“Do you remember our first date?”
The change of subject surprised her. She nodded.
A wry smile lifted a corner of his mouth. “What a mess. I had left my wallet at my apartment, and I didn’t have any money to cover the meal. You had to put it on the credit card your father gave you for emergencies.”
She remembered it well. He’d been so embarrassed and upset. “You paid me back.”
“My car broke down, and we had to walk part of the way until we could get to a phone, and I could call one of my friends to pick us up.”
She had left her cell phone at home so her father couldn’t reach her. She remembered the night in vivid detail. It was the night of their first kiss—and the night she had fallen in love with him.
She had felt safe with him as they walked the dark streets. He’d been a big man even then, though now he was more muscular after years of conditioning.
“It gave us time to talk, and you held my hand the entire way,” she said.
He laughed dryly and shook his head.
Rebekah realized what she recollected as fond memories were not the same for him. His macho pride had taken a beating that night.
“None of that mattered to me,” she said softly. “All I cared about was being with you.”
“I know.” He smiled down at her. “But now, I can afford the things I couldn’t before. I can take care of you and Ricardo the way you deserve.”
Rebekah shook her head. “I don’t want a dime from you. My attorney understands how I feel. You don’t owe me anything because you did this on your own. Just take care of Ricky.”
“Not many women would feel that way, Rebekah. You do know I’m rich now, don’t you?” He grinned, and the reappearance of his dimples made her heart race.
“I know.”
He shifted and shoved his hands deep into his pockets.
“Tomorrow night, I’m going to spoil you.”
“Rafe—”
“I want to.”
She smiled. “Well…it just so happens I love to be spoiled.”
“Good. I’ll make the reservations.”
Then, as if he didn’t want to give her time to change her mind, he made his way out of the kitchen.
Rebekah slowly released her breath. Dinner with Rafael, alone. It would be the first time they would spend an extended period alone together since their arrival in California. Under normal circumstances, Ricardo was always nearby, and she and Rafael usually went their separate ways early in the evening.
Tomorrow night, for the first time, it would be just the two of them.
Chapter Twelve
Rebekah leaned toward the mirror in her bedroom to apply mascara and eyeliner. She had used a curling iron to add large curls to her hair and then pinned the thick tresses atop her head, making them look messy, yet neat at the same time. The black-and-white wraparound dress she wore was one of the few dresses she’d brought to California. With the addition of minimal jewelry and high-heeled sandals, she was ready for the evening out with Rafael.
She and Rafael had fallen into comfortable conversation earlier during the day, bantering back and forth with ease. The day they spent on the beach near the pier had been enjoyable and made them more relaxed around each other. Only once had there been cause for tension, and it had occurred when a fan wanted to take a photo of Rafael while he played with Ricardo. He told the man in no uncertain terms he did not have permission to take a picture of his son, and he made him wait until Ricardo moved out of the range of the shot.
Rebekah peeked in on Ricardo. The amber glow of the nightlight was enough for her to see he was comfortably under the covers, flat on his back, arms spread wide across the bed.
She quietly closed the door and walked toward the living room where she knew Rafael waited. They would soon be off for a late dinner in a private dining room at Spago Beverly Hills, the flagship restaurant of famed chef and restaurateur, Wolfgang Puck. Lydia would stay with Ricardo until their return.
Rafael wore a dark suit and stood in the living room looking out at the view. Their eyes met in the reflection in the wall of windows and he turned around.
“I’m ready,” Rebekah said, smoothing damp palms over the material of her dress. She felt as if they were going on another first date.
Rafael’s gaze flicked over her, but he didn’t say a word. “Let’s go then. The limo’s waiting.” He walked past her to open the front door, and the scent of sandalwood wafted up into her nostrils.
She swallowed back her disappointment when he didn’t comment on her appearance, but her disappointment was short-lived. As they walked to the waiting car, his hand came to rest against the small of her back, filling her body with warmth and turning her lower limbs to jelly.
He leaned toward her, so close the light brush of his lips tickled her ear. “You look lovely tonight,” he said in a low rumble. “I’m going to have to fight to keep other men away from you.”
Rebekah smiled and cast him a coquettish look. “That won’t be necessary,” she said before slipping into the car. She crossed her legs, avoiding his smoldering gaze.
“Why is that?” His hand slid along the top of the leather seat and she felt him wrap a loose curl around his finger.
“You have to ask?” Their playful banter was escalating.
The driver closed the door, and Rafael leaned closer, his eyes glittering with interest in the dark interior. “Is it because you’re all mine tonight?” he asked in a husky whisper.
Warmth crept into her cheeks. She swallowed as excitement swept through her. “Rafe—”
His fingers slipped from her hair and encircled the back of her neck, stemming the flow of words. The warmth of the contact of skin against skin surged down her torso and settled in her pelvis.
“We’ll move as fast or as slow as you want, Rebekah, but we both know the outcome will be the same.” His hooded gaze lowered to her lips. “It’s inevitable, and there’s nothing wrong with it.”
“It’s still a bad idea to sleep with each other to satisfy a biological need. As if—as if we’re two people in the middle of an affair instead of a divorce.”
