by Jan Moran
She wanted to tell him to take a hike but a deep longing resonated in her heart wondering why he was here. Had he really flown twenty-six hours to see her? Rebecca had advised her to listen to Diego. Lily had agreed never once thinking he would come after her. Her good manners dictated she listen to him.
Menus and glasses of water were placed on their table as they continued to look at each other.
“Let’s order,” he suggested.
“Fine, let’s.” She didn’t bother looking at the menu, she already knew what she wanted. Seemed Diego followed her lead. Darn him.
The waiter took their order, chicken soup for her and a sandwich for him.
With his hands clasped together and elbows on the table, Diego looked at her. “Have you enjoyed your trip?”
“I can’t believe you’re asking me that!” She leaned back in her chair, rolling her eyes in a dramatic way. “You want to know about my travels? You come to New York to engage in polite chit-chat?”
“Actually, yes.” He sipped his water. “Has it been everything you hoped for?”
“It’s been fantastic.” She didn’t have to inject any enthusiasm; her trip had been everything and more. “I’ve still got a few more weeks on my visa and then I’m deciding whether to go to Canada or England.”
“You should do both,” he recommended. “Has it been liberating?”
“Actually, yes.” She paused, thinking about the right words to say. “To be honest, I’m annoyed at myself for taking so long to do this.”
“It’s expensive to travel,” he said.
“It is, but I could’ve taken the boys on weekends away. There are options of house swaps, cheap deals, and I never did them.” She gulped away the guilt and frustration of the past few weeks. “I could’ve been a better mother to them.”
He took her smaller hand in his, concern wrinkling his forehead. “Don’t say that, you’ve done an amazing job. You were so young when you took on the responsibility of your brothers. Look at them. Both excelling at school, playing at team sports, and attending university.” He stopped, then said, “All because of you.”
Tears of self-pity clogged her eyes. “That’s so nice of you to say. You’re right. The boys turned out great, but I didn’t. I mean, I’m twenty-eight and have never travelled, have few friends, and fell for the wrong guy.” She tugged her hand free and rested her forehead in her hands. She took a couple of deep breaths to rid herself of the pity-party and looked at him. “What I do know is that I could’ve been more kind to myself and plan to do so when I return.”
“But you have, you did.” He reached for her hand again. “You went to Camilla’s class.”
“I guess so.” She shrugged. “I’m planning on doing more.”
“I’m glad to hear that.” His thumb massaged her wrist and she tried not to purr with pleasure. “Once you make more time for yourself, your time at home won’t be so stifling.”
The waiter arrived and placed their meals in front of them. She stared at the enormous mazah ball, which was the size of an ostrich egg,` sitting in the chicken soup. “It’s massive.” Lifting her spoon she enjoyed the fragrant soup. “Mmmm.”
Casting an eye at Diego, she noticed his plate was still full having barely ate a mouthful. “Something wrong with your sandwich?”
“No, it’s delicious.” The muscles in his jaw tightened.
Lily placed her spoon to the side of her plate and used her no-nonsense tone that she’d perfected over the years when speaking to the boys. “Okay. You didn’t fly thousands of kilometres to see how I am or to eat at Katz’s.” She barely paused for breath. “When I left Melbourne, I was under the illusion I would never see you again. We’d had our fling and that was that.” She threw her hands in the air. “And now you meet me, create a fake tour, take me to the most amazing deli in New York, what’s going on?” Exasperation tightened her chest, making it hard to breathe. She needed to know why he was here.
He took a sip of water and didn’t say anything.
Frustration welled inside her and she exploded with, “You have three seconds to talk or I’m walking out of here.”
“Okay,” he said. “I can’t stop thinking about our last conversation,” he said slowly.
“What? When I told you I loved you and you looked as though I had confessed to deliberately torching your wine bars?” She pursed her lips together in frustration.
“You took me by surprise. I thought we were having an affair, short-term fling. I never expected you would fall in love with me.”
“Well, I didn’t expect it either, it just happened,” she added with a toss of her hair, giving off bravado when really all she wanted to do was throw her arms around him and kiss him senseless.
She’d gone into their affair never expecting to find someone who made her feel so special, who helped make her dreams come alive and was so much fun to be with.
He used his palms to massage his eyes before lowering them to his lap. “That first night in my apartment when I told you what I wanted in life, I didn’t tell you everything.”
“Go on,” she encouraged.
“In my early twenties I, like many young men, thought they knew more than their parents. I rejected their ways believing I knew better. I decided I would find love and fall in love with someone who had a different cultural background than me. I was determined to show everyone that I knew best.”
He took a sip of water and she noted how his whitened knuckles gripped the glass.
“When I was twenty-five I met Laura, beautiful, well-educated and keen to start a family. As a legal secretary, she had an excellent job working for a barrister. We both worked long hours but I saw that as a positive sign of being a hard worker. We’d only been together six months when she announced she was pregnant, an accident.” He ran his fingers through his hair as though erasing some of the bitter memories from the past. “To be honest, I was shocked since we’d always used protection. Accepting things happen, I proposed immediately and set a date for the wedding. My parents were also shocked but accepted my decision. It’s not like we could wish away a baby.”
