Because I needed an escape.
But it was a route I would no longer take.
“Once again, I’d fucked up,” he said, hands going to the bare expanse of my thighs. “Because when the alcohol set in, my trauma came into play, shifting my reality. That’s when my demons took over, and when I then looked at my son, I didn’t see Hendrix anymore.” He paused as more of his tears fell. “Instead, I saw me, the boy who’d killed his beautiful mother because he was weak and couldn’t keep his mouth shut.”
And there it was.
The truth behind the abuse.
James hadn’t truly set out to hurt Hendrix.
Only himself.
Again, it wasn’t an excuse for his actions.
But I now understood.
“You did not kill your madre and—”
“I may not have plunged the knife into her flesh,” he interrupted for what felt like the millionth time that night. “But I killed her all the same.”
To borrow a phrase from Jade, that was just horsepuckey.
“And I’m sorry. So damned sorry for everything I’ve done and the pain I’ve caused. If I could go back, I’d fix every bit of it, but I can’t. The only thing I can do is fight to atone for all I did wrong by fixing what’s still salvageable.”
My hands found his tensed forearms. “And you’re doing just that,” I whispered, praying my words could penetrate his thick skull. “Ask Hendrix.”
Lifting his hands from my thighs, he scrubbed his palms down his face, wiping away the tears that remained. “I love my son. More than he’ll ever know,” he murmured. “Shelby too. Even if she doesn’t know it yet.”
“What about my chicas?” The question popped out with no warning. Deciding to roll with it instead of backpedaling, especially since a serious subject change was needed, I tilted my head to the side and held his eyes. “Do you think that one day you could love them as well?”
Sinking a lone hand into my hair, he pulled me forward. “Depends.”
Depends? I didn’t like that answer.
Not at all.
“And what does it depend on?” Before he could answer, I added, “Because you don’t get to steal my heart without stealing theirs too.” I paused. “We’re a package deal and—”
Words dying on my tongue, my neck arched when he tugged on my locks, forcing my head back. “Is that what you want?” Mind blanking at the move, one which burned my skin from the inside out, I couldn’t think straight. What were we just talking about? “For me to steal your heart?”
I think you already have…
Another tug. “Answer me, sweetheart.”
“Si,” I whispered, heat coursing through me. “I do.” Terrified of admitting the truth to myself, much less speaking the words aloud, I surprised myself by making such a confession. “Because I’m fairly sure that one day soon, I will have stolen a lot more from you than just your wallet.”
“One day?”
I moaned aloud as his lips found the sensitive column of my throat. The sensation was light, a mere caress, but after never having known such softness before, only pain, it sent me into a tailspin. “Si,” I replied once more, nails digging into his forearms. “One day.”
I whimpered when his mouth left my skin, leaving coldness in its wake.
“Carmen, give me your eyes.” Chest rising and falling from the force of his heaving breaths, I did as he commanded. “That doesn’t work for me.”
My stomach dropped to my feet.
I jerked back the smallest bit, fighting to free myself from his hold. “Let me go, cabrón. “The urge to both cry and vomit was strong, but I flat-out refused to let him see how much his words had destroyed me, breaking parts of me I hadn’t even known existed. “Listen, you big bastardo, I mean it! Let me—”
“It doesn’t work for me because that day is already here, sweetheart.” I froze as all the air left my lungs in one quick whoosh. “I don’t give a flying fuck if it makes me sound crazy either. I feel how I feel, and that’s it.”
He didn’t sound crazy.
He sounded… confident.
“Bottom line, I want you and your girls.”
I stilled. “Are you sure?” My words were small, my tone timid. “Because in case you haven’t noticed, I’m sort of a mess and…” Cheeks flushing with embarrassment, I let my voice trail off, refusing to make myself into a bigger fool than I already had.
“Baby”—he chuckled, adding to my mortification—“I’ve got a lot of faults, and I don’t hide any of them, but one thing I never do is say stuff I don’t mean.”
“You truly want me?”
In a fog, I blinked.
Pinching my chin between his thumb and forefinger, he tipped my face, arching my neck once more. “You need to hear me say it again?”
“I do.” The simply worded answer was nothing more than a whispered plea. “I need—”
“I want you, Carmen. I have since the moment we first met.” Tears welled in my eyes, but he wasn’t done yet. “And if you’ll let me, I’d like to keep you for the rest of my life.”
It was right then, at that very moment, that something inside of me, something that had been broken for far too long, snapped back into place. And with it, I became something I hadn’t been in a very long time.
Wholehearted.
Twenty-Six
James
Everything was changing.
Though my fucked-up heart was still mangled from the hell I’d both survived and inflicted, something inside me had shifted and for only the fifth time since I held my dying mother in my blood-soaked arms as she took her final breath, the blinding pain that never stopped ravaging my soul ceased.
It. Fucking. Ceased.
The three instances it had happened before were the first moments I laid eyes on both my kids and grandson, followed by when I heard my unborn grandchild’s heartbeat.
But this time, it was because of my pretty little pixie, a woman who was broken as she was beautiful, and one who I knew—I knew—was meant to
