Chapter 14
Six Weeks Later
“So, what are you going to do?” Alana’s words didn’t register for several seconds. Carla thought of the home pregnancy test she’d taken that had her feeling disembodied. At least she wasn’t nauseous. If only she could bottle this feeling of shock and use it to combat the stomach flu that she now knew was morning sickness.
She sank to one of the pink couches in the lobby of the bridal salon where they were waiting to try on bridesmaids’ dresses for her sister’s wedding.
“We can go to New York the week after the wedding and take care of it.” Her sister-in-law-to-be, Maya, chimed in. “No one in the Junior League has to find out.”
That snapped Carla out of her fugue state. She didn’t fault any woman for her choice, but her heart ached for having a baby. “I don’t want to get rid of it.”
Both Alana and Maya simply nodded; they kept their faces neutral, waiting for her to let them know how to respond. They’d respect her and support her. They might even be able to stop her parents from disowning or killing her. Unmarried and pregnant was not how the Hernandez family rolled.
Did she want this? She’d wanted a baby so badly that she’d almost married the wrong guy. She’d thought that losing essential parts of herself—her joy, her quirks—was worth it. When Geoff left her, the pain hadn’t been about losing him; it had centered on the life she’d sacrificed so much for and still lost.
Her night with Jonah had made her feel like a complete human again. It had shaken up her plans for the future. And she didn’t feel awful about it.
Not that Jonah was the right guy, but having his baby was nowhere near a disaster. She found herself almost liking the idea.
She looked up at both the other women and laughed. This whole situation was ridiculous. Waiting to try on her bridesmaid’s dress while she had a positive pregnancy test in a plastic bag in her purse. She’d virtually crushed the plastic thing in her fingers when the second line appeared, and she’d carried it with her because she needed her sisters to tell her that it was really real.
She was pregnant.
“When are you going to tell Geoff?” Alana asked. A totally practical question if the baby belonged to her ex-fiancé.
“It’s not Geoff’s baby,” Carla said the words quietly.
She hadn’t told either Alana or Maya about her one night with Jonah. She’d secreted away her memories and clutched them close since returning from Cuba. And she’d attributed her fatigue and malaise in the past few weeks to a minor bruised heart—kind of like what happened when new trauma was introduced to a healing wound. Although she hadn’t regretted having sex with Jonah—still didn’t—the whole thing felt bittersweet.
Her time with Jonah had been precious, and she still wanted more. Getting stuck with him had shown her what she could have. She’d thought it had just given her a new target to aim for—a target for how she wanted to feel about someone she could make a commitment to.
And now she’d just made a commitment to be a mother. Holy fuck. She was going to be someone’s parent.
“Who’s your baby daddy?” Maya asked, a twinkle in her eye. Alana slapped Maya in the arm.
“I met him in Cuba.”
“A local?”
“No, Tia Lola’s boarder.” Carla looked down at the test again. “He’s a photojournalist. He’s probably in Uzbekistan or something right now.”
Maya pursed her lips. “So, the perfect candidate for fatherhood then?” Her future sister-in-law had the world’s worst father, which might be an understatement. He was in prison for trying to kill her mother.
Jonah would be a better father than that, but by how much? Would he want to be around? Would he want to know that she was pregnant?
He’d given her his number, and she’d promised to let him know if the broken condom had any consequences, but this was a nightmare. She felt swamped by guilt; she’d told him that it wasn’t the right time of the month. She’d made a mistake.
“This is my fault, Maya.” Carla didn’t want to hear Jonah denigrated. Despite what she’d thought about him at first, he was a good man. He didn’t deserve to be saddled with her and a baby because she didn’t know enough about her own body.
“Excuse me, but did you tie him down and force him to sperminate you?” Maya’s words were too loud, and Carla wanted to strangle her right now. She could see the headlines: “Jilted, Pregnant Socialite Snaps at Bridal Salon.” That would get people talking. Maybe she could get them to focus more on the murder part and less on the pregnant and jilted bit.
“No.” She looked around to make sure no one was looking. “And we used condoms.”
“Plural condoms?” Alana piped up now, always the lawyer. Now that Alana sensed blood in the water, Carla would have to tell the whole story. She wouldn’t have a choice.
“Lola left before the storm hit. So, we were stuck together at the house, and we got bored.” Carla hesitated. She still wasn’t sure why she didn’t want to tell them how she really felt about Jonah, that she cared about him.
“Hernandez?” She was saved when the saleslady came out of the back room. When she saw them, she clapped her hands and turned, daring them not to follow.
Carla got up. She looked at the test again in her purse, just to make sure it was still there and she hadn’t dreamed the whole thing. She followed the saleswoman. Alana and Maya followed her. They’d likely been waiting to see if she’d want to call the whole thing off. Carla might be a lot of things these days, but she was for damned sure going to be the best maid of honor there ever was.
They went into a room, all in pink and white, and the saleswoman pushed out a rack of dresses. Carla smoothed her hand over her lower belly. Hopefully the dress still fit. When would she get fat? Would she be fat in a week at the wedding? Then, everyone would know she was knocked up and alone. How embarrassing. This whole thing was mortifying.