He cleared his throat. “I became excited about the pregnancy, talking non-stop about the prospect of being a father. Even though the timing was not good as I was starting up my business, I was determined to be the best father, reading books and websites. I must have driven Laura to frustration with my excitement. One day she sat down and confessed to me that the baby wasn’t mine.” He paused and she watched the rapid movement of his chest as he gulped down air.
He banged his fist on the table. “She destroyed everything between us. She’d got pregnant from a one-night stand with her married boss, and thought I’d learn to love and accept the baby as mine. Perhaps, if she’d been upfront…”
His dark eyes were an inky black etched with pain. “I thought I loved her but her lies destroyed everything good between us. How could I trust her?”
Her hand flew up to her mouth, quite unable to believe what she was hearing.
“I’m an honourable man and would’ve been prepared to accept and raise another man’s child, however, it turned out Laura’s one-night stand was more of an ongoing affair.”
“He was married!” It was a statement, not a question.
“Exactly,” he replied in a low voice. “At least this all happened before we married.”
“That’s terrible. How awful to be taken advantage of, to be lied to like that.” Initially she felt sorry for Laura and her dilemma but she found her lies to be denigrating and callous. How awful for her child to be the result of an illicit affair. She rubbed her hand over her heart thinking about that little boy or girl who’d be in school now. Were they happy?
Her attention returned to Diego and the rest of his story. “After that debacle with Laura I spent a lot of time thinking about my family. I was ashamed of my behaviour and how badly I’d treated my parents. When I threw her engagement ring into Port Philip Bay all those years ago, I promised myself that
I would be more considerate to my family and their values.”
The air emptied from her lungs as she stared at Diego, quite unable to believe him. “That’s quite a story. You were lied to in the worst way.” She rested her elbows on the table. “I now see why you are the way you are. Thank you for sharing that with me and I’m sorry I thought you were a mummy’s boy. Far from it. I admire your honesty and strength.”
He grabbed her hand. “There’s more.”
“More?” She gasped.
“For nine years I convinced myself I’d follow the path of my parents. Find someone with the same background as me, get married, have children, and wait for love to blossom.”
“But?”
His thumb massaged her wrist. “But then you came along. You with your gorgeous red hair, creamy skin, and green eyes. I wanted more than one night with you and couldn’t stop thinking about you. I reminded myself the last time I’d fallen for a woman, it ended in disaster. I wanted to keep things casual, or so I thought.”
He lifted her hand and kissed each knuckle. “I pretended that it was just great sex but I know it’s more.”
“More?” Her dry throat made the word high-pitched and squeaky.
“I’m in love with you,” he confessed in a low voice, his gaze focussed on her.
“You love me?” Her heart rate picked up and cantered along, still quite unable to believe what he’d just said.
“Of course, why do you think I came here? For the food?” He chuckled.
She looked at their uneaten plates of food and raised her eyebrow. “I guess not.”
They looked at each other across the table before he pressed his mouth to the pulse point on her wrist.
“Diego, I’ve missed you so much.” She paused. “I’ve been travelling on my own for weeks now and have met so many wonderful people but I really wanted to share all these fab things with you. The sights, the food, the music. I’ve missed you, I’ve even missed my brothers.” She quickly recounted the realisation of how she allowed her needs to become constrained, over the years.
“I told you, many times, you’ve done an amazing job raising your brothers. You may not have made time for yourself but you can make up for it now.” He paused. “I’ve missed you too, mi hermosa.” His low voice made her tummy dissolve like gooey chocolate.
“I still can’t believe it. You love me?” Her voice was breathless but questioning. What had changed him? It had to have been significant since he’d been prepared for her to go overseas, leave him. “What made you change your mind?”
He entwined his fingers through hers. “After you left I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I swear I can still smell that apple-scented shampoo of yours in my apartment. Everything reminded me of you. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep.” He paused. “I couldn’t eat at Angelo’s anymore or have chocolate gelati or even walk around Albert Park Lake. They all reminded me of you.”
His beautiful words made her eyes fill with tears. “And then?”
“I spoke to my father, Padre, who I trust. We spoke for ages and he reminded me that Laura was not the right woman for me. We wouldn’t have been happy had we married for the sake of a baby.” He paused. “He then told me how he’d fallen in love with my mum, before they were married. He said the heart knows.” He nodded. “He was right. I then went and spoke to Uncle—”
“The one whose wife died?”
He nodded slowly. “Yes, Uncle Ignatio.”
“You were so angry with him,” she said, remembering the bitterness in his voice from all those weeks ago.
He bowed his head with remorse. “I know. It was wrong of me. I allowed the grievance of a boy to affect my judgement.”
“Which boy?” She lifted her eyebrow with a questioning look.
“Me, of course.” He gave her a small smile before a sombre look crossed his face. “What young boy can understand true love? The love between a man and wife. My aunt died from breast cancer and Uncle Ignatio was devastated. He adored her.”
“And then your family immigrated to Australia to help him and the children out,” she clarified.
