I pressed my palms to my forehead and tried to stop the room from lazily spinning. I was still nauseated, though I hadn’t mentioned anything to the guards. They wouldn’t care, and it wasn’t any of their business. It was my problem—not theirs.
I guessed that Leo hadn’t cared about my future imprisonment. Hell, I didn’t want to believe it, but maybe he had been angry enough that I’d left, angry enough to turn me in. The last time I’d seen him, on the side of the road in his soaked suit, he’d looked heartbroken, not vengeful, but maybe I didn’t know him as well as I thought I did. How well can you really know a man, just because he makes your mouth catch on fire, just because he makes you wither up at his touch? That kind of thing doesn’t mean anything. No matter how badly I wanted our connection to be true, there was no denying solid, physical facts, like time and space.
Because I’d sent Madeline to tell him about this more than a full day ago, and Aurora Beach was less than two hundred miles from Port Primavera. And I knew that Leo was morally comfortable with doubling the speed limit when he felt so inclined. But he hadn’t come.
I massaged the back of my neck and rolled my head to the side. God, I felt like crap.
Shit, I’d thought that I could trust Spider. I thought he’d been my friend. But he’d left something behind, a fingerprint, or maybe the old hag had hidden cameras that even “Mr. del Papas” was not privy to, and they knew they were looking for Lorenzo “Spider” Iglesias. And they knew that Lorenzo Iglesias had been a private chauffeur for Ronaldo Castillo for four years. And when they’d decided to start looking at me more closely—thanks to Leo—they had all the dots they needed to connect the pieces together. They followed the trail right to my apartment in Port Primavera, where I was letting Spider lay low for the summer. My apartment hadn’t been a secret, hadn’t been under a false name, and if they could bust down the door at my parents’ place, that apartment door, by comparison, would’ve folded with a hard enough knock.
And he’d rolled right over on me. Lorenzo Iglesias had told them everything.
I wondered if he’d told them about Leo, but I couldn’t imagine why he would. There’s no use making enemies for yourself on the outside, especially when you’ll be free after your testimony is complete.
And I was relieved at that. It was crazy and it was stupid, but I was relieved that Leo wasn’t going to be behind bars, too. Even if he had been poised to set me up for the Heart of Icarus. Even if he might have been the one to turn me in for van Buiten. Even if Madeline had told him that I was arrested—maybe even that I was pregnant—and he hadn’t responded, hadn’t cared, I still didn’t want him to end up in jail alongside me.
I guess I was an idiot, but that’s how I felt. I didn’t want any harm to come of him, even when he deserved it, even when I was the one hurting, I was the one in trouble.
I swallowed and my eyes crusted over with tears.
I guess I was an idiot, but that’s how I felt. I was in love with the jerk.
I bowed my head into my hands and let out a good cry. God, it felt good, like a rubber band had been over my heart, looped again and again, and it had finally snapped and let all the pressure loose. I sobbed until my shoulders racked, sobbed out loud, lost myself in the pleasure of wallowing. Fuck, I was pregnant, and the dad didn’t even give a shit. FUCK, I was in jail, and I wasn’t going to get back out. Not with Spider’s testimony, not with all the corroborating details. Hell, my fucking skin cells were on the emerald earrings; I was fucked. Fucked!
All around me, the other cells echoed with women sneering that I should shut up, women mimicking my sobs with snide theatricality.
“Fuuuuck!” I cried out. “Fuuuck youuu guyyy—”
“Castillo,” a gruff voice interrupted me. I jolted. It was the bailiff. dammit. I was already in trouble, and I’d only been in this cell for one day.
Keys jingled and I blinked hard.
He was unlatching the cell.
I started up from the floor. “What are you doing?” I asked hopefully. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be what it looked like. It had to be something even worse—yes. They were probably just remanding me to a cell in Aurora Beach. Of course. That was where I’d stand trial.
“You’re free to go,” the bailiff said, nodding slowly as the door came open. “No more need to scream the ‘F’ word at our other fine citizens.”
I stared at him with a slack mouth. “Uh. What?”
