Chapter 16
Beth
I chewed my way through two
of pizza, but honestly I could barely taste it. And afterwards the indigestion I felt had very little to do with
spicy Italian sausage on that second slice.
Rafe was busy playing with Lucy in the arcade, I turned Charlie’s wheelchair so that Nana Charlie could also enjoy their antics. They road motorcycles, raced cars, sliced virtual fruit, rolled skew balls, and tossed basket balls. He was so good with her, that it hurt to watch.
Gabe had never taken us to this particular restaurant. We’d only been here before because one of Lucy’s little friends had held their birthday party here last year. In fact, Gabriel didn’t really like to be seen in public with us anywhere, not when we were married, and certainly not now.
I suppose being seen out and about with a wife and child would have put a cramp in his playboy style,
Gabe also rarely took the time to play with Lucy He really wasn’t the sort to get down on the floor to amuse a baby or a toddler, and when they did play a game together Gabe was so competitive that he had to win, even when he was playing against a child.
All in all, Gabe had been a disappointment as a stand–in father for Lucy, but I suppose I had gone into the whole arrangement blindly naive and hopelessly optimistic.
And desperate
After Raphael left for Italy I tried to pick up the pieces and move on with my life. I had a job as a cashier at the supermarket, and I was trying to save up money to pay for college. It was a few weeks later that I realized I missed a period.
I tried to get in touch with Raphael. Even though he had ended things between us, I was sure he would want to know. Some part of me even hoped that he might reconsider. Raphael Segretto could be a hot head sometimes, but under all that bluster, he’d always been so kind and gentle. I foolishly thought that he would call me from Italy and tell me it had all been a terrible mistake.
But he didn’t call. And his old cellphone number was out of service. Gabe told me he’d replaced it with an international line, but the number he gave me went straight to voicemail, I left so many voicemails over the next few weeks that I got a new message when I called. “Voicemail box is full. I’d tried email, I tried social media, I even tried sending snail mail to the Segretto Star corporate headquarters.
But he never answered me, not even once.
Eventually my mother figured out I was pregnant. That say was one of the worst days of my life, as she yelled and screamed and paced through the kitchen, while my father sat at the old kitchen table, his eyes full of disappointment. He had kept silent, as usual, even when my mother slapped me hard across the face and called me a whore.
“You are no daughter of mine!” She finished, her face red, her hands shaking with fury. “You have ten minutes to pack your bag and get out of this house. And dont you ever, ever come back! You are dead to us, Bethany! Dead”
I had no place to go. I had no other family. I had very few friends, none of which were close enough that I could ask them to take me in. I had no voice but to walk all the way back to Townline and knock on the door of the Segretto family home.
It was cold and dark when I arrived, my eyes red and swollen from crying, and scared out of my wits. Charlotte Segretto had always been like a second mother to me, but she was a staunch Catholic and I was sure she wouldn’t be happy to find out that I was pregnant. I had sobbed out the story to her at her kitchen counter, and then waited for her to loss me out, like my parents.
I know she wasn’t happy about it. But she didn’t kick me out. She made me a hot bowl of soup with a hunk of crusty sourdough bread, and then she brought me upstairs to the little guest room for the night.
I wanted nothing more than to get a hot shower and sleep, but while I was sitting on the t
let himself in without knocking. 1 think I know how to fix this.”
“What?”
“Marry me.”
“Gabe, please, you can’t be serious-
twin sized bed, rubbing my sore and blistered feet, Gabriel
“I am serious. Rafe has moved on with his life, Beth. He’s the big, important CEO now. He isn’t going to want to be tied down by you and this…
mistake.
I whimpered at his cold assessment of the situation.
Chapter 16
“But if you and I get married, we can make it all right. Il take care of you. I’ll give this baby my name. We’ll be a family.”
“But Gabe,” I whispered with fresh tears running down my cheeks, 1 don’t love you”
I saw a flash of anger in his eyes, but I blinked, and it was gone. He had that charming Segretto grin back in place before I could blink. “That doesn’t matter. We are friends, right? We can base our marriage on a solid friendship.”
A solid friendship?
I thought it over for days before I decided to accept his proposal. I was desperate. I didn’t have any savings or credit or even references to get an apartment of my own, and Gabe pointed out that I couldn’t live in his mother’s quest room indefinitely
We were married just a couple months later. I designed a special wedding dress to hide my baby bump, but people knew.
And Gabe agreed to put his name on the birth certificate under one condition. I could never, ever tell anyone that Raphael was the biological father of my baby. Lucy must never know, and I couldn’t tell Raphael either. Somehow he made it all sound very logical. He didn’t want to confuse Lucy, he insisted He was the man who was going to raise her he was her one and only Daddy.
