Chapter 20
Carla didn’t know what her father said to Jonah. Whatever it was sent him straight to the bottom of a bottle of scotch. Although, maybe Cole and Javi had something to do with that. She was glad to see that her brother and brother-in-law were welcoming of him. In fact, they were nicer to Jonah than they had been to Geoff at first. But Carla guessed that Jonah was more cut from the same cloth. The prove-I’m-a-man’s-man-by-drinking-all-the-scotch cloth.
Still, she did not appreciate having to steer him back to the car. And the smell of liquor and cigar smoke did nothing for the nausea that still came and went throughout the day.
Carla also didn’t appreciate seeing her ex-fiancé standing behind the boot of her car. How did she ever convince herself that she wanted this guy? Looking at him now, she could never imagine sharing a bed with him again. It wasn’t that he was ugly; it was that standing next to Jonah—even though she was deeply irritated by his getting hammered with her dad—made her feelings about Geoff crystal clear. She had nothing for him anymore except mild regret. Regret that she’d wasted years on a dweeb who thought all she had to offer was a pedigree and housekeeping skills.
“Geoff, what the fuck are you doing here?”
Jonah stood up ramrod straight for the first time in hours and pointed at Geoff. “This motherfucker?”
“Your new boyfriend is charming, dear.”
Carla had always hated that endearment; it sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard. When Jonah had started calling her princess, she’d thought it was the same kind of annoyance, but this was different. Every time she heard Jonah say that word, in that husky sex-crazed voice of his, she felt cherished. Geoff was just condescending to her when he called her dear.
“I don’t see how that’s any of your business.” Carla put her hands on her hips. “And you weren’t invited to the rehearsal dinner, so why are you here?”
“He wants you back.” The tension rolling off Jonah was palpable; she could feel his gaze on the side of her face, burning. “Realized he’s a fucking dumbass, and he wants you back.”
“He’s right.” Geoff put his hands in the pockets of his pleated khaki pants. She’d thought she’d gotten rid of all of them, but they kept coming back like the villain in a horror movie. Why on earth did her ex look so relaxed? Could he not feel the coiled alpha-male energy at her side, just about ready to snap? “I was sitting at home tonight, and I realized how much I missed you.”
“You wanted to sit home every night.” She couldn’t believe she’d actually bought his line about her being boring. In that moment, looking at how small Geoff was, she realized that he had been projecting his own sense of inadequacy when he dumped her. “You need to leave before the rest of the family gets out of the restaurant.”
“They were almost my family, too.”
“But they’re not.” Jonah’s words were sharp, and Geoff started. “Hector fired you, didn’t he?”
The wince on Geoff’s face told her that was probably true. “Carla, who is this guy? You’re just bringing a friend, right? Like one of those inappropriate guys you dated before me.” Geoff took a step closer to her, and she backed up. Jonah put his arm around her waist, catching her close. “You couldn’t possibly be serious about this guy?”
“I—” Carla struggled to find the words to describe how she felt about Jonah. Even though she was annoyed with him at the moment, Jonah felt essential to her in a way that Geoff never had. Despite the fact that they bickered and liked to needle each other, she felt a comfort with Jonah that she didn’t even know with her family sometimes. And her lust for Jonah was undeniable every time they touched. Her pregnancy might be an accident, but being with Jonah wasn’t.
Her heart raced and her lips parted as the genuine, unvarnished truth rushed through her.
She loved him, but she couldn’t say that to her ex before she said it to Jonah. She didn’t want to say that she cared about him, because that was too small to describe what he did to her. Maybe she could say that she needed him, but they needed each other.
“You had your chance. Your chance is over.” Those two simple sentences, in Jonah’s quiet growl stopped everything. Carla had never been a woman who wanted to be claimed; that’s why she’d dated guys who didn’t want strings before she was with Geoff. Hell, she chose Geoff because she knew he wouldn’t make her feel anything. And then she let him make her feel small. Regardless, she loved the feeling of Jonah surrounding her, not making her fade into the background, but holding her up.
“Is that true, Carla?” Geoff looked defeated, but he must have held out hope that he could manipulate her into taking him back. She nodded. “He’s not good enough for you.”
Before she had a chance to deny it, Jonah said, “Well, you’re definitely not good enough for Carla. I’m going to take my chances.”
Tears welled up in Carla’s eyes. Stupid hormones making her cry when she was happy. Elation coursed through her at the feeling of Jonah having her back.
“So, that’s it?”
“That’s it.” Carla nearly apologized, but left the “I’m sorry” off this time. She’d apologized to Geoff all the time, simply for being who she was. And she was done being sorry for that.
Geoff stood there for a minute, as though he was waiting for her to tack on an apology. When she stood her ground and said nothing, he turned and walked away. With every step he took away from her, she felt stronger.
