The Carrero Solution (Carrero Book 3)

It’s been days since the restaurant, and here I am sitting in the huge, empty garden of Sylvana’s home, agonizing over what to do. I stare at the cell in my hands for the hundredth time and sigh. My mother’s name is on the screen staring at me, and I’ve contemplated pressing dial a million times. I should tell her about the baby and our engagement. She’s my mother, yet something inside me is holding me back.

Jake comes strolling out to me, carrying a blanket and a hot drink, coming level to my face with a look of adoration in his eyes. He carefully drapes the blanket around my shoulders and slides the mug in front of me, kissing me on the temple.

“Still undecided?” he asks gently, slipping onto the bench beside me and sitting between his legs so he can face me and pull me close between them, nuzzling me against him, cradling my head with his palm. His fingers thread themselves into my hair in the way he always does. I close my eyes at the feel of him, surrounded by his unique smell, driving away anything but a feeling of serenity.

“How we left things. What I feel about her now. It’s all so confusing.” I sigh against his chest, completely confused.

“I can’t make this choice for you, baby.” Jake pulls my head up while he angles down to look at me, my head nestling into the crook of his neck. Automatically, his hand smooths over my abdomen, and I get that inner swell of warm emotion. I’ve been thinking about little tadpole more as of late, more frequently and affectionately, no longer hit with the tremors of despair I had in the beginning.

We had an appointment with the OBGYN yesterday, making everything real. Jake was his usual domineering self and tried to intimidate the poor doctor when he realized my specialist was a male. His posture grew by about a foot, and Boss Carrero appeared in full fury in all his glory. The unamused look on Jake’s face at finding out Dr. Sandy Jones wasn’t the female he’d expected was hilarious, for me anyway.

Jake went into feral jealous mode and glowered whenever the poor man put his hands on me. Temper bristling as he held my hand in a deathly grip and watched with gritted teeth as the doctor listened to my heart and took my blood pressure. Jake still has this no-touching rule when it comes to men, and as much as I wanted to be mad and tell him it was ridiculous, I found myself giggling instead, which only made his brow furrow more prominently and therefore gave me more amusement in the process. He was trying hard to be good, sit still, and say nothing, but his face said it all.

When the doctor suggested an internal test, called a sonogram, I thought Jake would rip his head off his shoulders.

“No. No fucking way is anyone sticking anything anywhere near Emma until that baby comes out!” Jake was in full aggressive mode, and the poor guy could only raise his hands in defense, trying to soothe Jake’s very angry feathers. No sonogram and no more touching of any kind. I was rapidly pulled into his lap and encircled protectively like a wolf guarding it’s kill with an expression that clearly said, if you touch her again, I’ll kill you with my bare hands.

Poor Jake. I couldn’t answer any questions without tears filling my eyes whenever I saw Jake’s violent glare. I didn’t help make anything better, falling into a giggling fit, finding the whole situation hilarious, the poor doctor. Ultimately, my demeanor softened Jake enough for the doctor to get within five feet of me and finish our appointment.

I know I’ll probably never see that poor man again. Jake was on the phone as soon as he ushered me out of the office in his tight embrace. He barked orders at whatever poor soul was on the other end of the phone, bidding them to find a list of the top female obstetricians in New York.

* * *

It reminds me of the Jake I miss like crazy. The one I have yet to seduce. If only I could get my head to calm down over these confusing emotions about my mother so I can concentrate on seducing Jake back to his former glorious

self. The lack of sex is starting to show on both of us. He

isn’t himself without it, and I’m not myself without him being that way. His over-sexed and kinky nature is a huge part of the man I fell in love with, and it’s starting to take its toll on my emotions.

He’s mean and short with everyone except me, acting like a bear with a sore head most of the time. He jogs like a maniac daily, hitting the gym, and has a new trainer putting him through boxing training three times a week, trying to kill the excess frustration not being able to have sex has given him. He’s burying his head in work, and when he’s frustrated, the poor employees on the phone are often yelled at.

He has tried to pleasure me in other ways. Jake’s got many tricks and methods in his armory that don’t require full-on sex, but I stopped him. Until he fully gives me himself, I don’t want any substitutes. It’s not the same. This means I am also severely grouchy and sexually frustrated while living with a man who is the walking, breathing epitome of sexiness, and it’s killing me.