“You’re free to go.” The bailiff kept nodding for me to advance past him, but I wouldn’t budge. This didn’t make sense. “We’re sorry for the misunderstanding. You can see, I’m sure, how all our evidence placed you directly into the spotlight, but—we were apparently mistaken.”
“Y-you were?”
“It happens. Come on.” The bailiff gently plucked my elbow up in his hand and pulled me toward the front. “It was a set-up. Seems obvious now. The mastermind came forward a few hours ago.”
The mastermind. The mastermind.
My eyes widened. “N-no,” I whispered, shaking my head. The bailiff seemed to fade away—or maybe I was just losing my peripheral vision. I might have been on the verge of passing out. Everything was happening too fast. My brain needed to shut down. Install some updates. “No…” Madeline had gone to Aurora Beach after all. She had found Leo. She’d told him—and he’d turned himself in. The father of my child was going to prison. For me. Even after I’d told him that I didn’t trust him—even after I’d left him on the side of the road in the rain—
My knees folded, and frankly? I was grateful for the break.
Between early and late afternoon, a lot of things can change. For instance, my clothes had changed. Oh, and I’d taken a shower, hallelujah. And I was in Aurora Beach. But I was still at the county jail, this time waiting to visit Leonardo Battista.
Now my hair was fresh and loose and I was wearing the same wrap maxi dress with the shimmering emerald mosaic that I had been wearing at our first date—well—at our first business dinner.
I wondered if he’d remember.
“Miss Castillo,” the bailiff called. I stood and smoothed a hand over my wild curls, like it would make any difference at all. They sprang back into place as soon as my fingers left.
“Here,” I announced, clearing my throat. “Here.”
The Aurora Beach County bailiff nodded and ushered me forward. “He’s waiting for you.”
We walked down a corridor and to a small room with a large mirror erected in one corner, a table dominating at the center. And Leo. Leo sitting. God, he was—perfect. His hair was strangely ruffled and askew, a style I had never seen it, as if it had been washed by the rain and whipped dry by the wind. His cheeks were ruddy with a little sunburn. He was wearing a white collared shirt, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and black dress shorts. It was the most casual I think I’d ever seen him in, and he was imprisoned, and he still looked ready to attend a seaside funeral.
He looked at me with those deep, moody gray eyes, and I flowed toward him like water breaking from a dam. “Leo,” I breathed.
He stood and absorbed the impact of my embrace, enfolding me with an unexpected mixture of tenderness and strength. As if he wasn’t afraid at all.
“Leo,” I breathed again, my lips tingling as they roved over his strong neck. I had never wanted him more; my fingertips were burning.
“Hey, you two, no contact,” the bailiff reminded us gruffly.
Leo removed himself from me immediately, but my skin groaned and ached at the separation. I wrapped my arms around myself and pursed my lips. It was so cold without his arms. I felt diminished. Like a half. Trying to breathe with only one lung. Trying to think with only part of a brain.
“No contact, and no exchange of items,” the bailiff barked from the doorway. “If I see it again, I’m going to have to ask you to leave, Miss Castillo.”
“Yes, sir.” I gave him a sickened glare and he raised his eyebrows at me and shrugged before turning and sauntering away.
“I have to admit, the last time I heard you say ‘Sir,’” Leo muttered, “I liked it a whole hell of a lot more.”
I turned back to Leo and softened. I reached out a hand to touch him by pure instinct, then pursed my lips, pulled it back, and took my damn seat across from him. No contact. Ridiculous. “Are you okay?” I whispered.
Leo’s eyes lit across me, fluctuating with pain. “Yes,” he said. “I’m fine. And you? Are you—” He tilted his head back and forth, watching me closely. “—nauseated at all?”
Blush flowered on my cheeks. “She told you,” I said.
“Told me?” A small smile twisted at the corner of Leo’s mouth. “She brought the test with her.”
“Argh, gross.” But my eyes twinkled at him. “Listen. I want—I want to talk to you about the other night.” I nipped at my lower lip. “On the highway.”
“You mean when you left me on that road.” Leo cleared his throat and examined his nails pointedly. “In the rain.”
“It had stopped raining,” I corrected him breathlessly. “And I was hurt. I thought you didn’t really care about me.”
Leo indicated himself with a flick of his hand. “Yet it was me you called when you got arrested, not good old Ronaldo. But me.”
