Desert Heat

by Elizabeth Reyes

  Her heart dropped, and with Damian standing in front of her, she couldn’t see the expression on his face, but she could only imagine. Already that firm hold he had on her hand was weakening. So she gripped it tighter. “I’ve never had a pimp, and you know it.”

  Max scoffed, “I’m sorry. Let me rephrase that. Are you gonna pay the guy that paid her to have sex with strangers who she owes money to?” He cackled loudly, as he had that awful night. “Wait, did she make you think she was hiding in Vegas from me all this time?”

  Damian turned to her, his expression once again broken. He didn’t have to ask, but she knew exactly what his unspoken question was. Was this the truth? She nodded, her eyes instantly blurring. He let go of her hand and started down the stairs. “Wait!” she gasped, going after him. She wouldn’t let him leave again thinking the worst of her. “He’s twisting it, Damian, making it sound like something it’s not.”

  “Bethany,” Max called after her. “I think your little boyfriend is forgetting the penalty for assault is more than just a fine. You saw the footage and said it yourself. This could ruin him.”

  She stopped halfway down the walkway just as Damian reached his car. It was the main reason she’d agreed to leave Vegas with Max. Agreed to the proposition. Max would have made sure he ruined Damian if she hadn’t, and would surely ruin him if she went after him now.

  Opening his car door, Damian turned to Bethany, stunning her once again. “Get in the car.”

  “You leave with him, Bethany,” Max sounded more panicked now than smug, “and not only are all bets off, I’ll go straight to the police with that video.”

  She stood there, feet still firmly, frozen to the ground.

  “Get in, Bethany,” Damian urged.

  She turned to Max. He wasn’t bluffing. If she didn’t leave with Damian, this would really be the end of any hope with him. But if she did, she was certain Max would press assault charges against Damian. She’d already hurt Damian so badly. She’d never forgive herself for ruining his career, too.

  Chapter 23

  Waiting for what felt like an eternity to see what Bethany would decide, Damian’s heart thudded. He was terrified that she’d turn around and walk back to Max. At first he’d been pissed that she looked torn. How the fuck could she be torn? But he realized what that asshole was doing.

  To his enormous relief, she finally rushed around the car toward the passenger seat. Max yelled out more shit about how he would ruin him. Damian turned to glare at him with a purpose one last time, and Max suddenly shut up. That’s right, you stupid motherfucker. Did you really think I’d let you take what was mine so easily?

  Too wound up and afraid he’d give in to the urge to run back up the porch steps and beat the living shit out of him, Damian jumped into the car. He prayed she wouldn’t believe Max and change her mind at the last second. As soon as she was in the car, he skidded out of there. He needed to talk to Bethany somewhere where he could think straight without Max’s mouth running.

  Even for this he knew there had to be a reasonable explanation. He hadn’t even made it halfway down the walkway of her aunt’s house when it hit him. It was for that very reason he never for an instant questioned whether the baby she was carrying was his. If she was really a liar, she could’ve easily passed off that first night they made love as her very first because it might as well have been, as pure as she felt. Even if it wasn’t her first time, it was obvious it was her first time in a very long time. And one thing he knew for damn sure was this girl he’d given his heart to so willingly and fallen so desperately in love with was not a whore.

  “Maybe you should take me back,” she said, glancing back at her aunt’s house. “He’s gonna press charges, Damian.”

  Like hell he was taking her back. “Don’t worry about that. First of all he’s full of shit if he thinks he’s gonna ruin me.”

  “But your image as a detective can be ruined if you’re arrested!”

  “No one’s getting arrested,” he assured her. “And I’m leaving the force, so I couldn’t give a shit about my image as a detective anymore.”

  “What?” she gasped.

  “I’ll explain later, just tell me about this guy you owe.”

  She brought her hands to her face and shook her head. “Oh, my God. I can’t believe I’ve been so desperate for money for so long.”

  Okay, that wasn’t a good start. She was scaring him now. “What do you mean? What did you do?”

