“I couldn’t sleep, so I was looking over them again,” he said sheepishly.
“You couldn’t sleep?”
His eyes stared firmly into hers. “No.”
She looked away, not wanting to be pulled into him.
“Why are you here?” he asked gently.
“I need clarity?” she blurted.
“Clarity?”
Words stumbled out of her mouth. “What was last night to you? I mean we didn't sleep sleep together, but we fell asleep with one another,” she rushed clumsily, her words awkward. “What do I mean to you? What—“
His heated kiss broke her litany of insecurities. Gentle and yet firmly absorbing all of her, it moved like an ocean wave through her.
“I’ve got a few questions of my own,” he said quietly as he pulled away from her.
“Questions?” Her foggy mind stayed firmly on the kiss.
“About Leonel.”
“Who?”
“Your ex.”
“What about him?” she asked, her head slightly clearing.
“Do you still have feelings for him?”
Valeria frowned. “We broke up, remember?”
“But you must’ve been in love if you agreed to marry him.”
“My feelings for him weren’t as strong as I thought.”
“They weren’t?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Now he’s with a woman who appreciates him for who he is. I wasn’t the right person for him, or he for me. We were like a farm horse and a pampered throughbred.”
“What?”
“My mother's words.”
He chuckled, his voice strong. “Oh.”
“She never thought he was right for me.”
“It's your thoughts on him that I worry about.”
“Worry?”
Lorenzo stared at her, eyebrows knit together. “You never think of him?”
“No.”
“Of what could’ve been?”
“Never.”
“You don’t miss him—even a little?”
“Not even a little. It’s hard being at odds with your fiancé’s ideas, and I don’t even want to go into his family. Talk about a nightmare.”
Lorenzo chuckled. “His family is a nightmare?”
“You laugh but you don’t know what I had to go through with them. They’re nothing like your family. They criticized everything about me—my looks, my personality, my lack of status, my—“
“They were criticizing all that?” he asked angrily.
“I’d have to sling back the arrows! I hate having to live on the defensive.”
“Sounds like Leonel’s family was really a piece of work,” he blurted, disgusted. “If you had been with me, I wouldn’t have let anyone speak to you like that—including my own family. What’s wrong with him? What’s wrong with his family? You’re perfect.”
Valeria smiled. “No, I’m not. Not even close.”
“To me you are,” he said, caressing her face with feathery strokes.
Realizing the sheerness of the black lace nightgown she was wearing, she decided it was too late to hide her skimpy underclothes underneath. Nothing much was left to the imagination.
“May I stay with you?” she asked, her voice shaky.
“Just try leaving,” he stated, his thumb lightly gliding over her lips.
“You didn’t come to my room tonight.”
“I thought you needed some space,” he explained, his hand stroking the sensitive part of her collarbone.
“It's really you who needs space,” she asserted.
“No.”
“What?”
“You don’t crowd me,” he assured, eyeing her flimsy nightgown.
“I don’t?” she asked, trembling. In a few moments, judging by the spicy want in his eyes, she wouldn't be able to have the benefit of any fabric between them. Being so out in the open with a man always made her nervous—especially this man.
“No,” he stated as he yanked off his own pajama shirt.
“You sure about that?” she asked, his beautifully naked torso in full view. With a form chiseled and dimpled with muscles, she could see the results of the yard work he loved doing.
“I don’t need space from you,” he stated, his long fingers intertwined in the sheer material of her lace covering. “Not any.”
“None?”
The ripping noise was the last earthbound sound she remembered before entering an ethereal state. The intense love they made filled both of them with the nutrients they were sorely lacking.
At sunrise, Valeria woke up to find Lorenzo staring intently at her. His eyes fixed on her with an odd expression.
“I . . . I didn’t hurt the baby, did I?” he asked, concern in his voice.
Valeria smiled. “No, of course not.”
He returned the smile. “What about you?” he stated, his dark eyes drinking her in.
“No, you didn’t hurt me. Of course not, silly,” she chuckled lightly.
“In that case . . .” His lips went to her mouth as she anxiously waited for him. Getting enough of him is impossible, she thought as his body joined hers, but this is a good start to my childish need to be constantly close to him.
Going into her second trimester, Lorenzo was proud to say he knew the terminology involved in maternity. He placed close attention to what could affect his wife or child. The day came when he and Valeria went to Doctor Urtiaga for an Amniocentesis. Unfortunately, the baby being born with Down syndrome was a higher risk at Valeria’s age.
“What if there’s something wrong?” she asked as they waited for the physician in the waiting room.
“We’ll deal with it,” Lorenzo said soothingly as he put his index finger under her chin and pulled her face up so she’d see the strength in his eyes.
“Okay,” she said, feeling better.
“Don’t worry.”
“Okay.”
“Whatever happens we'll deal with it together.”
Lorenzo winced when the sharp needle jabbed into Valeria and his child for the fluid that would determine what was going on with the baby. He smiled calmly at Valeria, trying to let her know that he was with her all the way no matter what happened.
