"Carina, everything you do is my business."
I turned and stopped just inches from his face.
"Oh yeah? Since when?"
"Since now. Since right fucking now," Brando growled, towering over me. I tilted my head back to stare up at him, not moving even though his chest was only inches from my face.
"Enough." I tugged at my wrist and he released me. "I just want you to leave me alone."
"Bullshit, Carina. I call bullshit on everything." The fury on his face didn't match the gentleness of his hand as it moved slowly up my arm, his thumb caressing my collarbone. "You want me as badly as I want you." His finger skimmed the curve of my neck, then the line of my jaw. "I'll tell you how I know this." He lifted my wrist and pressed a soft kiss to the freshly traced letters of his name.
Oh God.
A cowbell clanged loudly from behind the bar, and I turned my head to the direction of the noise. Fox rang the bell for big tippers. The bar patrons seemed to get a kick out of the attention.
The sound wasn’t exactly a boom, but it was close enough. I couldn’t argue with Brando’s accusation, so I stepped away to clear my head. My legs felt wobbly as I slid into an empty booth, then scooted over as he sat beside me.
"First, I need to clear something up about Rosie." He grabbed my hand and laced his fingers with mine. "I can't explain why she did that."
I sent him a sideways glance, hating the mention of that girl.
"The best I can come up with is that she came into my room while I was asleep and borrowed a shirt. I didn't know she was even in the house, much less in my bathroom." It explained why he looked surprised. Would he have allowed me into his room if he'd known Rosie was in there? He might have been a lot of things, but he wouldn't flaunt a relationship with another woman in my face.
"Have the two of you ever...?" I couldn't finish the question, but he knew what I was asking because he turned to face me, his expression solemn.
"No. Never." It wasn't a very detailed explanation, and honestly, I didn't want one. I had his story, and I believed him. The ache in my chest started to lift. The idea of him being with anyone else had almost killed me. Since we were sharing truths, I felt it was my turn to confess something to him.
"I have something to tell you, too," I said quietly, then pulled my phone out of my apron. Brando's back stiffened, but he didn't speak. "You're right. I was in Mexico."
"Why?" Brando asked, and I scrolled through my phone until I found what I wanted to show him.
"This is Sebastian. He's three, almost four years old, and he's my son." I held up the photo I'd taken of Bash and me before I left for the airport. Brando's expression hardly changed. He didn't seem at all surprised over what I revealed. "You knew already, didn't you?"
He inclined his head.
"Some of it." Brando studied the photo. "He looks like you. Why didn't you tell me about him?"
I'd spent the entire trip home trying to come up with an answer for that inevitable question, and I kept coming back to the same response.
"Because it would've forced me to explain why he wasn't with me and how much of a shitty mother I had been to allow my life to get so out of control." The look on Brando’s face made me want to cry. He should have been angry at me for being a liar. Maybe even looking down on me, judging me. Instead, there was acceptance in his eyes. I talked, and he listened to all of it. My parents' divorce, Mexico, Miguel, Bash...the night I was shot.
Everything.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Brando
When Carina was done, we were sitting on the sofa in her apartment, having long left the restaurant.
"Wow." I leaned back against the cushions, tilting my head to the ceiling. She sat beside me in silence, looking completely drained after spilling everything she'd been holding in. I'd also felt something too. Relief. It was all out in the open. No longer a mysterious secret that had been keeping us apart.
"The first thing we're going to do is get in touch with this lawyer in Tennessee. Even if we have to go there and track him down ourselves." I'd never been more determined about anything in my life. I wanted to fix this for her.
"We?" she repeated with uncertainty.
"Yes. We." I grabbed her hands, pulling her in my arms. She blinked up then swallowed several times, as if she were trying
to find her voice.