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I should tell her that I accept her apology, that it’s fine, that we don’t need to talk about it. But none of that is true. I’m not sure if Icanaccept it just yet, not with the wounds from Javier still burning and aching over the span of my body, with the sudden responsibility of a child thrust on me out of nowhere.
I might not want children, but that doesn’t mean I could ever abandon my own or my child’s mother. Whatever happens between us now, for better or for worse, Isabella and I are bound together by something deeper than any feeling or any vow. I have to decide what that means for us—and what I can bear.
“Why?” I ask her simply, the food suddenly less appetizing. “Why would you lie about that—especially knowing you would have to marry someone else, bearhischildren—oh.” The answer comes to me before she has a chance to speak, but I let her anyway, wanting to hear her say it herself. Wanting to hear how she’d planned to use me, without thinking I’d ever find out. My gut knots with anger, more anger than I’ve ever felt towards any woman, but with it is a healthy dose of grief, too.We could have been so different, if only—
“I didn’t mean to,” Isabella whispers. “I didn’t.”
“That’s a hard thing to do by accident,” I tell her frankly. “You stopped me from grabbing a condom that first time. Maybe you could explain that away by saying you got caught up in the moment, but every time after?”
“Please let me explain.” She presses her lips together, looking up at me with those wide, sad doe eyes that did so much for me—still do, if I’m being honest with myself. It’s hard to look at her liquid dark gaze and not feel sucked in, willing to do anything to fix the rift between us—anything to protect her and make her happy.
“Fine. Explain, then.”
“I already told you why I lied about my virginity, why I gave you a fake name,” she says softly. “I don’t think you want to hear it all again.”
“Not particularly, no.” Just the memory of that night out in the garden, our last fight before everything fell apart in a spectacular fashion, is enough to make me feel like a rock has settled in my gut.
“The first night—I just wanted to feelyou.” Her cheeks flush a light pink as she speaks, but she keeps going. “I knew my future husband wouldn’t use protection, of course—he’d want to get me pregnant. I wasn’t thinking about the consequences, just that I didn’t want to feel anything between us. I was caught up in the moment, as you said, and I wanted nothing but the sensation of you—” She sucks in a breath. “And then the second time that night—I think we’d both forgotten about it. I didn’t really think about what it could mean until I was in my room that night. And then—”
“And then you just decided to chance getting bloody knocked up?” There’s an edge of bitterness in my voice I can’t hide. “Even thinking I was just an American on vacation, heading back after a jaunt over the border—you thought you’d just have my baby without my ever knowing?”
“Do men really care so much?” Isabella looks at me, her voice quavering slightly. “My father loves Elena and me, but we’re still tools to him, pieces on a chess board before we’re his daughters. In other families—the first daughter is a blessing, a means of making an alliance, but every daughter after that is just another burden. You’re part of this world too, Niall—are you telling me it’s so different where you live?” She shakes her head. “I thought I’d have something of you to remember, something to love, one final rebellion by putting a child in my husband’s cradle that wasn’t his. I didn’t think it would matter to you so much, especially if you never knew—I thought a man like you, looking for a fling, would rathernotknow. It would be some other man’s responsibility, and you could keep the happy memories of us.”
It takes me a minute to think of how to respond in a way that’s productive and isn’t tearing her open with the anger and hurt I feel simmering in my gut like acid. “Given how you grew up and the men you grew up around,” I say finally, keeping my voice carefully measured. “I suppose I can understand why you might think such a thing, Isabella. And no, I can’t say it’s always so different among the families I know. Girls are pawns there, too, when they’re born to mob bosses like your father. But Isabella—” I say her name between my teeth, feeling like I’m barely holding my emotions under control— “that’s notme.That’s not the kind of man I am. I never wanted a wife or children, but Jesus, Mary and Joseph, if a woman was pregnant with my child, I’d want to bloody fucking know!” My voice is rising now, my accent thickening as the anger bleeds out, and I see Isabella’s eyes widen and her breath hitch. I don’t want to frighten her, but the idea that she’d thought I wouldn’t give a flying shite if she had my child without my knowing is almost worse than all the rest.
“I didn’t know!” Isabella cries out softly. “I didn’t know you were different. I didn’t know you’d care, and I never meant to in the first place. I didn’t set out to get pregnant, but after we slipped up the first night, I thought—well, I thought it wouldn’t be so bad, and then I just kept letting it happen. I was afraid to admit I’d lied, too, after you found out about my virginity. I thought you’d be angry, and I thought you wouldn’t want me anymore.”