Jonah crowded around her closer, the adrenaline of the confrontation likely leaving his body. She let the tears fall then, but didn’t say anything. She wasn’t sure how she could explain herself.
“Are you okay?” No, she was not okay. “You didn’t eat anything. You should eat something for the baby.”
Without warning, he dropped to his knees in the parking lot and rested his head against her belly. Probably only because he’d had most of a bottle of scotch with her dad, but she was touched that he was so worried about her. This was a very inconvenient time and place for him to be making big declarations.
She needed to keep the secret about her pregnancy from her parents until after the wedding. Until after he was gone. “Shhhhh. Someone will hear you.”
“Are you ashamed that you’re having a baby with me?” His eyes looked so sad, and she’d say just about anything to get him to stand up.
“No. No, I’m so glad.” It was true. Not right now, but true. “How much scotch did you drink?”
“Maybe, like two.” Lies. All lies.
“Two drinks? No wonder you turned down all the mojitos I tried to mix in Cuba.”
He shook his head, his face buried again in her dress. Voices were coming closer. Her family had closed down the restaurant, so it had to be them. “Two bottles.” His words were muffled enough.
“Are you insane?”
“No.” He looked up at her, putting one foot on the ground and then the other so she was looking up at him again. He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her forehead. She thanked God for small favors that he didn’t try her mouth. She didn’t want to explain why she’d puked all over her date when she hadn’t even had champagne during the toasts. “You gotta eat more. I can’t be around all the time to make sure you eat.”
“If you walk to the car, I promise I’ll eat some toast when I get home.”
She’d been so nervous about what her father would think of Jonah that she’d barely touched her dinner. When her mother had noticed that and the fact that she wasn’t drinking, she’d had to think fast. She’d told her that she was doing a last-minute cleanse because her bridesmaid’s dress didn’t quite fit. Her mother had been skeptical because it was clear that Carla was actually thinner than normal—what with all the nausea and the absence of alcohol in her diet. She’d tell her mother after the wedding, when everything calmed down.
Jonah put his arm over her shoulders, and they were a few feet from the car when Cole and Javi caught up with them. They each grabbed one arm.
“Thanks, guys.” Carla ran over to the driver’s side and let them figure out how to get him in the car. They sat Jonah down in the passenger seat, with the door open.
“Thanks, guys. Can you do me another favor?” Jonah paused, as though he was going to ask one of them for a kidney, “Make her eat when I have to go away to work. My baby’s going to be huge, and she needs to eat more.”
Carla stilled. She never would have expected him to say that.
Javi and Cole peered at her through the car window, shock etched on both their faces.
“Baby?” It wasn’t often her brother had this little to say, but now was one of those times. They’d had a lot of scotch; it was a bad idea to have this conversation here and now. Considering the damage Javi had done to Cole’s face when he found out the former Navy SEAL was dating Alana, she didn’t want this to escalate.
“Shhh.” Carla looked around the vicinity of the car, for her parents. Hopefully, they were still inside, settling the tab.
“Baby?” It was as though her brother’s brain had shorted out. By the time he said it again, Alana and Maya were at the car.
“Oh no,” Alana said, her eyes big. “I thought we were keeping this a secret until after the wedding.”
Carla got out of the car, and Javi grabbed Jonah, jerking him out of the passenger seat.
“Baby?” Javi’s fist, the one that wasn’t holding Jonah’s jacket, clenched.
Maya grabbed Javi’s arm and stopped him from punching Jonah. “Papi, you have to calm down before your parents get out here.”
Javi grunted and then let Jonah go so abruptly he stumbled before catching himself. Jonah held up his hands, seeming sober for the first time in a few hours. “I know you didn’t want me to tell them.”
“No. I didn’t.” Carla sighed and wrapped her arms around her waist, feeling exposed.
“Why didn’t you want me to tell them?”
She did not want to have this conversation here. As much as she now realized that she wanted her relationship with Jonah to be about more than sharing parenting duties, this public airing of grievances wasn’t working for her. “This is Alana’s weekend. I don’t want it to be about me.”
Her family hadn’t backed off, and they were running out of time before her parents would come out of the restaurant wondering what was wrong. Javi’s fists were still clenching, and he still had a glaze of anger over his face. He was so jacked up that he’d probably spill the beans unless Maya got him in a taxi immediately.
Carla felt nauseous, so much so that she bent over and put her head on the cool metal of the car’s trunk. Immediately, her sister rushed over. “Are you okay? Is everything okay with the baby?”
Jonah came over, too. “Oh, God. Oh no. Please tell me I didn’t fuck things up again.”
“Calm down, everyone. I’m just going to wait until I don’t feel like puking anymore.”
