Chapter 15
Carla couldn’t get her hands to stop shaking while she was waiting for Jonah. Ordinarily, she’d pour herself a glass of wine, but she couldn’t do that now. She’d have to wait almost nine months for her next glass of wine. She wondered if she could get her sister to deliver a bottle to the maternity ward or if that would make Child Protective Services show up?
Instead of drinking, she paced.
Carla tried to relax her shoulders and take deep breaths. She could tell him about the baby. She could. He wouldn’t get mad at her. Though, if he did, she could handle it.
She looked over at her media stand and the prenatal yoga DVD sitting there. She was shoving it in a drawer when his heavy hand struck the door.
He looked amazing standing on her threshold. Carla had to shove down the desire to pull him in the apartment and push him to the floor so she could mount him. Jonah Kane made her stupid, and he made her forget.
Would it be so bad if he made her forget one more time before she told him about the pregnancy?
Yes, that would make her a bad person. But the way he stared at her—hungry—made her weak.
When she welcomed him into her condo wordlessly, he put down his duffle bag in the hall, shut the door behind him, and pressed her against the wall in the foyer.
His mouth came down on hers, keeping the promise of him as a starving man. His tongue invaded her, and his breaths synched up with her drawing in air. Neither one of them wanted to stop to breathe. He tasted so good, so right to her, right now. She didn’t want to stop kissing him, not ever.
His arms around her, he pushed her higher against the wall. She wrapped her legs around his hips, loving the feel of weightlessness, the press of his body against hers. She sifted through his hair with her fingers, loving the sensation even more because it was a memory come to life.
She couldn’t stop kissing him now. Remembering the look on his face when he held the remains of that last condom told her that he wouldn’t be kissing her again when he heard her news. And he seemed to need this just as much, if not more, than she did. She wanted to give him this before she shattered him.
He burrowed his massive hand up her top, groaning when he found her braless. She cried out when he pinched her nipples. They were crazy tender from the hormones swirling through her system, and the pain was the only thing that could take her out of this moment. “Ouch.”
He stopped everything and placed her back on the ground. His lips slick and swollen from the way they’d assaulted each other immediately upon entry. His gaze went soft and roved over her until she caught her breath.
“You’re okay.”
He couldn’t know how loaded that question was. She was safe and healthy. But her mind was kind of a mess. On the one hand, she was happy to see him. Just having him looming over her, concern on his face and the careful way he held her now made her feel so good that she could almost forget what a disaster this was. On the other hand, she was letting him comfort her when he was going to be the one hurting soon.
She opened and closed her mouth several times, hoping that she could just say it. But she couldn’t get the image of him walking straight back out the door out of her head. She couldn’t get the sounds of the biting words he’d dealt out to her when she’d first arrived in Havana out of her brain.
Tears popped out of her eyes fully formed, stinging her skin, already sensitive from the brush of his beard against her face.
“What’s wrong?” He sounded panicked, which somehow resonated as totally masculine on Jonah. “Do you want me to call someone?”
She took one of his hands in both of hers and steered him toward the living room. Looking away from him gave her enough time to stuff her emotions down. Playing hostess was the only thing that came naturally to her at the moment. “Can I get you something to drink? A beer maybe?”
He stopped short behind her. She could feel his body bristling with tension, and his confusion came off of him in waves. Although they didn’t know each other that well, she knew that he was not the type of man to smooth over her breakdown in the entryway.
“Turn around, and tell me why you were crying.” His words were hard. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
Carla also knew that he was not the type of man who gave orders. He was conscious that his size was intimidating, and he only used it for good. He didn’t have to tell people what to do. They did what he wanted without their even knowing he was telling them. Somehow, his presence steered them.
His words brought her to a halt. She turned to him. “Sit down.”
He shook his head. “Not until you tell me what’s wrong, princess.”
“I’m pregnant.”
* * * *
Jonah had known this was a possibility when that condom broke. But, on the plane, he’d allowed himself to push it out of his mind. She would have told him over the phone. She would have told him over the phone.
His legs gave out on him and he sat down in the middle of her living room, wedged between her fancy glass coffee table and couch that probably cost more than half a year’s rent. He dropped his head between his knees and tried to breathe.
Carla rushed over to him, but she kept her hands poised above him—he could feel her heat—as though she didn’t know whether it was okay to touch him. He still wanted her to touch him, but he couldn’t get words out.
