He shook his head slightly to clear the dreary thoughts and felt himself slipping from Isabella's body. She smiled up at him and slid off, pulling her pants back on.
"Sorry," she breathed.
He looked at her, wondering what she was apologizing for.
"I didn't ask you to pull over so that I could seduce you," she smiled. "I just thought you needed to know a few things."
"Hey, you can seduce me any time," Jonathan laughed. "In fact, you've been seducing me since you got here. All you have to do is walk through a room and I practically lose it."
She smiled, seeming to think about this.
"Hey," he said, gently, putting a finger under her chin. "Thanks for telling me all of that. All I want is to know you. And everything I learn just demonstrates how amazing you really are."
She smiled at him and his heart lifted. It felt like his life was coming together in some ways. He had been so lonely and hopeless just a few months ago. Now he had the potential for love right next to him, a son to watch grow, and even a rekindled friendship with Charlotte, who he was sure he'd lost forever. His head swam with his good fortune as he pulled his jeans back up.
They drove back to Château Sauvage, both smiling.
The bright blue sky and warm sun seemed to illuminate the earth before them, and Jonathan wondered if he'd ever felt happier as Isabella laid a hand across his cheek.
Once he’d parked, they walked from the truck, Jonathan catching Isabella's hand and pulling her to him.
"I'm so happy right now," he said quietly. "Thank you for being willing to give us a chance."
He nuzzled his face into her hair and soaked up the warmth of her embrace until he realized that he still had a question.
He lifted his head and stepped back. "Iz?" he said. "What changed your mind?"
"You asked about the ring. I just thought you should know the truth. I wasn't holding back because of someone else."
"But why did you decide to tell me today?"
Isabella paused, her eyes searching his face. It seemed like she was searching for words, looking for something to tell him. He wondered what it could be when Charlotte's car came up the lane.
"Charlotte?" he said, surprise and irritation flooding through him. "I didn't know she was coming by today."
"I'm sorry. I bumped into her in town. She told me and I was supposed to let you know."
"I didn't know you two were on speaking terms," he said.
"Sure we are," Isabella smiled. She pulled out of his embrace as Charlotte drew nearer. "I think I'll go in and see if Vicki needs any help with dinner."
Jonathan dropped his arms from her, catching her hand and squeezing it as she walked away.
As Charlotte's car came to a stop, he walked to the driver door and pulled it open.
"Hi," he said. He opened the back door as Charlotte got out, pulling Thomas in his carrier from the car. "Hi little man," he said, his voice full of laughter.
"Hi Jon," Charlotte said, her voice thin and weak.
He looked up at her, his eyes running over her face. "Are you okay, Char?"
"No, I…not really." She stared at the ground, then squinted up at him into the glare of the late afternoon sun. "Listen, we need to talk. Can we go inside?"
"Of course," Jonathan said, alarm ringing in him. "Come on in."
They walked in through the little-used front door, and Jonathan pulled Thomas from his carrier as soon as they were inside.
Charlotte sat down on one of the dark leather couches and looked around uncomfortably.
"Char?" Jonathan asked.
"Could I have a drink?" she said.
"Sure," he smiled. "Come on, Tom. Let's get Mommy a glass of wine."
He took Thomas into the kitchen, where Vicki immediately came over to hold his small hands and plant kisses on his cheek.
"Hello, tiny Thomas!" she crooned.
"Hold him a sec?" Jonathan asked her. "I'm gonna open something."
"Sure," said Vicki, still talking in a cartoon character voice. "You're already bigger, I think! My gosh, they grow so fast!"
Jonathan returned from the cellar and opened a bottle in the kitchen, pausing to wrap an arm around Isabella's waist as she stirred a pot at the stove.
"Can I pour you a glass, ladies?"
He poured a glass for each of them and then returned to the living room with Thomas in one arm and a glass in the other hand. As he leaned down to hand it to Charlotte he saw the tears streaking her face.
"Char, what's going on?" He sat down next to her on the couch, holding Thomas tightly.
She took a long drink, then another, and then put the glass on the coffee table.
"I have to tell you something," she said. "I don't even know how to begin."
Jonathan's spine straightened as he prepared for whatever bad news Charlotte was going to drop. Was she leaving early? Had something happened to her parents? Her brother?
"God, Charlotte, you're freaking me out. What is it?" Instinctively, Jonathan's arms tightened around the baby.
"It's Thomas," she moaned, her voice low. She was staring at the baby, silent tears still coursing down her face.
Jonathan inhaled sharply, thinking the worst—that Thomas was sick.
"He's not yours, Jon." She said it so quietly that Jonathan thought maybe he'd misheard her. But it took only a few seconds for his brain to process the words, for their meaning to strike home.
He stared at her. "He's not…but… "
"The paternity test that your lawyer insisted on," Charlotte said. "He's not yours."
Jonathan stared into the baby's face. The chin, the eyes. His hair. How could the child not be his? "He looks so much like me."