And kind of wonderful at the same time.
Maya busked her with her shoulder. “Relax. You’re barely pregnant. And you look positively skeletal as usual.”
“I haven’t been eating much. The idea of food has made me nauseous.” Carla found her dress, a blush-pink silk sheath that she had picked out for the whole wedding party. Her older sister didn’t care about wedding stuff; she cared about her fiancé, Cole. She was happy for her sister, but something inside her burned with the fear that she would never have what they had. Who wanted to date a single mom?
Alana plopped into one of the chairs. “Are you going to tell him over the phone?”
“I don’t know.” Carla grabbed her dress and went into one of the curtained alcoves. “It’s not really the kind of thing you tell a guy on a satellite phone while he’s getting shot at.”
“Sheesh. Is his job really that dangerous? Or are you making it sound worse than it really is?” Maya’s voice was muffled from the opposite end of the changing area.
Carla really wasn’t sure how dangerous his job was on a daily basis. His time in Cuba didn’t seem to be that adventurous—other than the tropical storm—but she didn’t know him at all really. This was the whole reason why she’d stopped having one-night stands and tried to settle down with someone solid in the first place.
“I can’t believe I screwed up like this.” Carla felt like she was always screwing up. She shimmied into the dress and looked in the mirror, pleased to see that it fit. In fact, the boob area was a better fit than before she went to Cuba. She came out of the dressing room, and a seamstress swooped in to pin the hips and waist for some final adjustments. “Don’t take that in too much.”
The seamstress didn’t say anything, but her nod was knowing to say the least. Carla needed to fix this mess, and now. She had to tell him, but she also needed to make it clear that she expected nothing. Wanted nothing. Even if that was a lie.
She’d never dreamed of having a baby alone, but she would do that if Jonah didn’t want to be involved. Still, there was a big part of her that wanted him in her life.
But trying for a relationship right now would be a horrible idea. Too complicated. Even if a complicated relationship would be much easier to sell to her parents as the reason for their first grandchild.
Much easier than a one-night stand.
* * * *
Jonah’s phone rattled against the thrift store coffee table in his apartment, startling him out his action-packed evening of staring at the water-stained ceiling. He’d begged off an invite to a cocktail party Charlie had invited him to. Normally, he’d go and drink the free booze and watch his buddy hit on models. But the idea of a party reminded him so much of Carla that he’d sat there, immobile.
Not that they’d ever been to a party together, but he wondered what it would be like to go with her on his arm. How it would be if she had the brightness and confidence he’d started to glimpse before they both left the island.
He’d never been prone to maudlin thinking, the projection of things that would never be. He’d always been a “here and now” kind of guy. But Carla made him think of a whole lot more than here and now. And he didn’t know what to do about it.
He wanted to see her again, even though they lived in different cities—and different worlds. But he wasn’t about to ask her to wait around for him while he was getting his ass shot at in some foreign shit hole. And he wasn’t going to ask her to leave her family and come to Vietnam or Tokyo at the drop of a hat if he just happened to find a gig there.
Carla’s name flashed on the screen and he couldn’t help but smile. He hadn’t thought that she would call. He felt a stab of guilt that he hadn’t called sooner. Had she been waiting for him to make the first move? That seemed like a very Carla thing to do.
As soon as he picked up, she said, “Do you want to go to my sister’s wedding with me?”
He spoke the word before thinking about it. “Yes.”
“Oh, thank God.” Her relief was palpable over the phone line. “Geoff’s going to be there, and I don’t want to go alone.”
He immediately regretted saying yes. She was just going to use him to make her ex jealous. Certainly there were better guys–more local guys—who could do that for her. He also didn’t know if he wanted to see Carla in her element. They’d had one night together, but it had meant more to him than it should. Would things even be the same when they weren’t stuck together in the same place? Or would they go back to being antagonists? After all, he might be able to fake it at cocktail parties every so often, but he wasn’t smooth. He wouldn’t impress her ex or her parents because he wasn’t a master of the universe, and he never would be.
“I want you there, too.” She hesitated. “I want to see you.”
Her follow-up words smoothed most of his rancor about being her beard. “Are you sure you want me there?” He rubbed a hand over his head. “Isn’t this a family thing?”
“Lola is coming.” She knew exactly how to twist the knife in. “I know she’ll want to see you.”
Carla had left the island shortly after the last time they’d had sex. She’d wanted to help with the cleanup from the storm, but Daddy had airlifted her ass out of there as soon as possible. Even if he didn’t think that Hector Hernandez gave his youngest daughter enough credit, he could see where Carla got her logistical skills. Hector had even had Charlie beat.
So Jonah had time with Lola when she’d returned from her mountain retreat. It took her about five seconds to guess that something had happened between him and Carla while she was gone. She would think it was delightful if they were actually dating. Hell, Jonah would have kind of liked to pretend that Carla belonged with him for a few days.
He didn’t think he should go without telling her the truth. That someone would Google him, and she would realize that he wasn’t the kind of man who you showed off.
But he couldn’t get himself to tell her now. His desire to see her again, to smell her, to touch her was too much to resist.
“Okay. Where and when? What’s our cover story?”