Once the results were in, a deep relief sat on them like a warm blanket on a winter’s day. The baby was doing great. And to make matters even better, the nausea that had choked Valeria was subsiding too. She seemed more energized and as a result happier.
Days went by full of laughter and ease. And the nights . . . They were beyond anything he had ever experienced in his lifetime.
Those heavenly nights.
Everything was going so well.
Chapter 50
Sitting lost and distressed at Leonardo's Bar and Grill, Kate took another swig of Rum and Coke. She had arrived in El Paso a few hours earlier and had immediately found out the devastating news upon calling her old neighbor and friend.
“Hi, Constance,” Kate had chirped. “It’s Kate. Remember me?”
“Kate O’Leary?” Constance asked with surprise, as if she was talking to a ghost.
“It's me. How are you?”
“What happened to you?” Constance questioned. “One minute you’re my neighbor and the next you’re gone and then another woman moves in with Lorenzo. It’s hard keeping up.”
“Another woman moved in?” asked Kate, her mouth painfully drying up.
“Yes, why did you two break up?” Constance asked gently.
“I can’t really talk about it.”
“Where have you been? I tried calling your office but the number is disconnected.”
“I closed my practice.”
“You what?”
“I closed my office,” stated Kate, still numb with disbelief at what she had just learned. “And I stayed with my parents in New York.”
“Why the change?”
“It’s been one thing after another sin
ce the death of Lindsey. It’s been very hard, and I didn’t think I could help my patients anymore when I was going through my own breakdown.”
“Do you feel better now?”
“No, not really.”
“I’m sorry to have given you such bad news about Lorenzo. I don’t understand any of this. He always seemed like such a nice guy and so loyal to you.”
“It’s complicated. Does he look happy with his new girlfriend?” asked Kate, her breath jagged and sharp.
“Girlfriend?” Constance muttered, her mouth very dry. “I don’t know how to tell you but . . .”
“Tell me what?”
“Valeria is not his girlfriend.”
“What do you mean?”
“I . . . I don’t—“
“Just say it,” blurted Kate.
“Valeria is not his girlfriend. She’s his wife.”
“Wife?” Kate croaked.
“Yes, I’m sorry.”
“She can’t be his wife,” blurted Kate, her throat in painful suffocation.
“He introduced her to me as his wife. My friend who works at his school also said that everyone there knows they're married.”
“But he said he never wanted to get married,” murmured Kate, her voice hurting her.
“It’s good they are married because of the ba—” Constance blurted but stopped herself before she finished the sentence.
“The what?”
“No, nothing,” Constance rushed.
“You’d better tell me,” pleaded Kate.
“Are you sure you want to know?”
“Yes.”
“But—“
“Tell me,” Kate insisted.
“The baby.”
The words hung in the air and dangled for a few seconds like shoes on a telephone line with their laces tied together.
“The baby?” Kate finally managed to ask.
“Yes, the baby,” Constance reluctantly repeated.
“That can’t be possible,” Kate mumbled. “Just can’t be.”
“I’m afraid it’s more than possible,” Constance said gently. “Valeria is pregnant with Lorenzo’s child.”
“But he said he didn’t want to have children,” blurted Kate, tears streaming down her face with no direction.
“It seems Lorenzo said a lot of things he didn’t mean,” growled Constance. “I used to really like the guy but now I’m wondering about him. He left you while you were at your most vulnerable with the death of Lindsey and quickly moved on to another woman—the dog.”
“I left him,” Kate said quietly.
“What?”
“I’m the one who left him.”
“Why did you do that? Was he having an affair with this woman?!” Constance snapped.
“No, but I thought if I gave him time he’d come to his senses about me.”
Constance breathed out deeply. “Kate, I hate to tell you this, but I feel I need to. Don’t take it wrong.”
“What is it?”
“If he married someone else and is having a baby with her, maybe you two weren’t meant to be.”
“That’s a horrible thing to say!” snapped Kate.
“Just think about it,” Constance said gently. “You were with him for many years and nothing ever formalized between you. Then he meets this woman and bang!—he’s married—he’s having a child.”
“He’s a jerk!” cried Kate. “A dog like you said!”
“Yes, I said that but . . . but when you think about, really think about it, you know as well as I do that Lorenzo is one of the kindest human beings on this earth. Something is strange about this whole situation. Maybe it has something to do with a past life? Maybe—“
“I’ve got to go,” blurted Kate. Constance’s New Age ideas were too much to deal with at this time.
“But—“
“I’m sorry, I can’t talk anymore. I’ll call you back at another time.”
Chapter 51
“Don’t get up,” Lorenzo said. “I’ll get it for you.”
Valeria smiled at him as he jumped up from his seat in the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and took out the milk. He poured her a tall glass and sat it next to the French toast he had made. She hadn’t gotten any strange cravings like pickles in ice cream but she did crave ordinary things like milk, fruit, and breakfast food during all hours.
