by A. M. Myers
I’ve already banned anymore surprises though.
I mean, it’s one thing to buy me a necklace, a new dress, and tell me that you’re taking me out for the evening. And it’s quite another thing to practically kidnap me and make me jump through all these damn hoops for a silly little surprise. Have I mentioned lately how much I hate them? Look, I know I have issues but being out of control like that makes me want to crawl out of my own skin and I couldn’t seem to calm my racing heart on the trip over here. Besides, it’s not like I don’t regularly give up my control to him, more than I’ve ever given anyone else in a long damn time. But he’s never happy. He’s always taking more from me, demanding that I hand myself over to him, body and soul, like a complete lunatic.
“Oh, God,” Carly says, shaking her head. “I have to go sit down. My feet are killing me.”
I nod. Despite the fact that I’m like three times as pregnant as she is and my back is beginning to ache, I’m not going to stop until it’s time to go home because I don’t know when I’ll get a chance to come out and forget all my worries like this again.
“Yeah, me, too,” Ali calls and I let out a huff of annoyance as the band begins to play “Worship You” by Kane Brown. Well, hell. Normally, I would just keep dancing by myself, completely unbothered but this is the kind of song you need a partner for.
“Dance with me, Mama,” Diego whispers the words against my neck as he presses his front to my back, his hands finding my hips, and a shiver races down my spine. My plan for the evening was to not give Ali or Carly any more ammunition when it comes to the current status of our relationship but God knows I can’t resist the man. Sighing, I turn in his arms. He flashes me a triumphant grin and I roll my eyes as I throw my arms over his shoulders.
“Thank you for tonight, Diego,” I say and he nods, staring down at me in a way that makes my heart jump into my throat. The words of the song wash over me and that, combined with the look in his eyes, sends a wave of heat rushing through me. All the guys dressed up tonight – or as dressed up as they get – and Diego is wearing a crisp white button up shirt that looks absolutely sinful on him. It’s highly ironic. He’s got the sleeves rolled up, shoving off his toned forearms and the tattoos decorating his skin and more than a couple times tonight, I’ve caught myself touching him there without even realizing it. God. What is it about a guy’s forearms that are so goddamn sexy? To this day and even with all the experience I have, I still can’t explain it but there is no way in hell I’m complaining.
“Am I allowed to kiss you?” There is humor in his voice and his eyes sparkle with amusement as he waits for my answer. I know I should glance over at our table and make sure Ali isn’t watching me like a hawk but at this point, I don’t care anymore. This, right here in his arms, has become my goddamn happy place in the last few weeks and I need his touch more than I need to keep us a secret.
“Yes.”
He doesn’t waste any time, swooping down and claiming my lips in a kiss that steals the breath right from my lungs. I sag against him and wind my arms around his neck, my body clinging to his in a way that is a little indecent, even for a bar. The room falls away, carrying the two of us to a place where nothing else matters and the lyrics echoing in the back of my mind make this kiss something else entirely, something new and something more. Time stops as I lose myself in it, taking everything he has to give and demanding even more. When I am in his arms like this, the world could be burning to ash around us but it wouldn’t matter, nothing else can matter when this feels like the beginning and end of me. God. Kissing Diego, it’s like coming home and he makes me happier than I’ve been in a really long time.
That thought breaks through the fog of our connection and I jerk back, staring up at him with wide eyes as I try to catch my breath.
Oh, hell.
This is not fucking good.
“You okay?” he asks and I nod, dropping my gaze to the floor and prying myself out of his grasp, feeling tense. It’s like my entire body is on lockdown. Alarms are blaring and doors are slamming shut on instinct, trying desperately to bar him and these feelings from my heart.
“Need some air.”
He nods and grabs my hand. “Okay. Let’s go.”
There is a part of me that knows I should protest him coming with me so I have a moment to get the riot in my body under control but I also know it’s a bad idea. The bar might be safer than anywhere else in town with Luca running around trying to kill me but it’s still not safe and it would be stupid to go outside without him. As we pass the table, Ali flashes me a concerned look but I ignore her as Diego informs them that we’re going to get some air.
Fuck.
Why is it so hard to breathe right now?
Diego releases my hand and wraps his arm over my shoulders, pulling me into the side of his body as he leads me to the door. It’s too much. I want to shove him away from me but I keep my hands at my sides, silently losing my shit. Can’t he see that I’m on the edge of a massive panic attack and that I need some fucking space? I scoff. Even if he can, he still wouldn’t release me and if I’m being honest, there’s a part of me that doesn’t want that either. It’s small in this moment and very hard to hear over the blare of the sirens but it’s there.
Outside, he guides me over to a bench a few feet away from the door and we sit down. It’s not any better though. My stomach rolls and a wave of nausea rushes over me as spots dance in front of my vision. Without warning, my mind drifts to how right it felt for him to kiss me in the middle of the dance floor for the whole world to see and I shake my head.
Jesus.
What the hell is wrong with me right now?
I need to get my shit together.