“There are people who are divorced who still get together every now and again and have sex. Did you know that?” He said it as if he were educating her about a solution to a science equation.
“Did you know we’re not those people? Those types of situations are usually dysfunctional.” Despite her comments, she’d been seriously considering his suggestion.
His hand fell away and he straightened in the seat. “I don’t think our situation will be dysfunctional,” he said in a firm tone.
* * * *
When they arrived at the restaurant, they entered through a side door, and one of the staff ushered them down a hallway toward the private dining room Rafael had reserved.
After the server took their order, Rebekah took a sip of water, her choice of beverage for the evening.
Her gaze roved around the dimly lit space painted in rich brown and a deep gold color. Their small table sat in the middle of a room large enough to accommodate several tables. One wall made of frosted glass provided privacy while, at the same time, allowing additional light to enter the room.
“Are you enjoying your stay in California so far?” Rafael asked.
Rebekah nodded. “Will your schedule be slowing down this week?”
“Yes. I want to spend more time with Ricardo. Before you know it, the summer will be over.”
“He’ll like that. He adores you.”
He smiled, as if to himself. “I can’t imagine my life without him. What was he like as a baby?”
Rebekah groaned. “Awful. I barely got any sleep the last couple of months before he was born. He moved around so much. It was as if he couldn’t wait to get out!”
Rafael chuckled. “So he’s been a bundle of energy since his time in the womb?”
“Definitely. Once he started walking, that was the end of my peace of mind. And he had an
obsession with paper, so I had to keep my textbooks and homework up high so he couldn’t tear them up. I would give him old magazines to tear apart instead.” Rebekah noted the wistful look in Rafael’s eyes. She swallowed. “You know, when he was a toddler, I tried to reach you one more time. But…well, your people wouldn’t let me talk to you directly.”
Rafael frowned. “The only people I had was Marty, and he would’ve told me if you’d called.”
“I didn’t speak to Marty. I spoke to that horrible woman who worked for him. She wouldn’t let me speak to you or Marty, and she more or less told me I could take a number.”
“What?”
“She…” Rebekah stared at him as a disgusting thought entered her mind. “Don’t tell me—you were sleeping with her, weren’t you?”
“I wasn’t sleeping with her,” he bit out.
“But that didn’t stop her from seeing me as a threat.” Rebekah lifted her hand to her mouth. “Oh my God,” she said in a barely audible whisper.
“Don’t, Rebekah.”
“Really?” She shook her head in disgust. It had been so humiliating as she tried to get the woman to allow her to speak to Rafael. “I’m not allowed to get mad because some woman who had the hots for you wouldn’t give you the message that you’re the father of my child? Even if she didn’t believe me, the bi—” Rebekah took a calming breath and fisted her hand on top of the table. “The woman could have at least told you just in case I was telling the truth—which I was.”
“There were other ways to get in touch with me if you really wanted to. You could have hired a lawyer to gain access to me.”
He made it sound so easy. He wasn’t the one who’d had to beg for an audience. “I didn’t want anything from you.”
Rafael sat back. His eyes flashed in anger. “Why would you when you could run home to your daddy? Our life didn’t live up to your standards, so you went back to Atlanta the first chance you got and used my traveling as an excuse.”
Rebekah’s mouth fell open. “How dare you accuse me of something like that? I did not run home. I went to visit my parents. You were gone for weeks at a time.”
“You could have come with me.”
“I didn’t want to.”
“Sí. Comprendo ahora. It’s always whatever Rebekah wants, right? You didn’t want to come, so you didn’t. You didn’t want me to know you were pregnant, so I didn’t. Ricardo is my son, and he and I should’ve known each other right from the beginning. I should have been lying next to you at night when you couldn’t sleep.”
“How exactly would that have worked?” Rebekah asked with saccharine sweetness. “We only had a full-size bed. Where were the other women going to sleep?”
Rafael slammed his large fist onto the table, and Rebekah jumped involuntarily. The sound was so loud she assumed the only reason the table hadn’t broken apart was because he hadn’t intended for it to.
“All right, here we go,” the server said, smiling as she brought in their salads.
Rebekah turned her attention to the young woman, ignoring Rafael’s glare from across the table.
After placing a plate in front of each of them, the server held up a pepper mill and asked, “Pepper?” They waved it away and she left them alone again.
“Look at us,” Rebekah said. “We can’t even have a civil conversation without Ricky as a buffer between us. We keep throwing up the past and we’re hurting each other. He’s the only good thing between us, and we need to focus on working together for his sake.”
Rafael clenched his silverware. “We can’t fix this, can we?”
“No, we can’t.” Rebekah distanced herself from thoughts of reconciliation. That wasn’t what she wanted anyway, was it? “Why even talk about fixing anything? We can’t go back in time and change our behavior. It’s over, Rafe. It’s been over. We were young and impulsive, and we made mistakes.”
“So there’s no point in trying again?” His voice was quiet. He watched her intently.