  “Long story short: Last year an escort service paid me good money up front for services I was naïve enough to believe would not involve sexual favors.” She shook her head again, still holding her face in her hands. “I paid all the bills we were behind on. Including some of my aunt’s medical bills that were piling up. Then they called me for my first job. It started off fine. It was my first time at the opera, then he took me to a really nice restaurant.”

  Damian squeezed the wheel. Afraid of where this was going and in no mood to hear the details of her date with another man, he pressed, “Did you sleep with him?”

  “No!” She turned to him. “I didn’t even make it out of the restaurant with him. He was pleasant and respectful enough at first, but after a few drinks he started telling me about all the stuff he wanted to do to me when we went back to his place. He was very graphic, and that’s when I knew how wrong I was about feeling relieved that his ‘turn-on,’ according to the profile they sent me, was talking.”

  For the first time in weeks all the tension that had built up, leaving every muscle in Damian’s body completely stiff, finally eased a bit, and he actually laughed. Bethany turned to him, looking a bit appalled, which only made him laugh more. “He was a talker, huh? So what happened?”

  She crossed her arms in front of her in an attempt to appear annoyed by his laughter, but he could see the tug at the corner of her lips. “After hearing about what he planned to do to me in vivid detail for over twenty minutes, I excused myself to the ladies’ room and called a cab.”

  Damian laughed even more, holding out his hand. She undid her mulishly crossed arms and slid her hand in his. “I take it you didn’t go on any more jobs?”

  “No, and I promised I’d pay them back every penny, but with bills still hurtling at me from every direction, it was impossible. Then word got back to them that I’d married Max just a few weeks later. Since Max is a pretty big name in Hollywood, they figured he’d pay them off to keep it on the down low that his wife had worked for an escort service, and he was going to until I started talking about getting an annulment.”

  Damian pulled into the parking lot of a park, feeling the relief begin to flood his body. This whole past month had been absolute hell, and after hearing her explanation about the escort thing, he was even more relieved he’d gone with his gut when he decided that asshole was probably making it sound a lot worse than it really was.

  He shut the engine off and turned to her cautiously. “So, you owe Max, this escort service,” he paused looking into those tense eyes that at closer examination looked very drawn and even a bit sunken, “and you’re not canceling the annulment, right?”

  “Damian, he’s already paid for—”

  “I’ll pay his ass. I’ll pay whatever else you owe. Fuck Max. You don’t have to stay married to him.”

  She shook her head, her eyes widening. “No, I don’t want you to pay!”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “You can’t be serious. After everything I’ve put you through, you’d still be willing to pay for all—”

  “Yes! Yes! Are you kidding me? I’d be willing to pay for anything if it means you’re done with that asshole for good. Hell, I’ll get lawyers involved if it’ll speed the annulment up.” He reached for her hand, feeling the very desperation that had weighed so heavily on him this past month. “I won’t live without you again, Bethany. And if you don’t wanna move back to Vegas with me, then I’ll move out here.” He choked up now, remembering all those painful sleepless nights he’d
had since that night he found out about her marriage. “I can’t do that again.”

  She smiled, bringing his hand to her mouth, and kissed his knuckles one by one slowly. He watched as the tears slid down either side of her face. She finally looked up at him as he wiped the tears away. “I’m so sorry for what I put you through, baby. I don’t want you to think all this was for just any jewelry.” She looked at him, her eyes full of regret and sorrow. “When my mom died so suddenly, the wedding ring my stepdad had given her was automatically slated to my sister because it represented my mother’s marriage to Stella’s father. Then just a few days after her death my stepdad hung himself.”

