Page 48 of Velvet Deception

Instead of engaging in their conversation, loving how well they got along, I continued moving boxes and setting out Christmas knick-knacks.

I moved too quickly, brushing my hand against a slim container with a few more things I’d kept from my parents’ things. A necklace fell, and upon seeing it, I realized I should wear it more. The narrow chain with Our Lady of Chiquinquira wasn’t necessarily a piece of jewelry specific to Christmastime, but I had always stored it with the holiday items because my mother had given this to me as a gift on the last Christmas I had with my parents.

I held it up, smiling as I admired the thin plate of metal. Swaying in the air, it caught the light from the candles and decorations I’d set up.

“What is that?”

I turned, finding Diego staring at me. The expression on his sexy face was one I seldom saw. A stunned awareness. Like a light bulb had gone off. Yet, he seemed reluctantly confused, too.

“A gift that I was given long ago.” I held my hand higher, letting him see the pendant. “Our Lady of Chiquinquira.”

He nodded, seeming mesmerized by the necklace. “It’s pretty.”

“My mother gave it to me before she died,” I replied.

“Do you have the earrings with it?” His brow furrowed. “Matching earrings.”

I stopped the chain from swaying in my hand.Earrings?I shook my head. “No. I’ve never had earrings like this.”

He blinked, straining to make sense. This was an expression I was very familiar with, his puzzling out something that he claimed was so close, within reach, yet too murky to grasp in his mind.

It seemed that he was latching on to a memory, but I wasn’t sure how to interpret my necklace—or the idea of matching earrings—to what he was recalling.

Another woman?

It was my deepest worry.

The possibility that he’d remember another lover, a wife, a family, remained ever-present in my mind and in my heart.

I didn’t doubt his concern and affection for me and Ramon, but I hated that I’d have to surrender to a lucky woman or family who’d found him first.

He didn’t want to start a new future with me when he didn’t feel whole. Like he had to know who he was to be true to himself now. I got that.

But I hated the worry that he could be hesitant to start a new future with me when he couldn’t be certain his heart might not be free to give anymore. If he’d already given it to another.

20

DIEGO

The next day, when Ramon was at school and Sofia headed to the clinic, I counted down the minutes until they’d be back. Ramon now came home to me instead of staying next door at Señora Vasquez’s house, and I looked forward to his keeping me company.

I enjoyed his company, and I was glad that he seemed to look forward to being near me as well. It was all too easy to want to get attached to him, to consider himmyson and that I could be his father. If things could go right between me and Sofia and we could make this an official family, with marriage, I would adopt him as my child. It wouldn’t be the same as that Kismet sense of belonging. That day he’d told me that people could feel connections in their heart—or the lack of a connection—didn’t seem like a myth. I believed him as much as I could. But that also precluded me in a way from ever having such a connection with him. That he’d neverreallyidentify me as his father since I hadn’t helped create him.

Or maybe it’s just a bunch of bullshit.

Why couldn’t he and I feel a close bond, even if I wasn’t his biological father?

What grew in my heart for Sofia was love. Pure, honest, wholly consuming love. That affection applied to him as well.

I was ready to embrace the idea of fatherhood. My heart had room to let Ramon in as my son. And these growing feelings I couldn’t deny for Sofia, my angel, hinted at a bigger deal than what I first considered.

Love.

My dark mood persisted as I putzed around the house, though. Alone, stuck with my thoughts that consisted of more questions than answers, I doubted I could be worthy of her love if I didn’t know what I was bringing to the table.

I wasn’t a doctor. I was a stranger uniquely capable of killing others and knowing how to dispose of bodies.

I wasn’t a victim. I was a perpetrator in something that had gotten a target on my back at some point in my life.

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