"I know. That's why I was sure he was yours." She glanced up at him, then quickly lowered her eyes again.
"Wait. You weren't sure before he was born? Because you…you'd been…" Jonathan felt rage flush his cheeks as he realized what she was telling him.
She just nodded, staring at the baby.
Jonathan carefully handed Thomas to Charlotte, then stood and began pacing the room.
"So let me just be sure that I understand," he said. "Not only did you turn down my proposal by leaving without even discussing it with me, but you were cheating on me, too?"
"It was one time. It was at the end…I knew it wasn't working between us or I never would have."
"You knew! You knew, but you let me propose to you after you'd slept with someone else! Do I even want to know who it was?"
"You don't know him. He doesn't live here. I don't really know him."
"Oh, that's much better."
"Jon," she looked up at him then, and she looked like a defeated child, sitting small and tearstained on the couch with the baby in her arms. "Jon, I'm sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen. And I never would have lied to you about it if I'd known."
"That's easy enough to say."
"Because it's true."
"I just…Give me a minute, okay?" He began to walk toward the kitchen then turned back around before entering. "Don't leave," he warned.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Isabella
Jonathan walked into the kitchen, his face dark. She'd told him. Isabella struggled with how to help him, and decided that there was little she could do.
He sat heavily at the kitchen table after pouring a glass of wine for himself. He stared into the depths of the glass.
"Jon?" Vicki said, concern crossing her smooth features. "Are you okay? What's going on?" She looked at Isabella, who shrugged.
The women sat down across the table from Jonathan, and he looked up into each of their faces.
"The baby isn't mine," he said, his voice a whisper.
"Oh!" Vicki said, her voice like a hiccup of surprise. "But…?"
"She cheated. Before she left. She said it was just one time."
"I'm sorry," Isabella said softly.
He looked up into her face, his dark eyes liquid. She felt like
she could see the depths of his pain there, pulsing and flashing, curling on itself like a wounded animal. This news had opened up the wound that Charlotte's original departure had created, twisted and opened it wider as he understood the depth of her betrayal.
"I just…I can't believe it," he said. "And the baby…" Tears threatened to spill from his eyes as his sister reached across the table and took his hand.
"Oh, Jon," was all she said.
They sat silently for a few minutes. Then Charlotte walked in, holding the baby.
"I'll understand if you want me to leave," she said quietly.
Jonathan stared hard at her, and Isabella could see his mind working. "Maybe that's a good idea," he said.
"I just…" a tear traced down her face and landed on the baby's fuzzy head. "I guess I'll go to Los Angeles then."
"You'll have time to figure that out," Jonathan said, his jaw tight. "There's no reason to go right now."
"I have nowhere else to go," she said quietly.
"Charlotte," Jonathan said, his voice a tired whisper. "Just go home. I'll call you."
She shook her head. "My parents kicked us out."
"Why?" Vicki asked.
"They don't believe me. They think I lied to you about the baby, that I knew the truth all along. But it's not true."
"Oh, Char," Vicki said, rising. "Sit down."
Charlotte sat down, carefully as if a sudden movement might break the fragile shell of safety that Vicki's invitation had created.
Isabella put a hand on Jonathan's leg under the table, and she met his eyes. She gave him a smile, hoping to offer some support.
"I'm so sorry, Jon," Charlotte said. "I really am. I never intended for any of this to happen. I just…I can't believe how much I've messed things up for this little guy. He doesn't even have a chance."
Jonathan looked at her then. "What do you mean?"
She held the baby close to her chest then, squeezing him as he protested with squeals and gurgles. "I don't know if it’s right for me to keep him. Maybe another family would give him a better shot." Tears dripped down as she spoke, and her face was a mask of pain.
Jonathan just stared at her, surprise and pain clearly written across his face.
"Look, Char," Vicki said, clearly taking up where she thought her brother would have. "Why don't you just stay here for a few days? Get everything figured out, let the dust settle. We'll help with Thomas, and you can get a couple decent nights' sleep. Things will be clearer if you feel stronger."
Jonathan glared at his sister, but she didn't meet his gaze. She was rising and helping Charlotte to her feet.
"You know we have the space," she said. "Let's go get you settled."
Vicki, small though she was, proved to be a powerful force in times of crisis. She took charge and Isabella saw Jonathan's shoulders relax as his sister guided Charlotte and Thomas from the room.
He turned to her then, a haunted look in his eyes.
"I'm so sorry," she told him.
The next few days were tense. Charlotte haunted the house like a living ghost, unable to disappear as she might have liked, due to the ringing of Thomas's persistent cries and happy laughter. It was surely not his intention, but the tiny boy was a force for unity in a house that would otherwise have been painfully divided.
Vicki had driven to Charlotte's parents' house in Jonathan's truck, removing the crib and changing table, and installing them at Château Sauvage in the spare room that Charlotte shared with the baby.