“Thank you,” she told him wholeheartedly.
He gave her his warm smile. “You’re welcome.”
“I . . .” She started to say.
“Yes.”
“Thank you,” Valeria blurted.
You already thanked me,” he said, chuckling.
“I’m thanking you for taking care of me.” The aromatic perfume of the flowers he frequently filled the house with wafted in her nose.
He smiled sheepishly. “You’re very welcome.”
A short hour later, Valeria lay comfortably in the fluffy blankets of her bed. They were warm and inviting. She waited patiently for Lorenzo to finish readying himself in the bathroom. Having spent every night blissfully together after the time she had gone to his room, he had finally moved into the master bedroom with her.
“You seem distracted tonight,” Valeria said, sitting up as he was pulling the blankets off the edge to get in them.
“It’s school,” he sighed as he sat next to her in bed, his back laying on a pillow while holding himself up with the headboard.
“Something wrong with a student?”
“How did you know?”
“I can tell.”
He smiled at her, his dark eyes in admiration. “You can?”
“I can tell when a student is getting to you. What’s going on?”
“It’s this boy in one of my classes,” he explained.
“The one who always wears the concert T-shirts?”
“How did you know?” he asked the question for the second time that night.
She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. I guess I have a special sense when it comes to students.”
He smiled a wider grin, and she returned it. How natural it was to have him next to her, to feel his warmth emanating from his body, to share private moments with him.
“Why are you worried about him?” Valeria managed to put the words together before getting too caught up in his proximity.
“I can’t seem to get through to him. He won’t do any of the work. Not any.”
“He doesn’t understand the value of History.”
Surprised, his dark eyes snapped into hers. “You’re not going to say that he’s lazy?”
“Why would I say that?”
He went pensively in his head as if recalling a memory. “A lot of people would say that.”
“I’m not most people.”
His dark eyes anchored themselves to hers. “No, you’re not.”
She snapped her eyes away from his in order to keep her train of thought. “I think that History can be boring with all its dates and old news unless you can see yourself in it.”
“How can these young kids see themselves in it?”
“You mean how can our students be interested in the past when they haven’t lived very long?”
He nodded, his curious eyes firmly on her. “Exactly. History is interesting to us because we’ve lived part of it. We’ve seen it unfold.”
“Some of it anyway.”
“That’s right.”
“Humanity does the same things over and over again, right?”
“Yes.”
“You and I know that History isn’t just isolated events but the greed and power struggles of human beings happening over and over again.”
“Right.”
“Being teen-agers, they understand those concepts even more than we do. They live in a concentrated universe full of insecurities, obsessions with grandeur, and rivalries. You know, it’s what we go through on a more general scale—what history is made of.”
�
��That’s a brilliant observation.”
“I wouldn’t call it brilliant,” Valeria expressed, staring into his handsome face.
“I would.”
“About the boy with the T-shirts,” she said, changing the subject before she dove into him, into those strong arms of his.
“David,” he clarified.
“David,” she repeated after Lorenzo. “He wears all those concert T-shirts. What kind of history do those musical groups have? What kind of power struggles did they go through? How does it compare to happenings in history?”
“I see what you’re saying. Out-of-the-box teaching, right?”
“I find that most people, young and old, are much more interested in whatever if it makes sense to them.”
He nodded. “Right.”
“It’s got to open doors in their minds.’
“I see what you mean,” he stated.
“If they understand their connections to the past and how it influences the present and the future, then they want to learn it.”
“You're so incredible,” he murmured.
“Thank you.”
Lorenzo urgently planted his lips on hers, taking her by complete surprise. His mouth fiercely pulled her into his space.
As he started snatching her clothes away, he whispered, “Your mind is such an aphrodisiac.”
Chapter 52
Kate didn’t know why she didn’t rush back to New York but for some reason, she felt anchored in El Paso. Ever since she had found out about Enzo’s marriage and baby, she found she couldn’t pull herself together. She couldn’t make a decision about her life.
“Hi,” a voice said to her at Leonardo's Bar and Grill.
Kate looked up to find Belisaria and Garry staring at her with surprise.
“Why didn’t you call me to tell me you were in town?” Belisaria chastised playfully.
Kate stood up and hugged each one. “Sorry, I was planning to do it until . . . well . . . until . . .”
“Until what?”
“Let’s not talk about me,” she stated, indicating that they should sit down. “I want to hear about you, Belisaria.”
After the waitress had interrupted them and taken their order, Kate continued her questions to Belisaria. “What’s going on with you?”
Belisaria grinned brightly. “I’ve already started school. Thanks to your generous severance I haven’t had to take out too many loans.”
“That’s wonderful,” Kate stated, truly happy for her former receptionist. “And how have you been, Gary?”
“I can’t complain,” he said, smiling. “I still can’t believe you’re here. A colleague had told me he had seen you in the building, but I thought he was seeing things.”
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