Waste of Worth (DeLuca Duet Book 1)
Page 22
She should have known better, honestly.
She had no business interfering when she hadn’t even known the man.
And yet, she did.
When Dino DeLuca smiled, Karen had felt like she won a battle that day.
She had done something good.
He made her feel amazing with nothing more than a grin.
In a way, Karen had put herself in her current position by not pressing harder for answers from Dino over the course of their year and a half long relationship. Times when he flaked on her without explanation, other moments when he seemed quieter than normal—though he barely talked as it was—and passing comments from others about his side business and other life that she allowed to fly right over head.
Maybe she pretended like he was exactly what he seemed because she didn’t want to know about the rest.
Or maybe she didn’t ask things she should have because she wouldn’t have liked the answers.
Karen prided herself on the fact that she wasn’t stupid. For the most part, she made rational, educated choices about her life and the people in it. She didn’t like negativity, but rather, filled her days with goodness and happiness to keep all the darkness at bay.
Then there was Dino …
A man who almost seemed swathed in an aura of darkness he couldn’t—or didn’t want to—escape from.
She hadn’t minded that. He drew her in like a moth to the brightly burning flame, and while his actions promised never to burn her, his soul never said a damn thing.
Who was really at fault here?
Certainly not him.
The news program ended, switching over to an early morning panel sitting around a glass table with hosts ready to gossip about the latest in politics, fashion, and the celebrity life. Karen wasn’t really seeing what was on the show, but rather, the image of Dino standing in the courtroom.
It had burned into her brain.
She couldn’t get the image out.
Who are you?
That was all she wanted to ask him.
She just wanted one more minute of his time—a few passing seconds—to ask the one question she should have demanded he answer over and over again.
What would he even say now?
I’m a criminal.
I don’t live a good life.
I lied to you.
I love you.
Pushing those awful fucking thoughts from her mind, Karen grabbed for the remote and shut the television off, hoping it would rid the image from her mind. It didn’t; she should have known better than to try.
Like that first time they met, this was no different.
Dino’s black soul had imprinted itself inside Karen’s heart without even trying. He should have warned her, maybe, gave her a chance to run when she could have before she got too mixed up in him.
Deep down, she didn’t want that at all.
And in a way, he had given her that chance.
Tell me to leave and I’ll go, he’d told her again and again.
She hadn’t ever told him those words because she didn’t want to. Not when she knew something was wrong with him, not when she knew he was hiding things from her, and not even when he’d hurt her by walking away when she needed him to stay.
Karen didn’t say things she didn’t mean, after all.
That didn’t mean it was easy, or that she understood where all of this was going to lead her in the end. She had the distinct feeling nothing would make sense or feel particularly good until she had the chance to sit down with Dino once and for all to get the answers she craved to questions he had refused to entertain over and over again.
But she would get those answers … eventually.
Karen had long since decided on that.
She just had to figure out how.
Well, actually, Dino would have to wait a short while longer. She had something more important to deal with, or rather, figure out what in the hell she was going to do and how she was going to make it work.
Her baby, that was.
As much as she wanted to go and demand answers from Dino, as deep as her need was to simply talk to him and hug him even if she was angry with him, she had something else to take care of and she didn’t think he would mind.
That was never more apparent to Karen than when she flew off the couch and headed for the bathroom faster than she thought was possible, her hand thrown over her mouth in a shitty attempt to keep the spilling vomit inside for those last few feet.
Thankfully, she made it in time. That didn’t necessarily make vomiting any more fun.
Morning sickness was a bitch.
The books all said the sickness would probably wane by the second trimester, but Karen still had weeks and weeks to go for that just yet. Her stress and worries weren’t helping her sensitive stomach in the least considering the worse she felt mentally or physically, the sicker she became.
It was almost like her morning sickness was reflecting her moods, if that were possible.
It wasn’t just Dino she was worried about, either.
It was also herself.
She lived in a too-small apartment with only one bedroom and the place didn’t have nearly enough room for all the things a baby needed. Not that she had the money to actually go out and buy the things the baby would need, because she didn’t have any money at all. All the savings she had managed to accumulate over the years was a dwindling pile of cash now that she had quit her job at Dino’s restaurant and she needed to fund herself and keep herself housed and fed until another job popped up.
But who was going to give a job to a woman with a taste for photography, skill with bookkeeping, and a baby on the way?
Her situation was looking bleaker every single day.
You could go home, her mind pressed.
Karen didn’t even want to entertain the idea of returning to California where her parents lived, if only because the shame would eat her alive. Not only would she be forced to admit to her parents that Chicago had turned out to be a massive failure on her part, she would also be left explaining her pregnancy and just how all that came about.
She was an adult, for Christ’s sake.
She could and would figure this out on her own.
Somehow.
After finishing in the bathroom and putting the mouthwash to good use for the third time that morning, Karen went back to her tea in the living room, though she didn’t bother to drink it. Instead, she took it to the kitchen and dumped the contents out, as her appetite was entirely gone.
Leaning back against the cupboards, she massaged her temples with the pads of her fingers, hoping to relieve some of the tension there.
It didn’t help all that much.
From the other side of the apartment, the manila envelope with its cash spilling out caught her attention again.
Goddammit.
She had resolved herself not to entertain the idea.
Not to touch the money.
Life probably wasn’t going to give her much of a choice.
The baby was the most important thing, Karen knew.
First, though, she had to talk to Dino.
Those last few words on the note haunted her for reasons she wasn’t willing to face.
She needed to know why.
He was the only one who could tell her.
Filthy Marcellos
Antony
Lucian
Giovanni
Dante
Legacy
The Complete Collection
The Chicago War
Deathless & Divided
Reckless & Ruined
Scarless & Sacred
Breathless & Bloodstained
The Russian Guns
The Arrangement
The Life
The Score
Demyan & Ana
Shattered
The Jersey Vignettes
Find more on Bethany-Kris’s website at www.bethanykris.com.
Copyright © 2017 by Betha
ny-Kris. All Rights Reserved.
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eISBN 13: 978-1-988197-25-8
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, organizations, corporations, locales and so forth are a product of the author’s imagination, or if real, used fictitiously. Any resemblance to a person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.