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When she had stopped laughing, I spoke again. ‘I really am sorry, Lucia. I shouldn’t have left without talking to you first and telling you what was going on. And, I know it might take time to win back your trust, but I promise you I will never do it again. You can count on me every single second of every single day. You got that?’
‘Yeah,’ she smiled.
‘Good,’ I let out a long breath, thankful that we were on good terms again. If only Alejandro would be so easy to win over. Then without warning, she launched herself forward and wrapped me in a massive hug. ‘You’re going to be a great mom one day,’ she said softly.
I hugged her back. ‘Thank you, sweetheart,’ I said as I choked back a sob.
CHAPTER 23
ALANA
After my chat with Lucia, she and Kelsey and I sat outdoors for a few hours catching up and regaling Lucia with tales of our time in college — although most of the funny stories involved Kelsey rather than me.
It had been nice to feel normal again for a few hours. But even as I sat with the two of them, I couldn’t stop thinking about Alejandro sitting alone in his office. I wondered if I should go in there and speak to him, but I sensed he needed some time alone.
As it grew dark out, Kelsey started yawning and I realized we’d hardly slept in the past forty-eight hours. I noticed the light in Alejandro’s office switch off and suddenly I was feeling tired too. ‘Shall we call it a night?’ I suggested.
‘Sounds good to me,’ Kelsey replied. ‘That king-sized bed in your guest room has been calling to me for hours.’
‘The school sent me some reading to do before I start next week, so I’m going to catch up on a bit of that,’ Lucia said as she bounced up out of her seat.
‘Sounds like a good idea,’ I said to her. One of the conditions of her staying with us was that she had to enroll in the local high school and attend all of her classes until she had the baby. She had agreed to our request and seemed happy to be going back to school and being able to act at least a little like a normal teenager again.
I walked into the bedroom to find Alejandro in there. He had his back to me and was standing beside the bed pulling off his shirt. I felt a fluttering in my stomach as he slipped the crisp, white cotton over his shoulders and his strong forearms and tossed it into the laundry hamper. The muscles in his back flexed as he moved his hands to his belt and I drew in a shaky breath as I watched him.
I walked further into the room and he turned his head slightly as he heard me, but he didn’t acknowledge my presence in any other way. So, it seemed he was definitely not speaking to me then, and I feared I knew the reason why. I also knew that bringing it up would start an argument, but anything was better than this silence between us. It was hellish and I couldn’t spend the rest of the night in this limbo, without knowing for sure what was going on in his head.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked him.
He snorted in response as he pulled his belt off and tossed it onto the bed. Despite the atmosphere between us, I shivered as I recalled the promise he had made me about that belt just a few hours earlier.
‘Are you thinking about the last conversation you had with your father?’ I asked as my heart started to hammer in my chest.
‘Alana! Don’t!’ he growled.
‘Don’t what?’
‘Don’t push me.’
‘I’m not pushing you. I’m asking you a question. If you don’t like that one, here’s another. Do you blame me for what you said to your father?’
He turned around, his face full of fire and fury. ‘No!’ he snarled. ‘I will never forgive myself if they are the last words I ever say to him, but that’s not your fault. He should never have said those things about you.’
I blinked at him. ‘Then why does it feel like you’re so angry with me?’
‘I’m not,’ he barked as he continued undressing.
‘It certainly feels like you are.’
He stepped out of his suit pants and threw them onto the bed too. ‘Seriously? You really want to do this right now?’
‘Yes.’
He scowled at me and then he took a few steps toward me. ‘Okay. If you really want to do this, yes I am pissed at you. If I hadn’t been chasing you across the fucking country, I would have been here in LA and my father would have been with me,’ he snarled as the vein in his temple throbbed.
I swallowed as he towered over me, shaking with fury.
‘And then he wouldn’t have been shot and he wouldn’t be lying in a hospital bed with half a dozen machines keeping him alive!’ he shouted at me, and I took a step back from him.