“It’ll be okay.” She sounded shaky.
How would this be okay? It wasn’t okay the last time, and this would go to shit just like it had back then. Carla was still shaky because of her break up,and now he’d done this to her. What the fuck was wrong with him? Why did he have to be with her one last time? He was a greedy fucking bastard, and he would never learn—taking something good when it was offered to him never turned out well.
During all his adult life, Jonah had never contemplated becoming a father. He didn’t know his father, and most of the examples he had growing up were bad. And who knew if Carla wanted him to be this kid’s father? He didn’t look like anyone’s idea of a good dad. He worked all the time in dangerous places. His experience with infants was nonexistent. And he’d seen too many bad things to be able to convince a kid that he could keep her safe.
Jonah was ill equipped at best, probably unfit. His heart pounded, and he couldn’t seem to get air into his lungs. The walls of the perfectly decorated condo closed in on him, and he tasted bile at the back of his throat.
He looked up just as she knelt down right in front of him. Immediately, he worried if she should be doing that. Would it hurt the baby? Then, he felt stupid because he didn’t know what would hurt a pregnant woman. A woman he had made pregnant.
When he was in a war zone or taking pictures, he was pretty good at forgetting that he had a past. Even before Carla had told him she was pregnant, something about her made it harder to push down, harder to put away. Maybe because she made him feel something. That was why he’d talked to her like he had when she’d first arrived. And this woman, who made him feel…everything…was going to have his baby.
“It’s mine.” He didn’t have to ask the question. She wouldn’t lie to him. She wouldn’t be like Katie.
Carla nodded. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think this would happen. If I had, I would have gotten a Plan B as soon as I got off the plane.” She touched him, just barely letting her hands graze the back of his. As soon as she made contact, he let the breath he’d been holding puff out. His entire body deflated, and he stared at her, wondering what they were going to do.
Finally, he got a good look at her. When he’d mauled her in the hallway, he hadn’t taken the time to notice that she was pale with dark circles under her eyes. Just looking at her had gotten him so hopped up that he had to feel her mouth against his again. He didn’t need her any less now, but she’d changed everything with two damning words.
“What—what do you want to do?” He twined his fingers around her hand, and something warm spread through him, crowding out the cold of Katie’s lies.
She squeezed his hands, interlocking her fingers with his. “I’m keeping it.” Carla took a deep breath. “I’m not telling you because I want anything. I just—I just thought you’d want to know.”
His stomach clenched at her confirmation that she didn’t want him in their baby’s life. Did he really come off as such a callous fucker that he wouldn’t do the right thing when a girl he’d slept with—a woman he’d come to care about told him she was carrying his baby?
Fuck, that was a helluva change from who he had been he was in college. And that hadn’t even been his baby.
Right now, he felt like that college kid. He felt like the guy who had used his money for books to buy a cheap ring for a girl who was carrying someone else’s baby. The kid he’d been who’d killed his mother with the news that he was going to drop out of college to become a parent. A kid who’d crushed his mother’s dream of his degree and a career in the National Football League. At that moment, he was the same disappointment to his town, his family, and himself.
Just then, a big part of him wanted to push Carla away.
The adult he’d become wouldn’t let him do it. “What do you need?”
And then she was crying again. So hard that her shoulders shook. He pulled her close and lay down right there on the floor, holding her while she cried.
Fuck, she was just as confused as he was, and there was nothing he could do to fix this. She’d had her whole life planned out with the loser dickbag accountant. She’d wanted a home and family with that guy, and he’d pushed her away. Carla had come back to life during a few days in Cuba, and now she was crying again.
She was trying to comfort him when everything she’d ever planned for or believed about herself had fallen away. And it was all his fault.
This kind of shit didn’t happen in her world. He knew her parents were Catholic. Were they going to expect her to get married? Were they going to expect her to give her baby up if she didn’t? Was he lying to himself that this wasn’t really like Katie all over again?
He couldn’t ask her these questions because it didn’t seem like she knew about his past. Probably impossible, but the idea that he would have the opportunity to tell her himself gave him some hope right now. Maybe he could do things right this time.
He wanted to tell her right then, but he rubbed her back until she calmed. He told her that everything would be all right over and over, until he almost believed it himself.