“No, I didn’t. I really looked up to him when he and Bianca married but when I saw that first photo... I was so angry. I confronted him, and he said that Bianca knew the score. But I knew my sister. She wasn’t the kind of woman who would be happy with a man who cheated on her.”
“I don’t know many women who would be,” Scarlet said.
“I agree,” he said. “Jose said that it’s in men’s natures to be promiscuous.”
“Do you agree with him?”
“No, I don’t. I think if you find the right woman, she fills that emptiness and you don’t have to keep looking,” Alec said. “What about you?”
“Hmm... I’m not sure. My dad certainly has never found the One, and Tara didn’t, either.”
“I didn’t ask about them. I want to know if you think you can find it in one man or if you are always looking for something else.”
Chapter Eight
His question didn’t leave much room for anything other than bluntness. “I have no idea.”
“Fair enough. I’m just trying to get things straight in my head. I mean a baby isn’t going to wait around for the two of us to figure our stuff out, and I do better when I have time to plan,” he admitted.
She fidgeted a bit before she realized what she was doing. She needed to stop letting him rattle her, but the truth was she wasn’t herself. She hadn’t been for a really long time...since Tara’s death. But she’d been faking it pretty well until now.
Was it Alejandro who was responsible for the change or was it the baby?
Or both?
She had no idea. She didn’t like to do too much introspection because frankly most days she didn’t like herself... That was it, wasn’t it? The truth of who she’d become: someone who put on a fake show for the media and then played that part until she fell into an exhausted sleep, haunted by her dead sister.
Damn.
She was a bigger mess than she thought.
“I don’t know that we’re ever going to come up with a plan that will make sense,” she admitted.
“Me neither,” he said. “I keep trying to wrap my head around having a baby... I’m not going to lie. It’s scaring the shit out of me. I mean, I have a nephew but honestly, I don’t really spend that much time with kids. Hell, I don’t really spend much time with adults who I’m not working with.”
She had to laugh at the way he said it. She heard the panic in his voice and it made her feel a little better that he wasn’t all cool with everything, either.
“Don’t worry, that part I’m good at...not kids but adults,” she said, shifting in the large seat and stretching her legs. Lulu was still sleeping in her crate and would probably be content until they landed.
“We should make a list of pros and cons of us becoming parents,” he said, pulling his tablet toward him.
She reached over and took it from him, then tucked it behind her on the seat. “No. We’re not doing that. We have the rest of this week to spend with each other and we’ll learn enough then to figure out what we should do next. Honestly, I thought I’d tell you—I mean, Mauricio—about the baby and then because you, or rather, he was Humanitarian of the Year I’d hand the baby over and he’d raise it. That way it would have a happy, well-adjusted life.”
He shook his head. “I really screwed up this time.”
“Hey, we both were there that night. You know I wish you’d been honest but no use rehashing that. We’ll figure this out.”
“I hope so. I don’t want to be the reason a kid is messed up,” he said.
“Me neither. As I mentioned, my family isn’t the greatest when it comes to providing a happy, nurturing home but I stilldon’t want to give up the baby unless we can’t figure out a way to raise it.”
“You’d give it up?”
“If it meant making sure the child didn’t end up like my father or sister, then yes.”
She realized that sounded harsh. It was the first time she’d actually said it out loud but in her heart she’d felt that way for a long time. She’d loved Tara more than she’d ever loved anyone on the planet but she’d been so broken, so flawed and it had been so heartbreaking to not be able to help her.
She wouldn’t go through that again. She wanted her child to grow up safe and secure...whole. She’d failed Tara and had wanted to save her. Losing Tara had shattered something in her and she was afraid of doing the same thing with her baby.