“It was just some kind of instinct.” I tilted my head and smiled at him. “And you came in and confessed…after thinking about it for a night.”
“I didn’t have anything left to think about,” Leo assured me. He slid his hand across the tabletop, but didn’t touch my interlaced fingers. Instead, he drifted his hands in the air, less than an inch from mine, and my flesh sizzled as if it had met his. I sat up a little straighter, made alert and energized by his closeness. “I came immediately, Sofi. I was two hundred miles out at sea, and Gabe had to come and get me at the reef. My radio was out.”
“What?” I spluttered. “Two hundred miles out at sea, and your radio was out.”
It wasn’t really a funny situation, but his eyes—normally so hard, normally so somber—shattered with light, like the sun breaking through a storm. “Well, it was off,” he corrected himself. “Sorry to be overdramatic. I turned it off.” A smile ticked at his lips. “What, you didn’t think I was going to stand by the side of the road for the rest of the weekend, did you?”
“Why are you so…?” He was about to go to jail. Not this holding area, but—federal prison. I couldn’t imagine why, after he had busted his knuckles on so many things since we’d met, he was kind of calm now. “Why are you smiling?”
His smile widened. “Because you’re pregnant,” he whispered.
His hands descended on mine, and a grin to match his broke across my lips. “No contact!” the bailiff yelled from somewhere outside the room—maybe behind the mirror. The door burst open and he marched in on us, jaw grim and set, eyes joyless. We sprang apart, but it was too late, and the bailiff gripped my arm and pulled me through the door.
“Hey!” Leo belted, lunging after us. “Get your hands off her!”
But it was too late. The corridor was swimming with officers, happy to further separate us. My eyes connected with his, and only three words slipped from his mouth before I was pulled backwards through the door and it closed on us.
“Wait for me,” he said. Wait for me.
“This is goddamn ridiculous,” I seethed at the bailiff, jerking my arm from his hand. “The man can’t even touch my hand for a second? What do you think, that I was going to pass him a goddamn nail file? A spoon?”
“Miss Castillo,” the bailiff said, but I was already departing through the doors. I took long, fast strides toward my car, climbed inside, braced the steering wheel, and didn’t go anywhere. I had to think. Think.
I wasn’t going to wait for Leo.
I had his baby brewing in my body, and when he touched the mere air near me, my skin came to life, and I had made him smile. Because you’re pregnant.
There was no way in hell my body could stand to wait for Leonardo Battista.
I was going to have to just get him out of there.
Uncle Ronaldo was by the pool when I arrived at the estate, basting in coconut oil like a shiny golden sausage. He was wearing a white Speedo and sunglasses, but he must have not been asleep, because I hadn’t even made it to the tiles before he broke out into a grin and struggled to reach a sitting position.
“My favorite niece!” he boomed, arm flailing in the air to counterbalance his generous physique. “What are you doing back at this dump? I thought you went home!”
“Uncle Ronnie.” He clapped one of my hands between two of his and I leaned closer, kissing both his cheeks. “I did go home for a few days. I needed to get my head together, and before I really could, I got arrested.”
Uncle Ronaldo’s jaw dropped. “Ay, Dios mio! Arrested?” he breathed, as if the news was just staggering. There it was. The little ballerina princess who could do no wrong. How many dumpsters did I have to set on fire? “Arrested for what? For God’s sake, by who?”
“I was arrested in Port Primavera, but then released,” I explained. “They detained me because—because someone gave them my name.”
“Since when is that evidence?” Uncle Ronaldo sneered, blowing past the issue of my potential involvement completely. That was the Castillo way—maybe you were there, and maybe you weren’t there, but either way, you were “never there.”
“It’s evidence when they find the guy with the fingerprints from the heist at your apartment.”
“Circumstantial, at best!”
“Uncle Ronnie—they let me go,” I reminded him. “They let me go because someone else who was involved came forward and confessed. He—he took my place.”
“Well, thank the lord for that.” Uncle Ronnie actually smiled at me. He smiled. Like it was all over. “Now, my little sugar dumpling, we need to talk about what sort of action we’re going to take against the Port Primavera police department, to do this to you. Just look at you.” He panned his hand in the air over me. “You’re normally the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen, but right now, I’m not going to lie to you, you’re a mess. You look sick.”