Pulling myself out from under his arm, I lean forward and rest my elbows on my knees and I suck air into my lungs and yell at my galloping heart to chill the fuck out. It doesn’t listen. An image of the two of us standing in the middle of the bar, kissing like the world was ending flashes through my mind and I try to shove it back down but it won’t be easily subdued.
I’m going to pass out.
“Isabelle,” he says, laying his hand on my back and dragging it across my skin gently in a comforting gesture. A wave of relief washes over me from his touch.
Not good.
Very, very not good.
“Was that your grandmother’s letter you were reading earlier?”
I blink, surprised by the change in conversation and surprisingly, it quiets my mind slightly. “Yes.”
“I’m sorry that it was all I could save from your house,” he replies. Frustration is heavy in his voice and my chest aches as I think about him feeling responsible for any of this. If someone is to blame for the fact that I’ve lost everything, it’s me. Me, my big fat mouth, and my slutty ways.
And maybe Conner.
As soon as the name flashes through my mind, my whole body stiffens and I suck in a breath. Nope. I absolutely will not be delving into that hellhole tonight so I shove the thoughts away and take another breath to draw some strength back into my body.
“Don’t apologize, Diego. That letter was everything.”
“What does it say?” he asks, clearing his throat and uncertainty weaves through his words. At least, I think that’s what it is but what the hell could he be feeling wary about? Is it because I’m such a heinous bitch that he’s nervous to ask me anything personal?
God, that makes me feel like shit.
My heart rate has slowed enough that I can breathe a little easier now and relief rushes through me again. Sucking in a breath, I focus on our conversation and pray that everything else will fade into the background.
“In the first page, she talked about my grandpa passing away and how she could feel that her time was coming. She said that I was her legacy and she was proud of what she was leaving behind. Then, she offered me a last piece of life advice to carry with me. The next two pages were the story of her meeting my grandfather and how they fell in love. It was my v
ery favorite thing when I was a kid and she would tell it to me every single night so when she knew she was dying, she wrote it down so I’d always have it.”
When I finish with my story, my mouth is dry and there is a fluttering in my belly as silence surrounds us again. Waiting for his response is torture.
“Will you tell it to me?”
My brow shoots up as I glance back at him over my shoulder. “Their story?”
“Yeah. I’d love to hear it.”
My teeth sink into my bottom lip as my thoughts race as I turn back to stare at the ground. On the one hand, it’s so personal to me - one of the very few things that slices to the very heart of me and I’ve never shared that letter with anyone else. Literally, not a single soul. But this is Diego and there isn’t that feeling of panic when I think about telling their story to him. It’s all the confirmation I need.
“Okay.”
After taking a breath, I launch into the story, telling him about how Lita met a young man who moved in down the street from her parents’ the summer she turned sixteen. She was instantly infatuated with him and it turned out, the feeling was mutual. She always described him as suave and mysterious but I can still remember the way her voice took on a darker tone when she said that. As a kid, I never understood the look in her eye when she talked about him but when I got older, it all made sense to me and my heart ached for her. They dated for six months and she always described their relationship as tumultuous.
We were oil and water, Isabelle.
Never meant to be together.
She’s been gone for so many years but I can still hear her voice clear as day, saying those words with a clear warning on her face.
During those six months, Lita’s feelings for the boy faded but he only grew more obsessed with her, more possessive and controlling and it scared her. Badly. On her seventeenth birthday, he took her out to the county fair and that was where she first saw Papa. She said even from across the road, their eyes met and their connection was instant - like a bolt of electricity striking her. The boy she was with noticed the way her gaze lingered on Papa and he dragged her back to the car before wrapping his hands around her throat and telling her that he would never let her go.
At this point in the story, if Papa was around, he would cut in and tell me how he just had this feeling that he had to follow her and make sure she was okay. When he saw the boy screaming in her face as he choked her, Papa claimed that he blacked out. Next thing he knew, the boy was lying on the ground, beat to hell. Papa had blood on his hands and Lita was on the ground, clutching her neck and sobbing as she looked up at him. It was unlucky that a cop walked by a moment later and arrested Papa on the spot for assault. The boy was well liked in the community and after a sham of a trial, Papa was sentenced to a year in jail for his “crime”.
Lita wanted to reach out and thank Papa for what he had done for her as well as apologize for the fact that he was locked up but her parents forbid her from speaking to him. Not that she listened. She wrote him a letter, expressing her gratitude and how sorry she was for messing up his life, before handing it off to her best friend to mail for her. I don’t think she ever expected to receive a reply from him but the two started writing to each other almost every day and over the next eleven months, they fell in love. During that time, Lita worked as a waitress in the town diner and squirreled away every penny she made so that when Papa got out, they could run away together. She knew her parents would never approve of the two of them but she didn’t care. They were head over heels in love with each other and as soon as he was a free man, they made a break for it.
She always made sure to tell me that it wasn’t easy and they struggled for a long time but their love never wavered and in the hard times, they both clung to that to get them through. Over the years, they had four kids and they built a beautiful life together - one that I admired more than I ever got a chance to appreciate when they were both alive.
