Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 153571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 768(@200wpm)___ 614(@250wpm)___ 512(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 153571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 768(@200wpm)___ 614(@250wpm)___ 512(@300wpm)
Roman responds to the host's question, Spanish rolling off his tongue like he's spoken it his entire life. He probably has. I tried to learn, but wasn't very good at it. Whatever he says has the host nodding and smiling though.
I glance around the restaurant, knots in my stomach growing. The place is small and intimate. Little chandeliers hang over each table, but the light they cast is minimal. The booths are deep, the high backs offering nothing but privacy. The place is painted much more demurely inside than it is outside. The inside is also in much better condition. Everything is neat and clean. Aside from a busboy rolling silverware into napkins at one table and our elderly host, we're the only two here.
Our host grabs two menus from the counter and motions for us to follow him. Roman puts his hand on my lower back again, leading me through the restaurant. I try to follow the threads of conversation as he talks with the host, but with his hand on me, I lose track completely.
How does he do that to me? How does he unravel me just by touching me? It's exhilarating and nerve-wracking at once.
By the time the host stops at a booth near the back of the dining room, my body temperature has climbed ten degrees and my mouth is dry again.
"Thank you," I mumble, sliding into the booth.
Roman's hand slides across my back and then my hip as I move. I jump, but if he notices, he doesn't say anything. He slides in across from me and the host lays our menus in front of us before saying something else in Spanish.
Roman nods, and then the host walks off, telling us that our waiter will be right out.
I barely notice him leaving. My gaze is focused on Roman. He's always seemed so big to me, but seated across from me, he appears even more massive than usual. Like an ancient warrior, larger than life.
My head comes nowhere close to the chandelier, but his threatens to bump into it every time he moves. His shoulders are broad, his white shirt stretched over his muscles, straining to encase them.
God, he's gorgeous.
"Did you play football?" I ask him when my body temperature shoots up another degree.
He cocks a brow at me like he isn't sure where the question came from.
"You're huge." I feel my cheeks heating when he smirks, but it's true. "I'm serious. Have you always been this big?"
"Yes," he says, leaning back. He throws his arm casually over the back of the bench. "I've always been big. And no, I didn't play football. I wasn't into organized sports."
"Oh. What were you into?"
He eyes me for a minute. "Fucking," he says bluntly.
I blink at his candor, and he shrugs.
"I wasn't a good kid, Mila." He isn't upset or embarrassed about his past. He's just telling me the truth. "I slept around. I smoked pot, fought, and raised all kinds of hell."
"Oh." I swallow, trying to imagine him as a rowdy teenage boy. I can almost see it in him. I always thought he was so self-contained, so quiet, but when he's fucking me, I see that wildness peeking out. More and more, I see it even when he's not inside me. "Can I ask you a question?"
He nods.
"You were really young when you got Tahani's mom pregnant."
He nods again.
I want to ask him what happened, but the words are stuck in my throat. I know what Tahani told me, but I want to hear his version. Why was he with someone like her mom? Lucinda McPherson is uptight, uppity. Roman isn't like her at all.
"I was sixteen," he says when it becomes obvious that I'm still searching for the right words. "I was running with a rough crowd, getting into all sorts of shit. My parents sent me to my grandfather for the summer, hoping to get my head out of my ass. Lucinda wanted to piss off her parents, and I was perfectly fine with helping her accomplish that. We spent a few months together before I went back home to Los Angeles." He shrugs like that's all there is to the story, but there's more. I know there is.
"She didn't tell you that she was pregnant?"
He tenses at the question, anger sweeping through his expression. "She didn't say a fucking word," he says, his voice hard. "I don't think she planned on me ever finding out about Tahani."
"That's what Tahani says, too," I whisper. Lucinda didn't want him to know that they had a kid. He never would have known if Tahani hadn't tracked him down. I think Tahani will always resent her mom for keeping her away from Roman. Watching him, I think he'll always resent it too.
"Once I found out she existed, I didn't give Lucinda a chance to keep me away. She could have tried, but it wouldn't have stopped me. Tahani's my daughter. I had a right to know about her. Had her mother forced my hand, I would have pushed the issue. I would have fought for custody." His eyes flash, anger swirling through those blue depths again. "I wouldn't have lost. I never do."