Jonah rubbed a hand up and down her back, which instantly made her feel better. All of the sounds of her siblings and their partners talking in hushed tones faded away. She tried to block out everything but Jonah’s touch, the concern in his voice. “I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to the baby.”
“What baby?” Her father’s roar of anger echoed off the concrete walls that surrounded the lot. Her father had clearly taken part in the lion’s share of that scotch because he only got that loud when he was really angry or had had too much to drink. Lucky her, tonight it was a bit of both. Neither happened often, especially when it came to her. Being the baby of the family had one advantage, and that was the fact that she had to work really hard to make her father angry. “What did I tell you about getting my daughter pregnant?”
Jonah’s hand jerked off her back, and it got her to stand up. Her father had him in a headlock, something that wouldn’t have been possible if Jonah had laid off the booze, just a tad.
“Daddy, stop!” Her father didn’t listen. He started spitting out Spanish swear words faster than she could translate them in her head. She might be fluent, but she wasn’t a native speaker. But even though she couldn’t keep up, she knew it was getting nasty.
Jonah didn’t even look like he was fighting. She wanted to go over to them, make them stop, but her sister held her shoulders. “Our family is so classy,” Alana said.
Her mother rushed over to her with one word. “Baby?”
Carla dropped her head forward and nodded. “Baby.”
Her mom squealed and threw her arms around her; she almost lost her breath from the tightness of the hug. She had not been expecting this kind of reaction from either of her parents. But she couldn’t be happy about the fact that her mom seemed excited about her being knocked up—either that or she’d had a lot of wine—because her father and the father of her baby were now rolling around on a greasy car park.
“Stop it.” Still, they didn’t react. Jonah grunted when her father got a shot in to his kidneys and rolled on top of Jonah. When her father pulled back his fist, Carla pushed her mother away. “Stop them.”
Her mother didn’t seem inclined to do much because she said, “Don’t break his face too much.”
Carla pointed at her brother. “Javi, do something.” She looked at Cole who seemed to be trying real hard not to double over with laughter. “Cole?”
Both of them held up their hands. “You think your father wouldn’t have beat the shit out of me had I gotten Alana knocked up—well, knocked up before our honeymoon next week? I guess a beatdown is the price of admission in this family.”
Even tough-as-shit Maya winced when they heard bones crunch as her father made contact with Jonah’s face. She looked at Javi. “I’m really glad I couldn’t get you pregnant if I tried.”
Jesus. Carla had never seen her father this mad before. He hadn’t even blinked when Geoff had dumped her. He’d just quietly fired him for publicly humiliating her apparently. But she guessed this wasn’t the same thing. Geoff hadn’t embarrassed the family by dumping her. He’d only embarrassed her.
Anger filled her chest, and she shook off Alana’s hold to march over to the two tussling, grunting figures. She wished Jonah would pin her father to the ground and end this right now. They were having a baby, and she needed him to stand up for her—for their family.
She kicked one of them. Right now, she didn’t care much who. “Stop it.”
“Get back.” Jonah’s words were wheezy because her father punched him in the side. “You’ll hurt the baby.”
“Stop fighting or I’ll separate you myself.” Hearing her so close to the edge and the possibility of hurting her must have finally gotten through because they stopped fighting. Both of them flopped on the ground on their backs.
“Daddy, you’re going to give yourself a heart attack.” She pointed at her own chest. “This is my fault. Jonah only came to the wedding to help me out. I just wanted you to know who he was and maybe not hate him.”
Her father sat up and made like he was going to hit Jonah again. Jonah didn’t even move, not even a flinch. He clearly thought that this was his fault. “You aren’t even going to marry her?”
“That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.” Maya looked at Javi. “Su familia esta loca.” Carla would have laughed at Maya’s commentary in the background—especially the part where she added, “If your dick was even a little bit smaller, I swear to God I would leave all your asses in my rearview”—if this whole situation wasn’t quite so ridiculous and so public. Carla wished, more than anything, that she wasn’t related to these people right now.
Her family might not be famous, but a few local gossip blogs would be eager to post this security cam video. All she needed on top of being dumped publicly was to have her baby daddy and her father go viral for the dumbest, drunkest street fight ever. She might have wrapped her head around unwed motherhood, but this was too trashy by a mile.
“He’s not going to marry you?” Carla turned to her mother. She sounded confused, like of course they were going to get married because she was pregnant. She’d never seen her mother’s forehead crease that much.
“No, he’s just my date to the wedding.” Carla wanted to get in her car and drive away. Jonah could stay here and fight with her family about her.
She had to be in love with that man; it was the only thing that could explain how much hatred for him she had burning inside her at the moment—the hatred that made humiliation singe her inside. “Of course we’re not getting married, we don’t even really like each other. I’d rather die.”