“That’s right. I foolishly and selfishly resented my uncle because of us having to emigrate but also my mother had to help raise their children, my cousins. Whereas before there was just Camilla and I, now my mother had six children to care for. Four of whom were missing their mother. I wanted attention when I should’ve been kinder and more forgiving to my mother.” He looked up at the ceiling for a bit then returned his gaze to her. “This is very hard to tell you and I’m ashamed of my behaviour.”
She reached over to trail her fingers down his face. “You were a child.”
“Until I met you, I thought love was for fools. My frustration blinded me to the fact that real love hurts. My uncle was grieving for his wife and all I saw was a broken man and somehow I equated love with weakness.” He took a long sip of water. “Until I met Laura I believed falling in love weakened you. The disaster of Laura confirmed this belief. I honestly believed that.”
“That’s quite a lot of anger and emotion there.” She pointed to his heart.
“I’ve let it go,” he announced with pride. “It took a long chat with two experienced yet sensible men, my father and uncle, for me to see that. I can’t imagine losing you.” His eyes darkened. “I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said in a low voice.
“Even knowing love can hurt I want to take a risk and be with you.”
Scepticism rolled in her tummy. “But what about everything else? The food, the language—”
He brushed her concerns away with a flick of his wrist. “It’s not important anymore. You are my everything. I love you. I can’t imagine my life without you. I want to be with you always. I want us to have children and grow old together.”
He leaned forward and brushed the tiny tears that escaped from her eyes with the pad of his thumb.
He gave her a bone-melting smile. “Besides, I can teach them Spanish. And if the only Argentinian dish you ever make is dulce de leche, that’s fine. Because having you in my life is more important than a meal, a food dish.
“I will wait for you, till you are ready. All I want is you, but I want you to have the time to study and do all the things you need to do before you settle down. This I promise you.” He paused. “I will wait for you.”
A strangled sob erupted from her lips. “But all of that was so important to you. The food, the Spanish, the culture.”
“But you’re more important,” he said slowly. “I don’t want those things if you’re not there to share them with me.”
Her breath got caught in her throat. “Are you sure?”
“Lily,” he said. “I’m happiest when you’re around. Since Sydney, I’ve missed talking to you, holding you in my arms, going for walks, and watching a movie. There’s something missing and I know that piece is you.”
“But you wanted to marry and start a family now.” She stressed the word “now”.
“But I want all of that with you so if I have to wait for it, then so be it.” His hand rolled in the air. “I’ve organised for someone to manage my business for me. I’ve taken two weeks off work so we can travel together. I want to see Niagara Falls with you but we’ll go wherever you want.”
More tears leaked out of her eyes and she brushed them away. “I don’t know what to say!”
“Say you’ll marry me,” he urged her.
She leaned back in her chair and gave him a cheeky look. “You haven’t asked me.”
He stood, threw his serviette on the table, and walked around to her side. Dropping on one knee, he took her hand in his and said, “Lily Taylor, will you please marry me and make me the happiest man? I promise to love you, care for you, and remind you every day how much you mean to me. I want us to have a family, grow old together. I want to be with you, forever.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks, Diego had confessed his love and was pro
posing in the middle of Katz’s Deli! Her gaze took in the man she loved so much. His eyes were full of love and it only confirmed what she knew, he was the man for her.
Unable to speak, her throat clogged with emotion, Lily nodded enthusiastically before kissing him on the mouth. He gathered her in his arms and kissed her back before whispering to her, “You honour me. Thank you.”
People in the surrounding tables may have been clapping with the excitement of a proposal in the café but all she could focus on was the man she loved. Diego.
They kissed and kissed some more.
“I love you, Diego, and I can’t wait to be your wife.”
They sealed the deal with another kiss to the sound of wolf whistles and cheering.
Eighteen months later
Diego pressed a soft kiss to his precious baby’s head; a surge of pride tore through him as he watched his beautiful wife, Lily, nurse their six-month-old son.
“Joaquin is a lucky boy. When I watch you feed our son, I feel like bursting with joy.”
A smile extended across her lips. “He may have been an ‘accident’ but he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I mean, us.”
He nodded in agreement. “It’s been a truly humbling experience caring and raising him.” He caressed his son’s arm before kissing Lily’s cheek. “You’re such a wonderful mother, so loving and caring.”
“Thank you, Diego.” She blew him a kiss since she couldn’t stand while feeding. “But to see you fuss over him, no one would believe what a softie you are beneath that gruff, astute business man appearance.”
He raised his fingers to his lips. “Shh, you promised not to tell.”
Lily chuckled before turning her attention to their precious son. “I just love him so much.”
“Me too, mi hermosa, me too.”
The two of them with adoring gazes watched their baby, as new parents often do, looking at the plumpness of his cheeks, the tiny fingers and curve of his brow.
Lily broke the silence with a soft voice. “I have exciting news for you.” She didn’t wait for him to reply. “My enrolment has been accepted, I start classes next term.” She raised her hand to ward off his concerns. “Before you ask, it’s only two days a week and your mum is delighted to look after Joaquin while I study.”