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usually dysfunctional.” Despite her comments, she’d been seriously
considering his suggestion.
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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.”
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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.”
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“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
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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 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]