What choice did I have, but to accept his conditions?
And it had been fine, until Raphael showed up back at home and started giving Lucy the love and attention she had never gotten from Gabe. Until I saw them walking to the car, hand in hand, while I pushed Charlie in the wheel chair..
They looked so natural together, father and daughter, bundled up against the cold, shuffling their feel through the dusting of snow that had fallen while we were in the restaurant.
Raphael would have been a good father to Lucy, if only he hadn’t been so determined and so damn efficient at erasing us from his life seven years ago. I thought, with a stab of quit.
Was it enough that he was here now, and he apparently wanted to take an active roll as an uncle?
Did it even matter, when he was only home for the short period of time it took to get his new resort up and running and open to the public. Because! knew he wouldn’t stick around long. He was a busy millionaire CEO with many responsibilities.
That’s what Nana Charlie always said, back when she still had the ability to speak. “Try not to hate him, Beth Rafe’s buried under so many responsibilities now. He’s doing the best he can, under the circumstances. That’s all any of us can do.”
Rafe put Beth in her car seat and then came to help me slide Charlie into her place in the front passenger seat. He made it look so easy.
It probably was easy if you were six–foot two and sculpted from muscle. If his hand brushed my breast in the process, I knew it was just an accident And if I reacted to his touch…?
That was also an accident.
I sat silently in the back while Lucy chattered about the little bag full of prizes she had won with her arcade tickets. It was all junk, Plastic slinkies, Chinese thumb traps, a little magnifying glass, some plastic jewellery, but for Lucy, it was treasure.
When we arrived back at the Segretto family home, we were greeted by Christmas lights that ran on a timer. The tree glowed in front of the bay window, and lights twinkled along the roof line. It looked so sweet and nostalgic and inviting
Raphael parked the car, and then helped his mother inside. “Take her to the bedroom,” I called as I took Lucy’s booster seat from the back of Rafe’s care. Nans, I’ll be in, in just a few minutes to help you to bed, okay?”
Charlie smiled and gave me a thumbs up with her good hand. I knew she was so happy to have Raphael back home, even if it was just for a short time. I had always suspected that, although she loved both of her sons fiercely, Raphael was her favorite.
I needed a moment to compose myself, so I took the time to put the booster seat back in my old Honda. I thought Rafe would take time to say good night to his mother. But when I straightened from the car, he was right there, crowding me against the door.
The motion lights inside the garage cast mysterious shadows across his handsome face. He wore an expression that I couldn’t quite decipher. “Thethank you for tonight, I stuttered, but I was sincerely grateful. “This was a really special night for Lucy-*
Before I could finish the little speech I had been preparing on the way home, his arm whipped out, snagged me behind my back, and tugged me into his hard, unyielding body. I put my hands up, really in self defence, but somehow they ended up pressed up against a chest that was broader and stronger than I remembered.
He had matured. And it seemed like Mr. CEO still found time to hit the gym. I had the insane urge to keep moving my hands, to explore all of the planes and ridges and valleys of his musculature, but I forced myself to be still. Rafe, what are you doing?” I whispered.
He kept one hand firmly against my back, while his other hand reached up and pulled the claw clip out of my hair, and sent it spilling around my
Dupter 16.
shoulders He tossed the hair clip aside and dragged his fingers through the coppery strands, tangling in the curls that refused to be tamed
And then he used his grip in my hair to hold my head while he bent and lowered his mouth to mine
Some little voice of self–preservation urged me to do something, but I couldn’t. I was paralysed by the intensity in his amber eyes, by the searing pressure of his lips slanting across mine, by the heat of his body that was somehow seeping through all the layers of winter clothing
You would think after seven years I could resist. So much time had passed, we were practically strangers now. His kiss should feel foreign and
awkward.
It should, but it didn’t. It felt like… home. I wanted to wind my
d my arms his neck and hold on tight.
But I didn’t. Because some part of me knew this was a bad, bad idea.
That didn’t stop me from pushing up on my tiptoes and kissing him back. It had been so long.. so long since someone had held me, so long since! had felt the flush of desire in my belly, so long since I had felt like a desirable woman.
Pathetic
The voice in my head sounded suspiciously like my ex–husband, but it was enough to shake me to my senses, and I pushed away, using my hands against his sculpted chest for leverage.
My only comfort was that he looked as confused and shell–shocked as I felt. 1. I’m sorry, I’ve got to go get Charlie ready for bed | bolted for the door to the house and slammed it behind me.
Coward