“Wow,” Diego says when I finish the story. “That is one hell of a story.”
I smile, Lita’s words flashing through my mind again. “Yes, it is.”
“Can I ask you something though?” he asks and I sit up, leaning into his body again as I take a deep breath. My pulse is finally back to normal and the panic I felt a moment ago is replaced with comfort as he wraps an arm around me.
“Sure.”
“How do you go from idolizing their love story to someone who doesn’t let anyone get close to her?”
I don’t think he meant it as an insult but the words are like a dagger to my chest and I suck in a breath as pain radiates through me. The truth is, I know how this happened but at the same time… I don’t. I mean, obviously I know the events that led to me becoming like this but when I think back to that little girl who listened to this story every night with stars in her eyes, the woman I am now feels foreign. Who I am now is a betrayal to her but I also don’t know how to be any different.
“Izzy?” he whispers, his voice soft. It drags me out of my thoughts and I shake my head as I stare off into the distance.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Fuck.
I didn’t really mean to bite his head off but that’s how it came out and a heavy silence stretches between us, suffocating me.
“Iz, what happened to you?” His voice is soft, trying to coax the information out of me but I can’t. I grit my teeth and shake my head.
“I don’t want to talk about this, Diego.”
“Look, I get that. I really do but I’m not asking just to pry into your life for no reason. We have to raise a kid together and I don’t want to spend the next eighteen years fighting with you so it would help if I understood you because right now, it’s not making sense to me.”
I cross my arms over my chest and shake my head again. “I don’t see how it’s relevant.”
“Oh, come on, Izzy,” he scoffs, rolling his eyes and I turn back to the parking lot, staring at the lights of Baton Rouge past it. I can admit that he has a point but dragging these painful memories from the pit I’ve stored them in isn’t something I can handle. “That’s bullshit. This pain you’re carrying around is going to affect our child and you know it.”
In an instant, my mind flashes to my mother and the agony I watched her go through when I was a kid as a shudder runs through me.
“Did you know I lost my girlfriend five years back?” he asks and I shake my head. I knew that he had been through a lot of shit around that time and that it was what drove him to join the Devils but I never knew specifics. He nods, his face twisting with pain. “She was murdered and it… it fucked me up for a long damn time, Izzy.”
I nod. “I can imagine.”
“No, I’m not sure that you can,” he answers, the sting of agony in his voice as he looks out at the parking lot for a moment before turning back to me. “But that’s beside the point. I’ve been wrestling with that shit for years and it was tearing my life apart.”
“What changed?” I ask, my voice weak and my hands shaking as I peek up at him.
“You.” He reaches up and cups my cheek, his gaze meeting mine and I get the feeling that the move was intentional so I can see just how true his statement was. I recoil at the thought and turn away from him.
“Don’t say that.”
He sighs. “Fine. I won’t say that but it doesn’t make it any less true. When you told me you were pregnant, I knew I had to find a way to move past it so my mind would be right for you and our kid.”
The silence that stretches between us is awkward as hell this time and my mind races, looking for a way out of revealing the truth to him but I’m not coming up with anything good. Sure, I could just outright refuse to tell him why I am the way I am but it wouldn’t be fair and more than anything, I don’t want to be that cold bitch everyone accuses me of being. Especially not with him. Besides, he’s got a damn point, as much as I hate to admit it.
“You want to know what happened to me?” I ask through grit
ted teeth, dropping my hands to my lap, and he nods. My heart hammers against my ribs as the memories are let loose and pain spears through me. “Long story short, I thought I had found the one and I was getting the love story I had heard Lita talk about my whole life so we ran off to Vegas the day after we graduated. We were both eighteen and we were ready to commit our lives to each other. He…”
My words trail off and a shudder runs through me as I try to shove the pain back down but it’s not working. Diego laces his fingers through mine and I suck in a breath as I look over at him.
“He what, baby?”
Tears sting my eyes but that just pisses me off as I turn away from him. “He wasn’t a good guy, okay? And he hurt me more than I even knew someone could hurt another person. After that, I vowed to myself that I would never let a man cause me that kind of pain again. That’s how I went from idolizing my grandparents’ love story to the ice-cold bitch you’re saddled with for the next eighteen years.”
“Isabelle,” he growls and I know he doesn’t like it when I refer to myself like that but maybe it’s time that we both face the facts. I am who I am and it’s not going to change. Before he can say anything else, I yank my hand from his and stand as tears burn my eyes. Clenching my teeth to force the weakness back where it belongs, I rush back into the bar. Ali and Carly look up when I walk in, concern lining their faces. They shove their chairs back and I shake my head as I stalk right past them, making a beeline for the bathroom. I love those girls with my whole damn heart but I don’t want them to see me like this. I’ll apologize when I’m finished but right now, I need somewhere quiet, without an audience, so I can allow myself to fall apart before I shove all of this shit back where it belongs.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Diego
“That’s how I went from idolizing my grandparents’ love story to the ice-cold bitch you’re saddled with for the next eighteen years.”
