by Lena North
When they had decided to take a break? What the hell?
“You were on the pill.”
“There’s always that small chance they fail.”
Chance? He would have phrased it as a risk, but he wasn’t going to argue with her.
“Okay. I’ll do right by you and the child, Mimi. You know I will. We’ll figure it all out, and I’ll pay for –”
“Do you want your child to be a bastard?”
She sounded hard suddenly, and he didn’t like the look in her eyes.
“What?”
“I know you’re sniffing around her. Dupree’s bastard. And that’s fine. We were on a break, that’s all. I’ll forgive you, but we both know it isn’t right. A child shouldn’t be raised like that.”
Sniffing around Charlie? Was she insane? Charlie had been in his bed every night for the past two weeks which was a bit more than sniffing to him. Oh, God. Charlie.
“What do you mean?” he asked cautiously.
“If you want your child to be a bastard, then you won’t be the father.”
His whole body froze, and they stared at each other in silence.
“Mimi, don’t do this,” he pleaded quietly.
“What we had was good, and we’ll find that again. We’ll build a family together.”
“No.”
“Yes.” She straightened her back and looked calmly at him. “I really hoped it wouldn’t have to come to this, but I can see that you’re going to be difficult. Here’s what I have decided, Joao; You won’t talk to that girl alone again. I will move into your house, and we will raise the child, and any other children we have together as a couple.”
It felt like his whole world narrowed and all he could see was the ugly, angry look in her eyes.
“If I refuse?”
“I will find someone else to marry me, and he will be that child’s father. Not you. I’ll lie on the birth certificate.”
He watched her and tried to think about what to do, but his mind was blank.
“Mimi…”
She told him again what she expected from him and he tried to reason with her, but she wasn’t in the least receptive to any arguments. They were heading into an ugly fight when she suddenly calmed down.
“You have no options, Joao. You made a child with me and I’ve told you what that means for us.”
Shit.
“I need to think about this, Mimi,” he said hoarsely.
“You can do it in the car. They’re all waiting for you at your uncle Nicholas’ house.”
“What?”
“I told them you’d asked them to meet you there.”
“Them?”
God. Fuck. He knew what she’d done.
“Your brother, cousins, aunts, and uncles. And that girl. We will walk in there together and announce that we’ll be parents in six months.”
“No,” he said. “If that’s your deal then, no. I’ll drag you through the courts if I have to, but you aren’t walking in there with me.”
He couldn’t do that to Charlie. He’d have to find a way to talk to her.
“I don’t want you talking to her,” Mimi said, reading the look on his face accurately.
“You will stay here, and I’ll go alone. In return, I promise I won’t talk to her alone.”
That was the best he could think of, and either Tina or Roark could be there with them. She must have seen that he wouldn’t budge because she sighed and shrugged.
“Alright. You get your way this time.”
This time? Jesus.
“I’ll be back,” he muttered and walked out of the house.
As he closed the door, he saw what he hadn’t spotted as he walked inside. Charlie’s bag stood on his front porch. What the hell? Mimi had already been inside and packed her things.
***
“Sunshine, I’m so sorry,” he said hoarsely.
The others were moving restlessly around him, but he couldn’t look away from her beautiful eyes. She pressed her lips together slightly and straightened her back.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “We’ll just –”
“There’s more,” he said, and she closed her eyes briefly. “Mimi made some pretty specific demands. I can’t talk to you alone, and –” He swallowed and made himself push out the words. “She wants us to raise the child together. As a couple. If I don’t agree, she’ll marry someone else and say it’s their child.”
Charlie’s eyes filled with tears and he reached for her. She moved backward slightly, and his hand fell down to the side.
He’d lost her.
“Is she insane?” Tina shrieked. “She won’t find anyone who will agree to that.”
“Oh, but she will,” Roark snarled. “I can think of at least ten men, and none of them good men, who would love to raise Joao Torres’ child. Either from spite or because of the abilities the child will inherit from him.”
“We’ll talk to a lawyer,” Nicholas murmured. “Surely –”
“Excuse me,” Charlie murmured and moved toward the front door.
“Roark, with me,” Joao said, commanding his brother in a way he rarely did.
She’d stopped outside and was watching the view over the ocean.
“Sunshine,” he said.
“You can’t call me that anymore.”
He wanted to slam his fist into the wall and howl out his anger and frustration, but she turned, and he just stood there.
“We only had a few weeks, Joao. It’ll be a memory to cherish, but it’ll be just that. A memory.”
“No,” he protested.
“Yes,” she said firmly. “You know what you have to do, and I hate her, but I respect you for the choice you’ll make.” He wanted to tell her they’d fight, but she raised her hand and kept talking. “You know how I grew up, so you know I’m the one on the Islands who’ll respect your choice the most. Stay with her, and you lose me. But if you drag this to court, it’ll take years, and the only one who’s hurt is a child who grows up without a father. And you’ll lose me if you put your child through that. So, either way, we lost the second she got pregnant.” She swallowed, and her eyes filled with tears which hung in her long lashes. “We never had a chance.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said, feeling inadequate and stupid.