  Damian stared at her pained expression and squeezed her hand. “Sweetheart, you don’t have to explain—”

  “No,” she shook her head. “I want you to understand why I had to get that jewelry back.” She took a deep breath and composed herself. “My stepdad was a good man. He loved my mom more than life. It’s why he took his own. He left a note asking us to forgive him, but he just couldn’t take another day without her. In a separate note to me, he explained how much he always loved me like his own and told me about the bracelet my mother said would be mine one day. It’s been passed on to her down through the family, and as her oldest daughter it was rightfully mine.” She sat up, bringing her arms around him, and he wrapped his arms around her, breathing in the mixture of her hair, the lotion she wore, and everything that made up the amazing feminine fragrance of Bethany, something he didn’t even realize he’d missed so much. “I’m so, so sorry,” she cried.

  “It’s okay,” he whispered, massaging her head with his fingertips as she continued to cry against his shoulder. “You don’t have to explain any more about that. Just tell me right now if there’s anything more I need to know.”

  She pulled away, shaking her head, her face a beautiful crying mess. “That’s all of it. And I swear I’ll never keep anything from you again.”

  He smiled, attempting to wipe some of her tears away with his thumbs. “Do you wanna come back to Vegas, or should I start house-hunting here?”

  She bit her bottom lip, a smile breaking through even past the fading tears. “Is this really happening?” Her eyes welled up all over again, and her bottom lip quivered. “I was so sure I’d lost you for good. Am I really getting you back?”

  He took her face in his hands and kissed that quivering lip softly. “I’ll be honest with you. You scared the hell out of me for a minute there. I had no idea how I was ever gonna get over you. But let me tell you something, not for a day, or an hour, or even a fucking minute did my heart believe it was really over. You never lost me.” He laughed suddenly, kissing her again. “I never realized what a stubborn heart I have. I guess my sister hit it on the nose before she’d even met you.”

  Bethany’s brows pinched suddenly, and already Damian could feel that permanent smile making itself comfortable on his face again. The one only Bethany brought out in him. “You’re the one,” he said, as her eyes brightened. “I don’t give a shit anymore about how fast things happened or how much time is a reasonable enough time to know. I think my heart knew it from day one.” He reached down and touched her belly gently. “You’re the one, sweetheart, and as soon as this annulment is canceled, I wanna look into really locking things down. Okay?”

  She took a deep breath, smiling, then sighed in that way that always made his heart swell. “Okay.”

  “God, I love you,” he said, kissing her again.

  “I love you, too.”

  Epilogue

  The annulment was wrapped up faster and more easily than any of them had imagined. Damian’s obsessive detective work about Max and Bethany proved to have been worth it in more ways than one. It uncovered some interesting findings Max had failed to mention to Bethany. Like that he had a three-year-old love child with a woman in northern California. Though he claimed he’d mentioned it once to Bethany, she was certain he never had, and even though she couldn’t care less, it gave her reason to claim fraud. This was something Max didn’t want his name tarnished with, so he agreed to speed up the process in exchange for Bethany’s not filing fraud as her reason for the annulment.

  Among the other things Damian had uncovered about Max was the clever ways he’d evaded paying his full taxes. Damian let him know his taxes weren’t any of his business, but if Max insisted on pressing charges, he’d be forced to give the IRS a heads up. They hadn’t heard from Max since.

  Exchanging glances and silly smiles, Damian and Bethany signed the marriage license papers, thanking the clerk behind the counter, and walked out of the courthouse. Bethany had already told Damian that, being almost seven months pregnant, she was in no mood to plan a big wedding. So when she said something small and quick would be fine with her, he knew just the thing.

  He opened the door to one of Desert Heat’s latest restorations, a ’53 convertible Corvette. He’d told Bethany he borrowed it for the day, but he had a few surprises for her.

  “I’m hungry again,” she said with a remorseful little smile as she sat down.

  He laughed, closing her door, then leaned over and kissed her. “We’ll stop somewhere on our way home. Whatever you want, sweetheart. Your wish is my command.”

  “My feet are a little swollen. Maybe we can just go through a drive-thru somewhere and head straight home.”

  He walked around the car, smiling to himself. “A drive-thru it is.”