I suck in a breath between my teeth, trying to remain calm. “If you’d come to me, Isabella, I could have told you what kind of man I am, how I feel about it. If you’d been bloodyhonestwith me. You never knew correctly how I’d react to any of it, and it’s hard to fuckin’ fault you on it because you’re innocent. You’re sheltered; you don’t know much of how the world works—and that’s not a slight on you; it’s just a simple fact. If you’d told me you were a virgin—bloody Christ, Isabella, I wanted you so goddamn bad I wouldn’t have given a shite if you’d been with one man or a hundred. I’ve never put much stock in such things, but I would have at least known to be careful with you, aye? And then the birth control—” I shake my head, pinching my nose at the bridge. “I would have been angry, aye. I can’t say I wouldn’t. As to whether I would have wanted you after that, I can’t rightly say yes or no. As I said, I wanted you badly, and one night was never going to be enough.”
“I’m sorry,” Isabella whispers, and I hold up a hand.
“Now you’ll let me finish, aye? I can’t tell you if I would have simply chalked it up to getting lost in the moment and carried on or not. But Iwouldhave paid for a contraceptive, taken you to get it, and made sure we used protection from then on. Because Idon’t want children, Isabella, and I sure as bloody hell don’t want a child out there that I don’t know about, a child some other man would father! A child raised to lead a cartel if it was a son, a child sold off like chattel if it was a daughter, bloodyhell!” I grit my teeth, swallowing back the anger. “I’m not a mob boss, Isabella. I’m an enforcer. I mete out the justice and the punishments and do the dirty work so the fine men can keep their hands clean. And while I was promised a seat at the table if I pulled off this deal with your father, you can bloody well bet that no child of mine would ever be traded for an alliance the way the fine men do with theirs! But you would have putourchild into that world!”
Isabella’s mouth opens, and tears fill her eyes instantly, trailing down her cheeks. “Oh god, Niall,” she whispers, putting her hand to her mouth. “Oh god, I’m so—”
“Sorry. Aye, I know it. You thought of it as your child, not ours. But the fact is, Isabella—”
“It’s ours. Our baby.” She touches her stomach lightly, looking at me with tearful eyes. “And you don’t want it. I’m so sorry—”
“I said Ididn’twant children.” I let out a deep sigh. “Now that it’s a present concern, I can’t say I’m overly unhappy at the thought. Back there, when the doctor said—I felt something different about it, Isabella. Something good, even under the present circumstance. I won’t sit here and lie to you and say I’m ready to be a father, all things considered, but I’ve got nine months to get there, aye?”
“Eight, probably, give or take a little.” There’s a small smile on Isabella’s face. “But something like that, yes.”
The two of us stare at each other across the distance between us, the weight of it all hanging heavily in the air. We’re further apart now than we were on that first night as strangers. I find it hard to believe that we could ever cross that distance back into a relationship, even as I look at Isabella and crave touching her, crave the feeling of her mouth on mine and the now-familiar curves of her body against me.
I think, though, that we might find a middle ground there as parents.
“I’m not abandoning you and my child, Isabella,” I tell her gruffly. “Whatever there is between us, whatever we need to solve to take care of this child together, I intend to do it. And that brings us to what happens here after we’ve had a chance to rest up a little.”
“I take it I’m not going home.” Isabella’s hands clench together in her lap, but she looks surprisingly calm.
“No,” I tell her honestly. “Your father, when he bargained for me to come and get you from Diego and then to go after you at Javier’s, had a plan for you. Taking you home would be too dangerous for your family—Diego would wage an all-out assault on the Santiago mansion to drag you out of there. He still may go to war with your father over this, but your father will have the backing of the Kings and their allies now. But you can’t go back. I’m sorry.”
“I won’t see Elena again—” Isabella’s voice trails off for a moment, cracking at the edges as tears threaten again. “I understand, though,” she says softly. “I’ve already put them in so much danger, and it’s my fault. If I’d stayed with Diego—”
“That’s impossible, now,” I tell her frankly. “Your father wasn’t willing to leave you with him, knowing how he’d treat you in recompense for your cuckolding of him. Even if he were,Ino longer would be, considering you’re carrying my child. There’s no going back, Isabella. You made your choices, and these are the consequences.”
“I know.” Her voice is a faint whisper. “I can’t—there’s no apology that makes up for it, I know. So what happens now?”