He knew she was right, but the pain shooting through his chest was so sharp he didn’t think he’d be able to breathe through it.
“So am I,” she whispered. “I’m happy we didn’t know. I’ve had the best weeks of my life with you.”
“Charlie…”
“Now, stay away from me.”
She turned and then Dupree walked past him. He put an arm around her shoulders and steered her toward his car.
“I need a job,” Charlie said quietly. “Can you help me find one?”
“Don’t be a fool, girl. We could use help at the bar.” Dupree made a pause and added, “I’ll put sheets on the bed in my guest bedroom.”
“Okay,” she whispered, stumbled a little which made Dupree tighten his grip around her shoulders.
He murmured something in her ear, and she straightened again and nodded. Then she was in her father’s car, and they disappeared down the hill. Joao closed his eyes and stood there, clenching his fists so hard it hurt. Someone came walking along the street, so he turned abruptly, moved through the house where his family was talking quietly, and kept walking over the big lawn.
When he’d reached the far end, he sat down with his back toward the house, bent his legs and put his arms around them. His throat was so tight it hurt to breathe, and he tried to hold himself together, but it felt like his whole being had shattered into small pieces that he wasn’t sure he’d ever manage to glue back together. After a while, he leaned his head down between his knees, and let the tears come.
“Oh, buddy,” Roark said quietly and sat down next to him.
He felt Tina’s arm around his shoulde
rs.
“Shit,” he ground out.
“We’ll find a way,” she murmured.
He shook his head and focused on breathing. They were silent for a while and slowly, he calmed down, and wiped his cheeks.
“It would have been hard for Charlie either way,” Roark said quietly.
“No. She would have handled it if Mimi hadn’t made her fucking demands on me.”
“You don’t know that,” Tina said.
“Yes, I do,” he said. “We talked about you and Thea asking me to help you have a child. She said I should do it. Said the only thing it meant was that any children I had would have another sibling. Offered to go with me to the clinic to provide… incentive in case I needed it.”
He tried to make is sound like a joke, but they didn’t laugh, and neither did he. Slowly, tears started running down Tina’s cheeks.
“We were telling you tomorrow.”
“Joao –”
“Can’t do it, Tina,” he said softly. “Not now, not when…” He didn’t know what to say when he saw the pain in her eyes, so he was quiet for a while. “You should ask one of the other cousins.”
“We’ll wait. We’ll find a way out of this shit, Joao.”
He looked away and tightened his jaws to stop himself from bawling again. They hadn’t seen Mimi so they couldn’t know. She would never change her mind.
“Fuck,” he said after a while and leaned his head down between his knees again. “I need to be alone for a while.”
“No, you don’t,” Roark said and put an arm around him.
Tina held him from the other side, and he breathed deeply, trying to tell himself she was right. There would be a way out of the hell his life had shifted into. Trying to feel happiness about an unborn child who hadn’t done anything to deserve his anger and grief. Knowing Mimi would never let him go, and because of who he was, he couldn’t let go of the child.
He’d always wanted a big family and what he had in front of him was a single child and a woman in his house he wasn’t sure he’d ever forgive.
***
Mimi waited in his living room when he came home, smiling happily at him as if nothing was wrong.
“Welcome home,” she said calmly.
Through the door to his bedroom, he saw two big suitcases.
What the actual fuck?
He walked across the room, grabbed the bags and carried them into the small guest bedroom. Then he started gathering up his things from the desk because he rarely had guests, so he used the room as an office.
“Joao?” Mimi asked.
“I’ll be done in a minute,” he murmured.
“What?”
Was she insane?
“Are you sure this is how you want to do this? I promise to always be a part of my child’s life even if you and I aren’t living in the same house.”
“I’m not raising a child without that child’s father by my side. If you’re not up for the job, then I’ll find someone else.”
He wasn’t going to let someone else raise his kid. He couldn’t do it because it would be his child, but there was the part about his legacy to consider as well. He’d never talked to Mimi about it, and he wouldn’t. He also couldn’t take the risk that another man raised the child. Cursing his own stupidity for trusting her when she’d said she was on the pill, and for not checking that she took the goddamned thing every day, he picked the last binders up from the small desk. They had been serious in a way he’d almost proposed to her, but still. His father had repeatedly emphasized the importance of using condoms to both his sons, and they’d sighed and rolled their eyes as they told him they would. How could he have been such a fool?
He’d lost Charlie because of his idiocy, and now he needed to make that loss count. For himself and for the son or daughter who was innocent in all of this.
“If this is how you want to do it then you leave me with no choice,” he said as calmly as he could.
“Good.”
“But you’re sleeping in here. You’ll also step back and let me be. This is not what I want, and I’m going to need time to come to terms with it.” He remembered Dupree’s words, and added, “And you will not go to the bar anymore.”
“What?” she gasped.
