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“I won’t let anything happen to them.” Had she reacted more to his story than he’d thought? Didn’t she realize that he would never make the mistakes of his past, not with the boys?
“It’s not that,” she said, meeting his eyes. “I would never doubt you.”
His heart felt at least two sizes bigger with her sweet words. “Then what is it?” The boys were carrying the Monopoly box to Noah’s room, letting the adults battle it out. Smart kids. “I thought we’d promised the boys sleepovers for these two weeks.” Hah. Three days ago, he’d been the one fighting the idea.
She gathered up her stuff, tossed her iPad in her bag. “It’s nothing. We just can’t do it tonight.”
Nothing meant it was something. If anyone knew that, he did. “Tell me about nothing, then.”
She pulled the elastic band out of her ponytail, running her fingers through her silky hair. Just that quickly, he was back by the pool with lotion on his palms and her smooth skin beneath his fingers.
“Rosie…talk to me.” He’d shared with her, now he hoped she’d do the same with him. “Please.”
She crossed her arms over her breasts, hunched in on herself in a way he’d never seen her do before. “I’ve gotten a couple of hang-up calls.”
“You mean like obscene phone calls?” His skin crawled, and his fingers curled into fists.
She shook her head. “There’s just someone breathing on the other end of the line. And I…” She paused, her face going pale. “I think I know who it is.” She looked down the hallway toward Noah’s room. The door was closed. “I think it’s Jorge’s father.”
He’d wondered more than once about Jorge’s father, but he’d never felt he could ask either Rosie or Ari for information about Rosie’s past. Not when he hadn’t been willing to share his past beyond the imperative details.
She lowered her voice, even with the closed door. “We broke up before Jorge was born. Even though I was only nineteen, Jorge and I were way better off without him.”
“Was he abusive?” Again, Gideon’s hands clenched into fists at his sides.
Her lips flatlined. “No, he just didn’t want to be a father.”
“And you haven’t seen the guy since?”
She sniffed, part disgust, part anger, part I don’t care. “Like I said, he wasn’t interested in having a kid. He left when I told him I was pregnant.”
What an asshole. But there had to be something more to make her so worried today, something he wasn’t getting. “So what makes you think it’s him calling now?”
“It’s just a feeling.”
Until now, he’d always been the reticent one. But the tables had turned, and he was fishing for information. Enough, at least, to know if he needed to tear the guy apart with his bare hands. Or worse. “But he doesn’t say anything when he calls?”
She grimaced. “I might have heard my name.”
“Your name?”
“Yeah, just a whisper.” Her lips twisted. “Sort of like he’s taunting me. Ro-o-o-o-sie…”
This was not good, really not good. “Why do you think he’s come back after all this time?” he asked. Although he could guess.
She breathed in, huffed out, then confirmed his suspicions. “I think he wants Jorge.”
No. Gideon’s heart seized as though someone had squeezed it in a vise. “But you said he didn’t want to be a father.”
For the next few minutes, she gave him the whole story about seeing her ex in a TV interview with his wife, talking about babies and infertility. Rosie was nearly certain that meant the wife was infertile.
“And you think that after seven years,” he said, “this guy gets married and suddenly decides he wants to have kids?”
“Yes. Or maybe his wife decided for him.”
“So he dumped you when it suited him, and now, because it suits him, he’s barging back into your life because he covets your son.”
“Yes.” She closed her eyes, dipped her head. “I know my ex. Because his wife can’t have a child of her own, he thinks it would be a great idea to take mine. He would only think of himself—it’s the way he’s wired. Which I didn’t figure out until too late.”