I bring my head back to my cell, and my mother, in hopes of finding some solution to at least one of my problems today.

“If I don’t tell her, this will just keep bugging me every day until I do.” I sigh heavily, curling up into him, wishing life could be as simple as it feels anytime I snuggle up in his embrace. Jake is my home in every way. Nothing can touch me here, and nothing can infiltrate those arms and that aggressive demeanor when he’s in protector mode. I want to stay inside my Jake bubble.

“How do you think she’ll react? Are you afraid she won’t take the news well?” Jake is trying to figure out what’s holding me back. It’s hard for him to understand a mother who wouldn’t want to know that her only child is engaged and pregnant, but then, his mother is Sylvana, and he has no way to compare. His mother is the walking definition of motherhood, no wonder she produced such amazing sons.

“I honestly don’t think there will be a reaction. Maybe she won’t acknowledge it at all.” I shrug, and his arm moves further around me, planting a kiss on the top of my head to soothe me. How can anyone not feel loved when they have someone like Jake? He’s the walking and breathing perfection of my life. He knows what I need as effortlessly as breathing and never fails to deliver.

“It’s her grandchild. Surely that will push some kind of emotion?” Jake sounds unsure, but I’m not. My mother only cares about things that pertain to her and her life. Getting married and having a child, cementing the fact that I’m

never coming home to take care of her again is not something she’d want to hear. These revelations won’t enhance her life, so I don’t have any hope of stirring up some long-forgotten maternal warmth from her. Once and for all, I need to realize I’m chasing the love of a woman incapable of giving it. For whatever reason, my mother has never been able to provide me with what I deserved, and I’m certainly not going to get it now. Maybe some women miss that essential gene, and I hope I’m not going to be one of them. The fierceness of that thought has me cradling my stomach protectively.

Maybe there’s some deeper cause that created Jocelyn Anderson, but one thing I know for certain is that I am not going to be the mother she is. My mother’s never spoken of her own childhood, her parents died before I was born, and I never knew them. Her past is a closed book, and I only know the life she put me through.

I stare down at my stomach, a swelling sensation in my chest and an ache in my throat as I trail my fingertips across the flat expanse. I will be a mother who gives a shit; a mother who cuddles her child, kisses them, and tells them that she loves them. A mother who picks up her child and walks out of Jake’s life if he ever dares to hurt either of us, no matter how much I love him. Because that’s what a mother is supposed to do; put her child above anyone and everything and fight like hell to protect it. That’s the mother Sylvana is, and the type Leila’s adoptive mother is too.

A surge inside me swells at an alarming rate, a fit of anger bubbling forth at the thought of what has been denied me my whole life; a given right to any child. I sit up suddenly and lift my chin defiantly, immediately so sure about what I need to do.

“I want to look her in the eye when I tell her, Jake. I want to see how she reacts because when I tell her, I’ll also say goodbye; once and for all. No child of mine will ever know the pain of rejection that woman can inflict, and I won’t give her a chance to try with our baby. I want her to know but not give her a chance to change because she never will, but to give myself some closure and knowing that she found out from me.” My revelation comes from nowhere, the dots connecting in my mind, and now the words are there between us. It’s as clear as day to me.

There’s no doubt in my decision, and as Jake’s eyes scrutinize me, I know one thing for sure. If I let that woman linger in my life the way I always did, this to and fro thing I used to allow, I will be inflicting her on my baby. I will be hurting my child by letting that kind of poison linger in their life, and I’m not about to do that. I am the protector now, the nurturer and the mother, and I’ll be damned if that woman, with her toxic love, is going to poison my baby’s life.

“Jake, I need to do this on my own. You can come to Chicago with me, but I must face her alone for one last time.” It’s just something I need to do; this has always been between her and me. I’m going back to see her, in the way that I left her so long ago, with my mind made up about the direction of my life without her in it.

* * *

Jake holds the keys out in front of me, swinging his hand just out of reach like a torturous plaything, and I lean up to swipe them. He lifts them higher and hits my mouth with a kiss when I try for a second time. He has a happy, playful smirk, and his sexy stubbly jaw looks delicious this morning to match his very good mood.