The bar was where everyone met, and Mimi hadn’t been a regular, but she went there with her friends, and they’d been there together several times when they dated.
“Take it or leave it,” he said and waited for her to protest.
Hoping she’d tell him to go to hell.
“Okay,” she said, but added, “We’ll start out like this, Joao. What we had was good, and we’ll find our way back again.”
Yes. She was insane.
“Huh,” he said, and carried his papers into his bedroom, closed the door and locked it.
Then he sank down on the bed and spent the night staring into the darkness outside, until the sun slowly shifted the shadows into gray.
“Oh, Sunshine,” he whispered hoarsely.
Then he took a shower, got dressed and went to the station, hoping something really shitty happened that day. Something, anything, which would require all his focus, so he didn’t have time to think.
Chapter Thirteen
Papi
Charlie
I told Joao to stay away from me, and it hurt so bad I wanted to scream. Then Dupree’s arm came around my shoulders, holding me up when it felt as if I’d crumble into a pile of pain and anger right in front of the one who had said the words causing the agony.
I didn’t blame Joao. How could I when he was doing the right thing? I blamed Mimi. I didn’t own any spiky heeled sandals, but if she’d been there, I would have borrowed a pair and stomped a heel into her feet. Both of them. How could she do something like this? I wouldn’t have caused any problems for her, and Joao would have been a part of his child’s life. What had we done to make her act like this?
Dupree moved me toward his car, and it hit me that I was walking away from Joao for the last time. My knees went out under me, and he tightened his grip.
“Hold it together, girl. I’ll have you at my place in a few minutes. Find your pride and walk out of here with your head held high.”
I nodded and pretended I was strong. Pretended this wasn’t happening and that I’d wake up any second to find it was only a nightmare.
He shuffled me into his house, gave me a set of sheets and told me to make the bed.
“I’ll sort the bar, back in a minute,” he said, and then I was alone.
The sheets were a pale blue, and I stared at them. They were the same color as Joao’s eyes.
When that thought hit me, I went down on my knees, hugging the stupid fabric to my chest, trying to breathe through pain so sharp I thought I’d die. A soft wail slipped out, and I bent my head down into my arms. Then the tears came, and I wept for what I’d lost a just a few minutes earlier. The beauty of us. We’d only had a few weeks together, but it had been good. So good I’d thought it would last forever. I’d forgotten that nothing ever did.
“Baby,” Dupree murmured and crouched next to me. “I know.”
“I can’t breathe,” I gasped. “I can’t, Dupree…”
He lifted me from the floor as if I weighed nothing and carried me outside. His back porch was shielded by large bushes on the sides, but it faced the water, and he sank down in a low deck-chair with me in his arms.
“Slow and easy, Charlie,” he murmured in my ear. “Feel the scent from the ocean. Pull in a breath now.”
I tried, and it was hitched, but I got air into my lungs.
“There you go. Another one.”
Slowly, I found my breath again, and he held me through it, murmuring soft words I barely heard. Then the tears came again, and I shoved my face into the curve where his neck met the shoulder and sobbed. I cried until I had no more tears and we sat in silence. It should feel weird to sit on his lap when I was a grown-up, and he
was the father I hadn’t known existed, but I needed someone to hold me together, and he gave me that.
“Thank you,” I murmured finally.
“You’re welcome,” he said. “Better?”
“No.”
“You’ll get through this.”
I didn’t tell him I would because I wasn’t sure I’d ever feel okay again, and I didn’t want to lie to him.
“I hate her,” I whispered.
“You and me both,” he said calmly.
“Is it really okay if I stay with you for a while?” I asked and felt him nod.
I couldn’t live with Nicholas and Pauline. They weren’t related to Mimi and hadn’t even seemed to like her, but I couldn’t go back to my room there. I’d seen Joao for the first time in that room. Had talked to him on the phone there. We’d had dinner in the courtyard. He’d kissed me outside their front door.
The tears started running down my cheeks again, and his arms tightened.
“I’m sorry,” I sobbed.
“Cry as much as you need, sweetie. Hold on to me, and we’ll get you through this.”
I cried, and then I stared at the ocean, and then I cried again. I must have fallen asleep after a while because when I opened my eyes, Bananas was in a chair next to us and Lippy was sitting on the deck, leaning against the house.
“Why aren’t you at the bar?” I asked brokenly.
“It’s morning,” Ban said roughly.
I turned my head around and saw that the night was shifting into gray.
“You’ve been sitting here all night with me?”
“Of course,” Lippy murmured.
I felt my eyes sting with tears again but pushed them back and looked at Dupree.
“Thank you,” I said. “Your backside must really hurt.”
His mouth twitched, and his face softened.
“Haven’t felt it for a few hours. I’m good.”
I straightened and crawled out of his arms.
“I –” My breath hitched again, but I swallowed and straightened my back. “Maybe it’s better if I go back to Prosper.”
“No,” Dupree said immediately. “Your family is here, and you’ll stay.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Ban growled. “You are not leaving.”
