Page 80 of His Secret Wish

Chapter 18

Isabella stared out the window of Antonio’s SUV, watching the world whiz by. It had been four days since Yaya passed, three days since she’d told Owen she didn’t love him, and he’d left. She’d been miserable ever since.

Yes, she was sad Yaya had passed, and she was going to miss her bisabuela so much. But the stuff with Owen had crushed her, and she had no one to blame but herself.

Yaya hadn’t wanted anything extravagant, or over-the-top for her funeral, so they’d had a small, family service yesterday. The plan was for the whole family to meet again next summer to celebrate Yaya’s life.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” It was the third time Antonio had asked her the question since they’d left Truckee an hour ago.

The first two times she’d given him the requisite fine, but it was clear to anyone with eyes there was nothing fine about her. She sighed and looked over at him. “No, I’m not okay.” Her voice wobbled, but there were no tears. She’d cried so much this week, she was certain her tear ducts were all used up.

“Do you want to talk about it? It’s just you and me.”

Antonio’s wife, Camilla, and their kids, Gina and Matty, had headed home with Isabella and Antonio’s parents yesterday, since Papi had a meeting with a distributor he couldn’t reschedule. Which was fine, because the last thing Isabella wanted was to be trapped in a car with Mami for hours when she was feeling so crappy. Isabella and Antonio had stayed behind to help their abuela with some of the last-minute details with regard to the house.

She sighed. “It’s... complicated.”

“Isn’t it always?” He tossed her a grin.

“I’ve made such a huge mess of things, Antonio.”

“I can’t help if you don’t tell me what we’re dealing with here.”

She threw him a side eye, which made him laugh. He had the infectious kind of laugh, rich and hearty. Amusement bubbled up inside her, the corners of her mouth tilting up. “You’re a jerk.”

“And you’re a goober.” His teasing tone sent the corners of her mouth higher. He hadn’t called her that in a long time. “But now that we’ve got that out of the way, what’s going on, Iz.”

She sighed again. She’d been doing that a lot lately. “Owen and I decided to treat this past weekend as an anomaly, something outside of reality. As in, anything that happened wouldn’t affect anything once we got home again.” It sounded so stupid now that she said it out loud. What had they been thinking, agreeing to such a moronic idea?

He sucked a breath in between his teeth. “Ouch, that was never going to work.”

“Where were you last Friday with your sage advice?” She looked down at her lap, rubbed her hands on her pants. “Anyway, needless to say, it ended up blowing up in my face. Big time.”

“Yeah, I got that. But what exactly happened?”

She looked over at him, her bottom lip between her teeth. “Well...”

He shook his head. “No, no, no. I do not want the details. Just the broad, overview strokes.” He over-the-top shivered. “You’re my baby sister. I don’t even want to think about that.”

She snorted. “I’ve been married for like fifteen years, Antonio. Owen and I have had sex before.”

“La, la, la, la, la. I’m not listening.” He covered one of his ears with his hand, the other still on the steering wheel.

“Stop being a baby.” She punched him in the shoulder. Harder than was probably necessary.

“Ow.” He rubbed at the spot, scowling in her direction.

“Anyway...” She decided to press on with her story. It felt good to tell someone. “Things were going fine. Better than fine, until they weren’t.”

“Yeah, that still doesn’t tell me anything.”

“Fine, okay. Owen told me he loved me and that he wanted to get back together.” She said the words so fast they practically melded together.

“Okay...” He dragged the word out until it had at least ten syllables.

“Okay, what?”

“I don’t see what’s so bad about that. Anyone looking at the two of you can see how much he loves you. Why do you think he hasn’t signed the divorce papers?”