Page 66 of Modern Romance January 2025 5-8
The sequence of clenching her fists in resignation, hearing Jario’s muffled curse and seeing his mother’s face whiten in horror would be etched in Willow’s memory forever.
‘Chatterton?’ Jario heard his mother’s ravaged echo before she swung towards him, her face crumbling as the champagne glass fell and shattered on the deck. ‘Mee-jo, what have you done?’
He winced, the crack in his chest widening at hearing the butchered endearment. Once upon a time it’d been a great source of teasing around the kitchen island, his father laughing as he painstakingly enunciated the word Ana Tagarro could never get right.
Now it was a reminder that his father had never been given the chance to finish teaching his beloved wife his native tongue. Because of...
His head swung to where Willow stood frozen a dozen feet away, her haunted eyes filled with pain, remorse and deep sympathy. Emotions his mother was clearly oblivious to when she stalked to where Willow stood.
‘From my son’s expression I can see this isn’t some cruel coincidence. You’re that vile man’s daughter, aren’t you? Are you the reason he hasn’t been answering my emails?’ Without giving Willow a chance to respond, she carried on. ‘I don’t know what you are to my son or why you’re here but I suggest you absent yourself. Immediately.’
Anguish twisted Willow’s face, but that fighting spirit rallied admirably. ‘Mrs Tagarro, let me explain—’
‘Mama, you will treat my guest with respect,’ he interjected firmly.
The possible mother of his child.Dios mio.
Eyes the same colour as his flew to him. ‘Your guest? No!’ His mother’s shrill tone rang across the deck. The woman who’d complained for all of a minute before forgiving him for making her stage a surprise arrival instead of the planned one she’d asked the facility director to arrange, had disappeared. In her place was the mother who’d spent several months at the mercy of debilitating grief and anger until she couldn’t function as a parent, forcing the authorities to place her son in foster care, a course he accepted now that neither of them had entirely recovered from, even though Jario had forgiven her for it a long time ago.
His chest squeezed at seeing her trembling with adverse emotion.
Because he’d taken his eye off the ball. Plunged himself neck-deep in shameful lust and desire, and...possible fatherhood?
He pushed away the peculiar leaping in his chest as his mother continued.
‘Did you not hear me? Leave!’
She raised her hand, galvanising him into movement.
‘Dios mio, control yourself!’ Jario wrapped his arms around her and drew her back before she could do the unthinkable and strike his...his...
He shook his head to clear the label threatening to burrow deep into his psyche. ‘I love you, Mama, but I will not condone violence.’ Especially against the potential mother of his child. ‘Is that understood?’
A sob ripped from his mother before she collapsed against him. ‘Then tell me what she’s doing here. Why, Jario?’
He gritted his jaw at the plaintive demand. ‘We’ll discuss it later. It’s nothing for you to worry about.’
He didn’t need to look to feel Willow’s haunted eyes fixed on him. To feel her castigating disappointment, deadlier slivers of shame slicing him.
‘Come, Mama. I’ll show you to your room.’ He led his distraught mother off the deck, the vise lassoed around his chest growing tight.
Tighter.
Until he couldn’t quite catch his breath.
A mere half hour ago, she’d imagined the toughest thing she would be doing was confessing her late period to Jario. Then mitigating the leap of joy when he’d said he’d claimed their child in case that claiming might not include her. The need for clarity had been partly why she’d raced after him.
She knew differently now.
Her very bones were weighted with lead as she shoved her meagre belongings into her small case. She wished her body would move faster but it seemed to be working on its own timetable, probably locked in shock at Jario’s searing rejection.
It’s nothing for you to worry about...
A definitive, damning evidence on her position in his life if ever there was one.
She stiffened at his approaching footsteps, her skin tingling wildly beneath his penetrative stare.
‘What are you doing?’ he demanded edgily.