Page 61 of Forbidden Desire

“Thank you. Now, who needs a refill?” I stand up and take the three glasses, balancing them in my hands on the way to the kitchen. I can hear Beth and Sadie murmuring back and forth to each other. I know Beth means well, but sometimes she’s so blindly optimistic, looking for happy endings, that it’s enough to get my own hopes up. I can’t have that happen. Not when I know how badly this can all end. How it already has ended.

The truth is, I miss Marco. It’s like my heart is being clenched by a fist whenever I think about him. And I think about him every single day. It’s like all of the resentment I had built up inside of me has faded away to leave only the good memories I have of him. His laugh, the completely unserious one he sometimes let out with me. His hands scared to wander when we danced at the party, but adventurous when we were alone. His serious face when he was conducting business, only so often sneaking a smile my way. His way of listening, as if I were the soundtrack to his favorite movie.

My eyes burn with tears I haven’t let fall since I was at his penthouse that morning. I’ve been bottling them up because if I let them fall it would make this whole mess real. It would mean I have to come to terms with losing him, and the life I so rarely let myself imagine with him and Josie in it. I fight back the tears as I pick up the freshly filled wine glasses and walk them back over to my best friends and the baby I love so much.

“I’m sorry, Beth,” I say softly, handing her a glass. “It’s just been hard.”

“I know,” she says sadly.

“Right now, I just need to focus on Josie, and keeping her life happy and stable.”

“I just don’t want you to forget about you too.”

“Ditto,” says Sadie.

Chapter 30

Marco

“Wow. The man, the myth, the legend,” says Jacob from underneath the glow of the bar as I approach. “You’re alive!”

“Ha ha,” I say sarcastically.

“I was starting to worry when you weren’t answering my calls after you left me at the club with those two girls. You have no idea what you missed out on. Your loss is my gain, I guess.” He shrugs, signaling for the bartender to come over.

I order an old fashioned and sit back in the leather barstool, wondering why I decided to come out in the first place, if I have to put up with him giving me shit. It’s been almost three weeks since I found out about Erica and her baby. I don’t even say “our” because it’s not ours. Erica made sure of that.

I’ve spent the last few weeks numbing myself over the fact that I’m a father, and have been for some time unknowingly. I’m still pissed about it all, but I’ve been finding release in bourbon and working out at the gym still. My trainer says I’m in the best shape of my life, and the man at the liquor store knows me on a first-name basis now. Besides work and the gym and the liquor store, I haven’t been out in the world. It might not be the healthiest way to cope, but it works for me.

“What’s going on with you really, man?” asks Jacob warily.

“Work.” I shrug.

“You can’t use that as an excuse anymore.”

I take a sip of my drink.

“It’s that girl, isn’t it?” he asks.

“Nah. We’re over. Everything got so…complicated.”

“Women.” Jacob shakes his head.

If only he knew. I want to tell him. I want to tell anyone. Carrying this secret has been weighing heavily on me for the past few weeks. It makes me wonder how Erica had coped with it for so long, but I can’t feel bad for her. She made her bed. She can lie in it.

“How’s your mom?” asks Jacob cautiously.

“She’s good. Or at least, she says she is. She’s always doing something. Bridge club. Pickleball. Lunch with friends. She should slow down.”

“She’s just like you. Or you’re like her. Always on the move. It’s in your blood.” Jacob laughs.

“True.” I look down at my drink.

“She’s strong too, you know. Like you.”

“Also true.”

“To Mama Vallejo,” he says, holding up his drink. I clink mine to his and take a long sip. I think of her now and can’t help but feel like I’m disappointing her. I know I’m not where she wants me to be in life, apart from my work, I haven’t found anyone to settle down with or give her a grandchild with. If things had gone differently with Erica, I could have given that to her.

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