Her belly knotted with regret the instant she said it. Her mother gasped, and her sister and her sister-in-law mumbled to their men. But no one said anything.
Carla didn’t dare turn around and look at Jonah. She knew what this had to sound like to him, that she—like Katie—would literally rather die than marry him. This wasn’t the first time a thoughtless moment or phrase had gotten her into trouble, but this was certainly the worst. She was certainly the worst.
“Hector, get up.” Her mother’s words were sharp. She took the tone that always meant Javi was grounded for a month.
Her father followed instructions and came up alongside her. Carla could feel the disappointment rolling off him in waves. She’d always thought she’d let her parents down by not being smart enough with numbers, by not being as perfect or as brilliant as her older siblings. She’d thought she’d owned that part of herself, and forgiven her parents for not seeing her as valuable. But she’d never given them reason to be disappointed like this before. Right now, she could feel their disappointment, and she had never felt so worthless or so alone in her entire life.
She couldn’t look at either of them as they walked away without saying another word. She stayed where she was, still.
Finally, she mustered a glance at Jonah. He didn’t move either. His silence spoke volumes. He’d believed her when she’d said she trusted him. And now he thought she’d lied to him. He wouldn’t forgive her for this. He shouldn’t.
Jonah deserved a woman who would stand up for him. He deserved better than this. Than her. He’d shown her so much care and compassion when she’d needed it. She couldn’t even repay him by lying to her family for just a while, for making him feel like he could be part of that.
He was certainly part of her right now. Carla put her hand over her lower belly. Only then did he heave himself off the ground. His steps toward her were slow. When he came up behind her, he wouldn’t touch her. She stepped back, needing his touch, but he moved away. He wouldn’t touch her ever again, and it felt like something inside her split open and spilled all over the ground.
“Turn around.” His voice was soft. “Please turn around.”
She did, and he rubbed his fist against his chest. “Listen, I didn’t—” He put a hand up, and she stopped speaking. Her vision of him blurred as tears gathered.
“You don’t even like me?” His voice was soft and flat. Someone his size should never sound like a lost little boy. She’d done this. She’d reduced him to this.
“I do. I just—I wanted him to stop.”
“He would have stopped. He didn’t even hit me that hard.” When she looked over the quickly forming bruises on his face, his ripped shirt, she tended to disagree. “Well, I’m not going to piss blood in the morning.” He might have meant it as a joke, but his mouth didn’t curve into a smile.
“I didn’t mean to say that last thing. That’s not true.” But she’d said it, and she could see the damage. No apology would be enough, but she had to try. “I’m sorry.” Two hollow words when he’d trusted her with his heart and soul, and she’d pretended it didn’t mean anything. All to save face in front of her family. Unlike her family, he’d always made her feel special, cherished. She really was as weak as she had been when they’d first met. She was willing to wound someone who had been good to her almost from the start, just so she wouldn’t be embarrassed. “You didn’t want to marry me.”
Color crawled up his neck, telling her that maybe he had wanted more with her. Her breath caught as hope jolted through her. Maybe he had wanted to stay a permanent part of her and the baby’s life.
“I didn’t know.” He dropped his head. “Now, I guess I do. You don’t even like me.”
He leaned against her car and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. “I’m going to get a car.”
“No, let me drive you home.”
“I’m going to a hotel.”
“Please don’t. Come home with me. We’ll figure this out.”
He turned his back to her. “You’re sure everything’s all right with the baby?”
Tears spilled out again, faster than she could wipe them from her face. His concern touched her even though he was about to hit the road. When he finally met her look, his eyes were cold. She could have been looking at a stranger. The night that Geoff had tossed her off, she hadn’t even cried. She’d looked around the restaurant and seen too many people she knew to make a spectacle of herself. Now, she wanted to drop to her knees and beg Jonah not to leave her. If she did that, and he stayed, it wouldn’t be because he wanted to. If he stayed and tried to work this out, she would only find a way to fuck things up again.
“Come home with me. Please.”
“I don’t want to go with you. I want you to go home to your perfect condo and your perfect life.”
“It’s not perfect. You’re not there.” Her tears started to fall, and she no longer cared about humiliating herself. He walked toward her but didn’t take her arm. She knew that he wanted her to get in the car and drive away. She thought about standing in his way, pulling his face down to hers, and kissing him, telling him with her body that she liked him, that she wanted him. She loved him.
She took a step toward him, and he backed away as though her touch would burn him.
“Get in the damned car, and go.” His words were so flat and cold that they felt like a door slamming on all the possibility she’d felt with him the night before.
He didn’t want her, and she didn’t deserve him.
So she did the only thing she could do and turned around and got into the car. Once he had seen she was belted, he shut the door. Leaving her in deadly silence.