  They drove a couple of blocks as Bethany decided what she wanted, then he pulled into the parking lot of a drive-thru where Fina, Carey, and all his brothers, with the exception of Dominic, of course, sat in an old Cadillac convertible waiting for them. Carey lifted her basket full of rose petals.

  Bethany looked around and spotted the other convertible in the parking lot, the one with Mace at the wheel, her aunt next to him, and her siblings in the backseat. Bringing her hands to her mouth, she looked up and read the sign to the “drive-thru.”

  Tunnel of Love Wedding Chapel

  Through her tears she laughed, then turned to him. “A drive-thru wedding?”

  He nodded, bringing her hand to his lips, and kissed it. “Why not? I figured as fast as things happened with us a quickie four-minute ceremony through a drive-thru would be the perfect way to do this.”

  He drove through the tunnel, and the other two convertibles followed. The four-minute thing was no lie. In the time it would’ve taken them to order a cheeseburger, they were married and out of there. Bethany laughed gleefully the whole time, even afterward when they all pulled over in the parking lot and exchanged hugs and kisses with their families. “I can’t believe you did this,” she said as Damian hugged his pregnant wife.

  “When do you go again to find out if my cousin is a boy or a girl?” Carey asked, tugging on Damian’s pants.

  He glanced down, then back at Bethany.

  “Tomorrow,” Bethany said, looking just as excited as Carey.

  They’d tried several times, but each time the young sonographer said the baby was in a very uncooperative position, and she dared not give them wrong information. Their appointment to try again was tomorrow, and he knew Bethany, like his niece, was dying to know. Damian didn’t mind waiting until the day the baby came, but as he’d told Bethany earlier, whatever she wanted she got. As far as he was concerned he now had everything he wanted—this thing with Bethany locked down permanently.

  Remembering her swollen feet, he wrapped it up, and they all jumped back into their cars. “One more drive-thru to make, and then we’ll meet you all back at the house.”

  They decided on rotisserie chicken from one of Damian’s favorite places. Just as his beautiful wife had asked, they drove through the drive-thru, bought enough for everyone, and headed home.

  “So how does it feel to be officially part of the Santiago clan?” he asked, squeezing her hand.

  Smiling the huge, excited smile that had stolen his heart the very first time he’d been witness to it, she sat up straighter. Her fa
ce fell suddenly. “What?” he asked, a bit worried.

  “I just realized my initials will now be B.S.” Damian thought about it for a second, and about the fact that almost the entire time they’d dated she had kept something so huge from him, and couldn’t help laughing. She lifted that cute little eyebrow with a frown. “Maybe I won’t change my name after all.”

  He stopped laughing and glanced back at her. She couldn’t be serious. Just because of the initials? The corner of her lips inched up slowly with that evil little smirk of hers. Then she suddenly laughed. “You are too easy, Damian Santiago.”

  He smirked, glancing back at the road. “And you’re not funny, Bethany Santiago.”

  “Ooh, I like that!”

  Now he laughed, shaking his head, and looked back at her. He’d never tire of her quick mood changes. “Good, because it’s what you’ll be going by for the rest of your life.”

  “I like that even better.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Mrs. Santiago for the rest of my life.”

  Damian put his arm around her shoulders and leaned his cheek against the top of her head for a moment. Oh, yeah, he had everything he could ever ask for right there.

  * * *

  Carey ran out of Damian’s front door as soon as the car pulled up the circular driveway. Fina and Dimitri followed. The second Bethany opened her door she heard it. “What is it, Auntie Bethany! Boy or a girl?”

  Bethany exchanged glances with Damian, who tilted his head with a smile, letting her know it was up to her. They’d stopped at her aunt’s new town house to give her family the news, so she knew Damian’s family would be anxiously waiting. “Looks like we’re gonna have another little girl asking lots and lots of questions around here.”

  Carey squealed, while Dimitri groaned! Fina elbowed Dimitri. “What’s wrong with little girls?”