Page 38 of Her Reluctant Hero
“I’m not home much. Wouldn’t be any good for them.”
“Boys need their daddies,” she said, but her tone was more wistful than truthful.
He wouldn’t know. There’d been no father figure in his life till too late. She hadn’t been looking for a response from him.
“I love being a mom.” Warmth infused her voice, reached across the bed to him, felt like she’d moved closer. “I never had brothers or sisters, so I wasn’t around babies much. I learned everything with Hector. I mean, I wasn’t totally on my own. One of Santiago’s housekeepers had something like six kids, and she helped me, but everything I learned about taking care of him made me stronger.”
Goddamn, he wanted to reach across the bed, to the girl who’d been alone in the compound, away from her family. Where had her family been? Had she wanted them, or had she run away from them? Maybe her parents hadn’t been any better than his own.
“He was talking before he was two, in two languages, and he already knew his alphabet.”
“You were with him all the time.” Probably the only person she had to talk to, the only person she could trust. What had she called him? Her pure?
“Except when Santiago needed me.” Her voice took on a hard edge.
“But Santiago didn’t spend much time with him.” Not exactly the father figure she’d been talking about.
“Hector was afraid of him. It was mostly my fault. I’d get upset when Santiago would send someone to take Hector away. Hector would sense that and cry.”
He’d take the child away so Isabella could whore for him. But the idea, while it still twisted his gut, didn’t disgust him the way it had. Yeah, she’d made some bad decisions, but she’d tried to make the best of it. She’d tried to make a home for her son. Better than his own mom had done.Shecouldn’t get rid of him fast enough to get to her whoring. Sometimes she hadn’t even bothered.
He tightened his grip on the pillow to keep from reaching for Isabella. She still wasn’t right for him. He wasn’t right for her. But it felt better knowing what she was about.
“Do you think Saldana could be making up for lost time with Hector? Sometimes, once kids reach a certain age, men finally want something to do with them.”
Her soft gasp in the dark told him she’d taken his words wrong.
“Not that. Men just—babies scare them.” Damn, he was trying to make her feel better, and he was rusty. “Not—I didn’t mean—” Though he knew it was reality in too many cases. Saldana was a depraved son of a bitch. “I meant in a fatherly way.”
She snuffled a laugh. “No. Santiago only wanted Hector to prove he had a son. He won’t be having more. He just—having a son made him feel like a man.”
“Like hurting you did.”
“I’m a grown-up. I made the choice. Hector didn’t.” She sounded so lost. His hand slid marginally closer to her.
“How did you end up there?”
She shifted, and he could almost feel her breath on his skin. “I’m not like you, Alex. It was scary for me to be in a strange place. Santiago made me feel safe. At least for a while.”
“Yeah, you said, but how? I mean, you probably had a lot of admirers. Why him?”
“Because I’m shallow. He was wealthy and charming, and that appealed to me.”
Alex was strong and brave, just what she needed now. Good to remind him.
He pulled back. “We better get some sleep.”
He heard the soft intake of breath that told him he’d surprised her, but he deliberately closed his eyes and shut her out.
“Alex?”
“Go to sleep.”
“Did you make that call to the DEA?”
He swore and swung out of bed, reaching for his phone. He walked out into the hall to make the call, and when he slipped back into bed, she whispered, “Thank you.”
Alex got up, trying not to disturb the mattress and the woman sleeping on it. Isabella had managed to stay on her side of the bed and he still had a raging hard-on, just from smelling her, hearing her soft breathing.
