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“How was simply handing her the information not doing the same thing?”
“Mom—”
“I’m just confused, son.” He heard a rustling in the background. “If you’d handed her the information, that would have achieved the same goal. She would have her son and you wouldn’t be talking to me all brokenhearted right now.”
He frowned. “I wanted to make sure he wouldn’t do anything foolish after she’d taken his partner’s parents. I guess I wanted to check for myself that he wouldn’t hurt her and I could trust her heart with him.”
“But that is not your place, my love,” his mother said softly. “You care for her, I can hear it in your voice—”
“No, I don’t just care for her,” he corrected her quickly. “I love her. She is…” He shook his head. “She is mine. Mom, she’s in my bones.”
“My son.” The heaviness in her voice alarmed him. “I understand, but do you understand that you speak only of whatyouwanted? You’re a good man, baby, I made sure to raise you that way. And I don’t like that she left you in that house alone, but you made some selfish moves.”
He jerked on the steering wheel, bringing the car onto the shoulder of the highway with a squeal of tires and some angry horns blaring from fellow motorists. Parked, he grabbed the phone from its holder and brought it to his ear. “How was what I did selfish?” His voice rose. “She wanted to have her son in her life and I gave her that, Mom. I went to him so that I could diffuse any kind of tension he might have, to smooth the way for reconciliation between them if it was to happen.”
“But did she ask that of you? You didn’t think she could handle that herself?”
“She doesn’t have to ask!” He slammed his fist onto the steering wheel. “It’s my job to anticipate her needs and make sure they’re met. In any way.”
“I can hear how much you love her.” It sounded as if his mother were smiling. “She strikes me as a smart one, your woman. Did you think she didn’t know what she was doing? By taking those people, she definitely knew there would be anger and hurt feelings, but she must’ve calculated and decided on the risks. I’m sure she had a way to skew things to her side if needed. It was her decision. Her son. If I’d been in her position, I would have questioned your actions too. It’s a delicate thing to maneuver, but honey, your place, while well-intentioned, is not between a mother and her son. That’s a surefire way to end up on the losing end.” She paused. “Why did you really do it?”
He found it difficult to speak the words. Toro stared through the windshield, his phone to his ear. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he murmured, “I thought… if I gave her her son, maybe she would see that I would do anything for her. That I meant it when I told her I loved her. That I wasn’t like the other men in her past who’d only taken and never given.”
“I’m proud of you,” his mother said, thickly. “I am proud of who you are. If she couldn’t see all that before you did what you did, then my love, she is not for you. She has to see it. She has to feel it. She has to know it. And that’s not something you can make happen. You can’t force it.”
“I know,” he muttered. But he didn’t know how he could sleep another night without Seraphina.
“I want to meet her.”
He blinked. “She left me,” he reminded her. And as much as it made his chest hurt at the thought… “She might not return.”
“Oh, she will. A few days without you and she’ll realize what she had and what she lost,” Patricia said, all the confidence of a mother’s love echoing in her statement.
Toro chuckled. “You’re my mother, you’re supposed to say that.”
“I am,” his mother conceded. “Doesn’t make it any less true. She is the luckiest woman to have you love her, baby. She’ll realize that soon.”
He smiled, wiping his suddenly damp eyes. “Gracias, Mamá.” He cleared his throat. “She is older.”
“How much older?”
All of his lovers had been around his age or a couple of years off in either direction. Seraphina was his first with a significant age gap between them and he didn’t know how his mother would react to that. “Her son is older than me,” he hedged.
His mother sighed. “I will reserve judgment until you bring her to me.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
27
It tooka moment before Seraphina made herself get out of the back seat of the taxi she’d grabbed at the airport. The driver stared at her through the rearview mirror; she felt his glare as she eyed the house they sat in front of.
This visit happened way quicker than she’d anticipated, and though she’d been asked to come, she couldn’t ignore the apprehension that had her stomach all knotted. This was a first for her. First time she didn’t know what she was walking into. The first time she’d traveled without any bodyguards or security detail since taking over Christopher’s business. Her upper arms tingled and when she stroked them, she found her skin covered in goose bumps.
“Miss?” the driver finally spoke. “Are you getting out?”
She would’ve shot him for his tone alone, but this wasn’t the time or the place. Besides, she was determined to turn over a new leaf. This visit was her first step in that direction and she’d decided to start her journey here since this was one of the most crucial.
“Miss.”