His mention of sugar dumplings hadn’t helped. “I’m…” Jesus, spit it out. Quick and painless, like ripping off a bandage. “I’m pregnant.”
Now I had his real attention. Theft and jail? A little dull for poolside gossip. Betrayal and sacrifice? Just another day at the office. But pregnancy. For pregnancy, he would take off his sunglasses and really look at me.
“Pregnant,” he reiterated, somber now. “Who’s the guy?”
I swallowed. “The same guy sitting in that jail for me right now.”
“Ah, jeez.” Uncle Ronnie put his elbows on his knees and groped his chin thoughtfully. “Well, we’ll help him out, all right? This isn’t over yet. My new itty bitty great niece—or nephew!—isn’t going to grow up a bastard, I’ll tell ya that.” Uncle Ronnie pulled out his cell phone, and I honestly have no idea where he could have possibly been keeping it. He flicked his finger over the screen. “What’s the boy’s name?”
I hesitated, remembering what Madeline had said about the two families.
“Battista,” I blurted. “Leonardo Battista.”
Uncle Ronnie’s eyes moved to me. He stopped messing with the phone. “Leo Battista,” he repeated. “That’s not a boy, Sofi.”
“Well, I should hope not,” I said, holding my head high. “I don’t want to be with a boy. I want to be with a man.”
Uncle Ronnie pursed his lips, then said, “I suppose there’s no use in telling you that his family has caused some serious destruction to my territory over the past thirty years.”
I shook my head and frowned at him. “That doesn’t mean anything to me, Uncle Ronnie. You should know that.”
Uncle Ronnie nodded. “I guess it wouldn’t change anything now,” he relented. “He’s still going to be family.” He slanted a look at me. “You know, that boy’s got anger problems. I can’t tell you how I know this, but let
’s just say, he ruined a room at one of my hotels.”
“I know. He can be angry.” I nodded calmly. “But—he’s not angry with me.” I spread my hands in the air and shook my head, a little alarmed at how poorly he was taking the news. “Do I have to remind you that this is the man who took my sentence, even though he didn’t have to? I was going to go to jail if it wasn’t for him?”
Uncle Ronnie rolled his eyes and put his sunglasses back on. “Yeah, yeah,” he muttered. “I remember.” He settled back in the patio chair and set his phone next to him, forgetting it.
“Weren’t you going to do something?” I demanded. “Weren’t you going to call someone?”
Uncle Ronnie grumbled out a sigh and picked the phone up again. “I guess there are a few calls I could make,” he said.
“Don’t you have that guy on the inside you use when it looks real bad?” I asked.
Uncle Ronnie cocked his head at me. “Just what the hell are you talking about?”
“Oh, my god!” I sat at the foot of his patio chair and rolled my eyes, burying my hands in my hair. “I already know, Uncle Ronnie! I know all about it, so please, do me a favor, okay, and drop the innocent act about the family. Please, just…just make the call. C’mon. Get him out of there. However you can. Whatever you can do.”
Uncle Ronnie stared at me for a minute—or I think he did, anyway—and then nodded. “Of course,” he said, swiping his phone again. “Of course, pudding pop.”
Argh, pudding pop. “Thank you,” I said, shoving up from the patio chair and making it halfway to the back door before lunging into some bushes.
It seemed abnormally sunny on the day of Leo’s release, even for South Florida. Everything was kind of—shiny. I had told Uncle Ronaldo that I would stay for the rest of the summer now, but maybe I would stay for the rest of my life. I guess it was a little bit soon to be looking ahead. I hadn’t even gone to my first prenatal appointment, and the father of my children—of my child—might still be kept at the prison on other charges. But, as I drove toward the Battista estate, with the sun sparkling in the sky and the ocean that brilliant azure and the heat just goddamn unbearable, I had a feeling. I had a feeling that comes with wearing your favorite flowery sundress and your boyfriend being released from jail. I felt heady. I felt high.
The Perfect Con (A Bad Boy Romance Novel) (Bad Boy Confessions Book 1) Page 17