“Um… just out for air. I’ll be back soon.”
She looks me over and I can tell she knows something’s up with me. Something she’ll be undoubtedly planning to ask me about later.
She doesn’t get to say anything else because Dante comes up to us and he surprises me by slipping his arm around my waist when he gets to me.
“Hi,” Dante says to Josh and Giselle.
“Hey pal, good to see you. We should meet up for Cuban cigars,” Josh says and Dante nods extending his hand to him to shake.
“Absolutely,” Dante agrees. “Just say when.”
“You bet.”
“We’ll see you guys in there. I just have to speak to Rachel,” Dante says.
He wouldn’t like to know that his arm around me is the only thing holding me up right now.
My damn legs have that jelly like feel again and my chest is tight like someone’s stretching a band over it.
“See you in a bit,” Josh answers.
Dante then ushers me away to where I was heading, out on the terrace, and I’m glad to see I’m right. There’s no one out here but us.
We walk out to the stone balcony and he releases his grip from my waist and steadies me by setting his hands on my shoulders.
I look at him and the gravity of my situation hits me. I’m pregnant. Three weeks pregnant with his child and he doesn’t know.
How am I going to tell him and what is he going to tell me about Marie?
Marie the woman he asked to marry him. Marie the woman he was supposed to spend the rest of his life with.
He’s made no such promises to me.
“Rachel, I wasn’t with Marie… please don’t think that,” he begins.
I open my mouth to say something but I feel hot and cold at the same time. “I didn’t know she was coming. I guess she’s entitled to come but I … didn’t know.”
“Me neither. Your father invited her because of the donation she made and she wanted to talk to me.”
He releases his hold on me and the loss of support makes me even more unstable.
“Why did she want to talk to you? Maybe it’s none of my business to ask but it looked like she was talking to you about something important.” I saw that much. When I first saw them Marie looked like she was in the middle of telling him something heartfelt.
The tentative look that’s crossed his face is a tell that I’m right.
“She was. It was important to her. Rachel I didn’t tell you this before because I didn’t think I needed to, but tonight shows that I should have. I saw her a few weeks back and she came to ask me if I’d give her another chance.”
I hang my head down when I hear that, willing myself not to cry. It’s hard to command such a thing when I feel like shit already.
“Rachel,” he says my name but I can’t look at him. I can’t look at him and remember him saying he can’t be with me because the love of his life just came back to him and he wants her instead of me. I can’t do it. “Rachel, Princesa.” He cups my face and guides my gaze back to his.
I can’t stop the tear that tracks down my cheek, and I can’t stop the rest from falling either.
“Don’t… don’t say it. I get it.” I nod and try to move away but he takes my shoulders again.
“Rachel, no. You don’t get it. I’m not going back to her. If I were to… we’d break up for the same reasons we broke up before,” he says and I see the flicker in his eyes of something I’ve always wanted to see.
It’s like he’s opened the door and I need to go inside. He’s given me a clear path to ask a question so I do.