playpen and smiled down at the baby who was rolling and babbling to herself.
“You have all the paperwork?”
“Yes, of course. She may wish to have a lawyer look it over, so don’t expect everything to be signed immediately.”
“You have a lot of faith in a woman who left a baby on a doorstep.”
“No, I simply understand desperation better than you.” She shouldn’t have said that, so she kept her gaze on Julia.
Still, she could feel him hover behind her. So close. Close enough to feel his body heat, to sense the way he inhaled her. But she focused on Julia, reaching down to touch the baby’s face and whisper a goodbye.
She sidestepped Agustin without looking at him.
“I should be back tonight, but if something changes, I will let you know.” She had to close her eyes against a wave of odd dizziness.
But it was nothing. She was just feeling out of sorts because he was actually staying, and she was the one going this time.
“I wish you would take Paulo with you,” he said, staying where he was next to the playpen while Mara strode for the door.
“It is not necessary.” Abruptly, she offered a goodbye and rushed out, because she felt suddenly ill. But when she got to the bathroom, nothing happened. She did not lose her lunch. Everything settled instead.
She was simply letting her emotions get the best of her.
Once she felt steady, she marched out of the castle and to the waiting car. She would handle this all on her own, like she’d handled so many things for Agustin over the years.
Some of her certainty and confidence faded when turbulence hit halfway through the flight. She nearly wept. She had to deal with it all on her own.
You are used to doing everything all on your own.
Except it wasn’t true. On flights such as these, Agustin usually brought her water or distracted her with discussions of work. They were not anything as simple as boss and assistant. They were a team.
“And it cannot be.”
On a hiccup that turned into a sob when another jolt went through the plane, she simply let herself cry. There was no one here to witness it. She’d convinced Agustin to insist Paulo stay in Spain and let her handle it.
She would handle everything.
She’d stopped crying and had applied a fresh layer of makeup by the time the airplane landed. She tried to find the old Mara who did things like this all the time: marched into rooms where she wasn’t wanted and ensured Mr. Delgado’s wishes were granted.
The car let her out in front of a very nice-looking apartment complex on a warm Portugal afternoon. And still Mara felt a little cold, a lot off. But she gripped her bag and marched inside.
After a discussion with the doorman, she was inside and in an elevator up to Adelina Sousa’s door.
Mara didn’t so much as hesitate. She was propelled by the need to prove something to Agustin, to herself. She knocked hard on the door.
The woman who answered was beautiful—no surprise there. Felipe had always gone for the striking, the glittering.
“Who are you?” the woman asked suspiciously.
Mara did her best to affix a bland but kind smile to her face. “My name is Mara Valdez. I work for Mr. Agustin Delgado.”
The woman began to close the door, but Mara reached out and stopped her. “I know you may not wish to talk to me, but please. We only want what’s best for Julia.”
The woman looked up and down the hallway, then leaned in close to Mara. “She is Felipe’s,” she whispered fiercely.
Mara nodded. “Yes. But she is also yours.”
Adelina’s mouth firmed, but she sighed and motioned Mara inside.
She closed the door behind her, then leaned against it.
“What do you want from me?” There was an exhaustion in the question.
A kind of surrender. Strangely, it reminded Mara of her oldest brother, when he’d been sentenced to jail time.
Like his decisions were someone else’s. Like he’d never been given a choice.
“Mr. Delgado is prepared to take care of Julia. He only wishes to make sure that this is truly what you want.” Which was a stretch, but Mara thought it was an applicable one.
“I did not leave her on a whim,” Adelina said in disgust. “Do you know how much planning it took? But she is not mine anymore. I cannot be… I only had her in the first place because Felipe wanted me to. He wanted a child. I did not, but I loved him beyond all measure.” Tears shone in her eyes.
Mara did not know this woman, but she got the sense the tears were for Felipe, not her daughter. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
The woman laughed. Bitterly. “He wanted a child, and then he deserted me for weeks at a time. I was in no condition to care for her, but I loved him.” A few tears tripped over her cheeks.
“At first, after he died, I thought I would try. For him. But when I look at her…everything in me shrivels up and dies. I’ve built my life back.
On the grave of Felipe and her. I will not take her back. ”
Mara could feel the woman’s anguish, but she could not understand it. “But—”
“There is no but. I do not wish to be her mother. That is why I left her where I knew she would be taken care of. She is a Delgado. Let them have her. And let them leave me be.”
Mara had to swallow down a mixture of emotion and something wanting to rise up in her throat. “We will need…signed assurances.”
“I do not wish her to track me down someday. I left her to ensure it.”
Mara nodded numbly. “We can make sure there is no connection, but we need legal assurances on our end as well. I have paperwork…to…” Mara couldn’t get the rest out. She could think of nothing except… “Do you have a bathroom I could use?”
The woman frowned at her but guided Mara to a bathroom deeper in the apartment. Mara knelt on the floor as the nausea that had been plaguing her all day finally came to fruition.
It was just emotional turmoil. Listening to the woman be so certain she didn’t want her own daughter. She had abandoned her on purpose and had no doubts, no regrets. Just a certainty she didn’t want that beautiful, wonderful baby. Ever.
And in this moment, Mara had to accept that she hadn’t come only for Julia. She had come for herself too.
Mara had wanted to believe there was something bigger at play when her father had deserted them. That it had been a difficult decision. That it was not as simple as not wanting them.
But this woman’s apathy toward a baby she’d birthed and cared for poked at something inside Mara that was certainly already wounded.
And it was hardly a fair direct comparison. Mara didn’t know her parents’ inner lives. She’d been a child.
But the fact anyone could say that the love of another was more important than her child left her feeling as disposable and wrong as she had as a twelve-year-old begging her mother to bring her father back.
Mara struggled to her feet. She used the sink to wash up, effectively ruining her makeup, but what did it matter? The woman would sign everything, and Mara would return to the island and Julia knowing she’d been wrong about…well, everything.
Adelina eyed her speculatively when she emerged. “Are you sick?”
“No, of course not.” Mara swallowed at the unsteady feeling. “Perhaps I ate something…off.”
“Maybe, but that reminds me a lot of when I was pregnant,” Adelina said, making a gesture that seemed to encompass Mara as that.
Mara laughed dismissively. “I couldn’t possibly be…”
But of course that wasn’t true. There had been no careful when it came to what she’d been up to with Agustin. She had never thought beyond…
Oh God.
But she couldn’t deal with this horrible, earth-shattering possibility. Not when Adelina looked at her knowingly.
She had papers for the woman to sign. A job to do.
And no matter the circumstance, Mara Valdez always got the job done.