Rebekah looked down at her plate. “We have too much baggage—from each other. Even if we could try again, I don’t want your life. I don’t want people writing stories about me every time I go to the grocery store. I don’t want my son photographed at school and afraid to play in the yard because paparazzi are hiding nearby trying to get a picture of him. What kind of life is that?” She sighed. “The life you’re living is so different from us. How can you protect him when he’s here with you in California?”
“The same way I’ve been doing since you arrived. There are no guarantees, Rebekah, but you don’t have to live in fear for his safety.” He stabbed the vegetables on his plate with his fork. He stared down at his salad, and the heavy movement of his chest indicated he still struggled to calm down.
Their ruined meal was continued in silence. When the server returned with their dinner, she asked if the salads were okay because they were hardly touched. They assured her everything was fine, and she set the meals on the table and disappeared again after checking to make sure they didn’t need anything else.
“Did you ever do drugs?” Rebekah asked.
“No. Despite what that article said, only a few of the wrestlers I knew did the hard-core stuff, but a lot of them popped painkillers like candy. They needed them to get past the pain of their injuries.”
Rebekah pushed the chicken around on her plate. “Why did you quit?”
When he lifted his eyes, she was shocked by the sadness in their bleak depths. He thought for a moment before he answered.
“A few years ago, my wrestling contract was getting close to renewal. I was making a lot of money for the WWE. My action figures, T-shirts, pencils, everything sold well. Marty and I discussed a couple of options to get me more money. He planned to negotiate a salary increase for me and a greater percentage of the proceeds from the sales of merchandise with my image and name.
“Around the same time, there was this kid—well, not a kid, really. He was twenty-one or twenty-two, about the same age I was when I started in professional wrestling.” He frowned, and she realized he wasn’t really looking at her. His gaze looked through her. “I have to laugh sometimes when people say wrestling is fake. The blood is real, the punches are real, the body slams are real. It’s choreographed, and we practice our moves to make sure we get them right, but there’s nothing fake about what we do. The problem is, no matter how much you rehearse, mistakes still happen.”
He swallowed, and Rebekah feared his next words. She stared at him, holding her breath, not daring to interrupt because she wanted to hear what he had to say as much as he needed to tell it.
“Poor Little Rich Kid was his stage name. He came from a wealthy family and didn’t want to go into their business, so he went into wrestling instead.” Rafael laughed shortly and shook his head in disbelief. “When he made his entrance, he would hand out one and five dollar bills to the audience. Rich was going to be a star, and we all knew it.
“One night, he and another wrestler were in the ring, giving a great performance. The other wrestler lifted Rich upside down to drop him on his head in a move called the Tombstone piledriver. The key is to keep your opponent’s head above your knees, so when you drop to your knees, his head doesn’t actually hit the mat. It didn’t work that night. His hold on Rich slipped, and instead of his knees hitting the canvas mat first, Rich’s head hit first. He broke his neck. Rich became permanently paralyzed from the neck down.”
Rebekah gasped. She lost what little appetite she had left.
The sound caused Rafael to focus on her again. “Before that, I never seriously considered the danger of what I did. Because of what happened to Rich, I told Marty I wanted out and wouldn’t renew my contract. He tried to convince me to stick it out a few more years, but once my contract ended, I retired.”
* * * *
They struggled through the rest of the evening, talking about mundane topics. They didn’t argue again, but something had changed. Rebekah barely mustered any excitement when the
restaurant owner, Wolfgang Puck, came in on one of his surprise visits to the restaurant to greet diners.
Later, she couldn’t recall the taste of a single morsel of what she ate. As Rafael and Wolfgang chatted amicably, she thought about how many times he’d risked getting hurt in cage matches, flying off the top of the ring ropes, taking blows to his body with chairs, and who knew what else he’d done.
Compared to other popular wrestlers, his career had been a short one. Although relieved he was no longer fighting, nausea still settled in her stomach at what he must have gone through over the years. He could have been the victim in a botched maneuver. The thought terrified her so much her heart raced.
Rebekah couldn’t ignore the meaning of the physical reaction she experienced at the thought of Rafael getting hurt. She took off the blinders and admitted the truth.
She was still in love with her husband.
Chapter Thirteen
Back at the house, Rebekah sat with her arms wrapped tightly around her knees in bed, staring at the painting on the opposite wall. She couldn’t get the conversation with Rafael at Spago out of her mind.
Filled with guilt, she wanted to go to him and express her regret for not trying harder to get in touch with him and tell him about Ricardo. She wanted to tell him how sorry she was she hadn’t been more supportive of his career choice.
Tears filled her eyes, and she squeezed them shut, pressing her face to her knees. She fought the urge to feel close to him, to make love to him. Desire flooded her veins, heightened by the thought of him getting hurt or permanently damaged.
In truth, she wanted a little bit of what she’d lost nine years ago. She wanted the pleasure and the passion, even if she didn’t have his undying love. She needed to see him, touch him, hold him, but she was paralyzed by the fear of rejection. Would he forgive her angry words at dinner?
Would he care if she told him she still loved him?
* * * *
Rafael had stripped out of his shirt and jacket as soon as he could. He sat on the sofa in the sitting area of his bedroom, his bare feet crossed at the ankles and resting on top of the coffee table, clothed in only the trousers he’d worn to dinner.
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