LITMIR.BIZ

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trying to fit work around her schedule, but since she doesn’t really have a schedule—”

      “Why don’t you get some rest while I look after her?” The blunt words cut across her floundering and the hard look in his eyes had softened slightly, but the tension level between them remained high.

      This was classic Vincente. Like a seasoned boxer, he knew how to cause a distraction before delivering the knockout blow. “I thought you wanted to talk?”

      There was a razor edge to his smile. “Okay. Go. Tell me why I wasn’t even worth a call or a message.”

      Beth wanted to go to him. To take his face in her hands and tell him how much he meant to her, how much their time together had meant. But although he looked like Vincente, he was a stranger. A hard, cold man who had put up a barrier between them. And she knew that, no matter what she said, it would only push him further behind that barricade.

      “There is nothing I can say to make this right.”

      Even behind the anger, she could see Vincente’s pain. In the past, she’d have known how to take the hurt away. This time, she was the cause. The knowledge caused tiny shards of ice to pierce her heart.

      “You don’t get off that lightly, Beth.” She could see his muscles bunched tight beneath his T-shirt as he held his fists clenched. “This isn’t like that time you drove my car into the wall and forgot to tell me. Or when I smashed that old china cat.”

      That was it. Vincente had always known how to get to her. Despite her determination to stay calm, Beth felt anger crashing through her. How dare he bring up past hurts at a time like this?

      “You mean the antique figurine my grandmother left me? The one you broke and didn’t tell me? The one I found in pieces in the trash?”

      “Exactly.” There was triumph in his eyes. “This isn’t anything so trivial. This is about how we made another person and you didn’t even bother to call me.”

      To her horror, Beth felt tears burn the back of her eyelids. When she tried to speak again, her lips trembled and her voice refused to work. Vincente started to speak again, but she held up a hand.

      “No more.” The word was little more than a croak and she struggled to get her voice back under control. Pointing to Lia, she shook her head. “Not in front of her.” She took a deep breath. “And you’re right. I’m tired.”

      His expression was grim, but she saw a glimmer of understanding in his eyes. “So do what I suggested. Get some rest.” The inflexible note was still there. “Because we are having this conversation, Beth. Whether you want it or not.”

      Flustered, she tried to hit on a reason to refuse that didn’t involve going straight to ordering him out of her house. “She doesn’t settle easily with people she doesn’t know.” Since Lia was curled comfortably into the crook of his arm, that excuse wasn’t going to work. “You’re not used to children.”

      “No, I’m not, but you’ll only be upstairs. You’re dead on your feet, Beth. I’m worried about you.” In place of the continuing tempest, the unexpectedly gentle note in his voice shook her equilibrium even further.

      She remembered that knack he had of catching her off guard. He was right. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept for more than an hour or two at a stretch. If she didn’t get some rest soon, she would fall down. And what use would she be if she was exhausted? If she didn’t meet tomorrow’s deadline, she would lose her job. She was already behind with the rent...

      The situation was ridiculous. How many times had she pictured meeting Vincente again? Not once had the imaginary conversations she had conducted in her head included him offering to babysit. And behind the concern, she knew—because who knew him better than she did?—that his anger that was still waiting to be unleashed.

      “Let me do this, Beth.” A persuasive note in his voice, the one she hated because he used it to get her to do just about anything he wanted, made an appearance. “For old times’ sake.”

      “I can’t believe you just said that.” She rolled her eyes.

      He laughed. “Nor can I. The shock must have gone to my head.”

      “Okay.” She had never thought of Vincente Delaney as an angel in disguise—the thought caused her to smile inwardly, since she had occasionally thought of him as a devil in disguise—but there had to be a first time for everything.

      “All Lia’s toys are in the box over there. There is pasta in the fridge for her lunch and she likes banana after it. She’ll drink plain water from her own special cup. Oh, and her diapers and wipes are in this bag.”

      Vincente’s calm deserted him slightly at those words. “I can come and get you if we have a diaper situation, right? That’s something I’m going to need to do under supervision the first time.” First time? The words had a confidence about them that unsettled her.

      “Wake me if there’s a problem.”

      She went to the door, turning back to look at him as he bent to talk to Lia. Although seeing Vincente here had tilted her world off course, the effect he was exerting over her pulse was not entirely due to the shock. He always did have the power to knock her sideways with his presence. Even though she had spent a lot of time over the last sixteen months dwelling on her memories of him, she had underestimated his magnetism.

      What was she thinking? Every rational thought screamed at her to get him out of here. She had broken all her ties with Stillwater for a reason. A dangerous, life-threatening reason. Leaving had hurt more than she’d believed possible. Leaving Vincente? That had been its own kind of hell. She’d never known if they’d last forever. The longest they’d ever managed was a few months. Not because they didn’t care. We cared too much. That had always been their problem. Everything between them was too much. Too passionate. Too intense. Too raw. Too hungry. It was like they burned each other up whenever they were together. But Beth had never imagined being with anyone else. Had never imagined her life without Vincente in it, even if it was only in their own, unique, on-off, tempestuous way. Until the letter and the photographs. They had changed everything.

      “Get some sleep, Beth.” Vincente’s dark eyes seemed to read her thoughts. “Then we’ll talk some more.”

      Just this one time, she told herself sternly, and only because I’m so tired. Then we’ll talk some more.

      Those words had an ominous ring to them.

      * * *

      Vincente’s mind wanted to dwell on the shock to his system. He was struggling to know what to feel, although anger was making a strong case for being his most powerful emotion. How could Beth keep something like this from him? If Lia was eleven months old, that meant Beth had to have been four months pregnant when she left Stillwater. Vincente thought back to the roller-coaster ride that was their relationship. Yes, four months before Beth left, they’d been right in the middle of one of the most intense “on” times of their on-off periods. Soon after, they’d split up following a fight over something or other. He couldn’t recall the reason, but he did remember Beth calling him arrogant and conceited before she slammed out the door.

      Anger continued to bubble deep inside him, as hot and destructive as lava. It churned and boiled, desperate for release, and he knew there was a real danger of becoming too much for him to handle. He wanted to find a release. Slam his hand down on a table, kick a door, shout at the person responsible...

      Four months and she didn’t tell me? She came to my apartment the night she left Stillwater and she didn’t mention that she was carrying my child? She left me sleeping and walked out of my life, prepared for me to never know about this person who shares my DNA?

      He couldn’t reconcile those thoughts with the Beth he knew. They’d always been honest with each other. From the moment they got together that first time they’d known what they had was different. Unique. Mind-blowing. But Beth had always known the truth about Vincente. He couldn’t commit to a normal relationship.

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