Page 82 of Amor Prohibido

“Nat and I dated in the city.”

I raised my brows in ano shitlook.

He huffed, took a swig of beer, then forged on. “We’d only been together for five months or so when I caught her cheating with some asshole from her workplace. It was purely a fluke that I went home early before lunch one day. I needed to get my license renewed but forgot to take proof of address. So, I headed to my apartment to grab what I needed. Little did I know that I would walk through the door to see her bent over touching her toes while some guy fucked her. In the kitchen. The fridge was still open for fuck’s sake! Our relationship wasn’t overly serious, but it sure as hellwasexclusive.”

I frowned.“Yourapartment?”

He nodded curtly. “We didn’t live together. Not officially anyway. We’d kept our own apartments and either stayed at hers or mine. I didn’t feel ready to ask her to move in with me. She could be rather…” He paused to search for the required word. “…Clingy, so I wanted to keep my own space.”

“To escape,” I surmised, and he snuffed a humourless laugh. “Then what happened?”

“I gave the guy a hiding and sent her packing,” he concluded.

“I figured as much. But why is she turning up with a baby on her hip acting like it’s yours?”

I was missing something.

Jace rubbed a hand over his head and grimaced. “I don’t know if she continued seeing the guy, but a few months later, she turned up with makeup running down her face and begged me to take her back. She clung to me with a desperation that scared the shit out of me. I let her in because she was causing a scene on the street, and that’s when she finally confessed that she was pregnant, then claimed it was mine.”

“Did you believe her?”

“Not a chance. I knew she liked to embellish the truth. Besides, I compared how far along she was with the last time we slept together, and it didn’t add up.”

“It still doesn’t make sense why she would come all the way out here.”

He growled under his breath and rubbed his head again, clearly agitated. Picking his words carefully, he explained. “She’s after money. She was so desperate that she started to stalk me and threatened me with legal action if I didn’t take her in. Her claim was I forced her into having a baby, then left her with nothing.”

Shock widened my eyes. “What the fuck?”

The noise he made resembled another growl. “Tell me about it. I’d had enough, so I packed up and moved back here. Far enough away from her, or so I thought. Besides, even if she hadn’t stalked me and we managed to work through the cheating issues, I still would have left because—” He stopped abruptly and clamped his mouth shut.

He’d been so caught up in his story, he started to say more than intended, so I finished for him.

“Because you didn’t want to be tied down to someone you weren’t in love with who was pregnant.”

I couldn’t keep the hurt from my voice. There was no disguising the fresh wound that opened up. It was the same situation he found himself in with me; albeit, I was legitimately carrying his spawn, and I hadn’t cheated. Regardless of the minor details, we started our relationship based on a promise, not love.

Guilt welled within me at the thought of trapping him into an unwanted marriage, even though he was the one who asked me.

I took a few deep breaths to subdue the rolling nausea. “That’s a lot to take in, Jace…”

“Sweetheart, this doesn’t change the way I feel about how we got together. Not in the slightest.”

“But what if her babywasyours?”

He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees, and looked directly at me. “It wouldn’t have changed whatwehave together. Even if you and I hadn’t hooked up, I still wouldn’t have forced a relationship with Natalie just for the sake of playing happy families. Sure, I would have helped financially and with the baby where I could, but not emotionally, not intimately, and not romantically. You and her are completely different on so many levels. She was never the right fit for me, and I know that you are because I’ve known you your whole life. We’re compatible, you and I. Whereas, beyond the bedroom, realistically, me and Nat never were. And the fact that I’m here having to defend myself because of her just proves my point. If she hadn’t shown up, I would have told you about her when we swapped stories about our fucked-up exes, and wewouldn’t be having this conversation,” Jace finished on a yell and visibly shook with pent up frustration.

A dull headache at the back of my head grew in intensity, and overwhelming exhaustion hit out of nowhere. “Mierda, Jace, this is making my head hurt. I need to take a nap. No puedo lidiar con esto ahora [I can’t deal with this right now].” I struggled to my feet, guilt-ridden over deserting him after he opened up about such an important part of his history.

His next question broke me a little bit more. “J? Are we okay? Like, this doesn’t change anything for us, right?”

I heard the fear in his voice, like I was dangling something precious in front of him and threatening to take it away just for sadistic pleasure.

“We will be after I sleep,” I assured him, then opened my arms in an offering to put his mind at ease. “Hug?”

The deep frown between his brows eased into a relieved smile. “Of course.”

Stepping into his arms and melting against him was what we both needed. We both released a deep sigh of comfort and held each other until my eyelids grew heavy.

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