Isabella saw Jonathan wandering near the closed door at the end of the hall more than he needed to, his hands clenching, his face not quite managing to mask his confusion. It was clear that felt intricately involved in the baby's fate and yet completely disconnected at the same time, made so by Charlotte's announcement that there was no blood bond between him and the boy who looked so much like him.
He walked between the rows of the vineyards under the hot sun, seemingly unaware of the concerned gazes that followed him—Isabella's and Roberto's both. Isabella watched him as he searched himself. She knew that he poignantly felt the loss of the tiny boy who was never his. She guessed that it must have struck the same nerve that had been hit when Charlotte had left him, telling him before she went that she was taking his chance at a family away with her. He'd watched her go, and seen his future go with her. Now she was here, and that future was no closer than it'd been when she was six hundred miles away.
Watching Jonathan cope with the loss of his son was almost more than Isabella could bear. She knew what it was to feel the deep hole left by someone you loved being swept from your presence. But she also saw that this situation was different, and she wanted to make Jonathan see that too. She left him alone for the first day that Charlotte and the baby stayed with them, but when she found him nursing a scotch in the dark on the second night, she took a seat on the couch next to him and laid a hand on his arm.
"Jonathan."
His dark eyes turned to her, barely visible in the low light of the moon shining into the quiet house from the high window.
"I know this is hard, but you haven't lost him."
"He's not mine," Jonathan said quietly.
"Maybe not biologically."
"What are you saying?"
"You love him."
"I did love him." Jonathan shook his head and took a deep drink from the glass in his hand.
"Your love doesn't end because you find out that he's not related to you by blood. I believe that love transcends such small details as family lineage."
Jonathan looked at her then. She felt his eyes on her face, despite the shroud of shadow that lay between them.
She ran her hand down his arm, laced her fingers through his, feeling their warmth.
"Love is a choice, not a biological determination," she said softly. "You don't have to love what's happened, or the way this has come about. But that tiny little person in there can use every person in his corner that he can get. And if I was him, I'd definitely want a guy like you on my side."
He squeezed her hand in response, and she moved closer to him.
"I know that it's not the easy choice to make," she continued. "But don't let your pride get in the way of being a force for good in the life of that sweet little boy down the hall. He didn't do anything wrong."
"He's not mine," Jonathan said again, his voice soft. It was more like a question.
"And I wonder if you really believe that it matters," Isabella said.
He stared into his drink and she left him there, sliding off the couch and padding down the hall to her room.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Jonathan
He didn't watch Isabella go—it was too dark to really see her anyway, but when she left the room, Jonathan felt a palpable difference in the air. It was colder, less sweet. He realized that she carried an aura with her far more compelling than her beauty. Her very nature was almost tangible, and it was good and sweet and reassuring.
He knew that she was right. And in the morning, he'd admit it. To himself, to Charlotte. To Thomas.
But at that moment, all he wanted was not to feel Isabella's absence.
He stood and walked to the door of her room, staring at his feet, where a soft glow illuminated the strip where the door hung above the floor. He knocked softly.
"Come in," she said.
Isabella sat in her bed, propped up against pillows. She wore a thin white camisole, and her pale skin made it look almost ethereal.
Jonathan felt his heart quicken and his desire began to stir, but he pushed it down. That was not what he had come for. He closed the door softly behind him and crossed the room to the other side of her bed. Without a word, he pushed off his pants and slid into bed next to her in his boxers and t-shirt, curling himself against her warm side.
"Is this okay?" he asked, fearing that she might say no.
"It's perfect," she answered.
He looked up at her and realized that she held a photograph in her hand.
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"What's that?" he asked.
"It's them. My family." She held it closer to him so that he could see.
In the picture was a woman who could have been Isabella's twin standing next to a dark-haired man with a mustache. Seated in front of them were two children. One was a boy with a tousled sandy brown bowl cut and green eyes, and the other was a little girl—maybe eight years old. She had wild curly reddish hair and a devilish grin. Isabella.
Jonathan's heart flooded with warmth as he looked at the picture of her as a little girl.
"You all look so happy," he remarked. And they did. The photo made his heart ache for his own parents, and he wished he had a portrait to stare at where they were so together.
"We were," she said wistfully.
"You look just like her," he said.
"I know. It's odd. I think I loved her so much that I just grew into the closest approximation of her that I could muster." She looked at the picture for a few seconds longer and then put it on the nightstand beside her, turning out the light. She pushed the pillows out from beneath her and slid down in the bed until she was face to face with Jonathan.
He could feel her little puffs of breath on his face. He took her hand in his and then rolled over, pushing himself against her and pulling her arm to fall over his waist. She pulled him into her and pressed herself against him, nuzzling into the top of his back with her forehead.
They fell asleep like that, and didn't move until the light of late morning draped itself across the end of Isabella's bed.
Jonathan woke to find himself still in Isabella's bed, still in her arms.
"Good morning," he said, giving her a quick kiss through closed lips for fear of overwhelming her with morning breath.
A Rare Vintage (Wine Country Romance) Page 13