54
“Amaya, are you all right?” Jolene asked, and she cocked her head at me. I could see I wasn’t going to be able to keep the truth from her much longer. I shifted in my seat and glanced around the small room. I had something to distract her for the time being, at least, and Kristo had promised to give us as much time as we needed to deal with the situation at hand.
“Kristo got you something.” I dipped my hand into my bag and pulled out the small box that contained the charm bracelet Kristo had helped pick out for my sister. Her eyes lit up as soon as she caught sight of the fancy brand name printed on the box, and she grinned up at me, the thrill evident in her eyes.
“Are you serious?” she squealed, and she reached out for the box, popping it open. She gasped when she saw what was waiting for her inside. The bracelet looked even more delicate now than it had in the box. I bit my lip and smiled as I watched her slip it on over her wrist and twist it this way and that, admiring the way it caught the light.
“This is so amazing,” she sighed deeply. “Tell him thank you. So much. I can’t believe this. I never thought I’d own anything as beautiful as this.”
I watched her, my sister, and I thought I was smiling as I took her in, but when she looked back up at me, she jerked her head back as though she’d seen a ghost.
“What’s up with you?” she demanded.
“What? What is it?” I mumbled, shifting in my seat. Kristo had dropped me off ten minutes ago and had given us some time to talk, but I didn’t have forever. Yet, I was still trying to shift the duty of this onto some future version of me. But I had to tell her the truth. She was my sister, and if I could be honest with anyone, then it had to be her.
“Come on, I can tell when there’s something up with you.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Come out and say it. You know I’ll get it out of you sooner or later.”
“Yeah, you will.” I managed a proper smile this time, and she leaned back in her seat, eyeing me carefully like she was worried one wrong move would have me swallowing my words once more and backing out of telling her the truth.
“There’s something I need to tell you.” I leaned forward and took her hand in mine, the one with the bracelet dangling off the wrist. It looked perfect on her, and I felt a stab in my chest as I realized I was about to tell her something that would change her opinion of my husband-to-be forever.
“Amaya, you’ve got me worried.” Jolene furrowed her brow. “Will you just come out and tell me already? Please?”
I took a deep breath, lowered my gaze to the floor, and began, at last.
I felt as though I’d been storing these words up inside me forever, my body aching to share them with someone, anyone. I had never come out and told anyone the truth like this, the full truth about everything that had happened between Kristo and me, but if anyone was going to hear it, then it was going to be my baby sister. She was the one who had stood by me through everything, accepting Kristo and my life with him without second-guessing me once, and she deserved to know this. To know everything. To know the man I was going to marry as well as I did, the man who was going to become the first member of our family besides the two of us in years. So I told her.
From the night in Vegas when we woke up next to each other and found we had wed while we were too drunk to think to the contract and our families finding us out, the journey had been long, but so worth it.
Jolene watched me quietly, not saying a word, her brown eyes stuck firmly on mine as I came out with all of it. It almost felt like a relief, being as honest as I was. I didn’t realize how much keeping all this from my sister had been burdening me, but now it was out there in the open, for better or for worse. Probably for worse, now that I’d talked about it.
She leaned back in her seat and observed me for a long moment when I’d finished talking, and I sat there and chewed my lip so hard, I was surprised I didn’t taste blood. She shook her head slowly, and then finally responded.
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me any of this until now,” she remarked, and the hurt in her voice was evident. My heart twisted in my chest, the guilt a punishment for all I had kept from her all this time.
“I would have told you, Jo, really I would.” I squeezed her hand. “But the contract—and I didn’t even know what was going on with Kristo half the time, and I didn’t want to worry you.”
“All this time and I didn’t know the truth.” She shook her head, and I couldn’t get a read on how this was making her feel. Sure, hurt, but did she accept it? Would she forgive me for this? Would she forgive Kristo? I had to know.
“Jolene, I shouldn’t have lied to you,” I told her. “I know that. And I’ll never lie to you again, I promise you that. But there was so much going on, and all I could think about was making sure you were taken care of. He had the money to make that happen. If you had had the same choice, you would have made it, too, wouldn’t you?”
“You know I would,” she conceded, and she shook her head once more, but this time, there was a small smile spreading out over her face. “I can’t believe any of this is really happening. And now you’re marrying him? For real? No kidding?”
“No kidding.” I flashed the ring he had purchased for me in front of her, and she squealed and grabbed my hand and pulled it toward her.
“That ring is incredible,” she sighed. “Man, he really is crazy about you, isn’t he?”
“Ask him yourself,” I teased, and she grinned.
“Maybe I will,” she shot back, and I took another deep breath. Now that the hard part was out of the way, there was something else I needed to ask her. Something big. Huge.
“And there’s something else as well,” I continued, and her face dropped again.
“Don’t tell me you’ve been hiding a whole niece or nephew from me as well?” she exclaimed, glancing around the room as though she expected the secret child to come sprinting out from behind the bed. I shook my head.
“Nothing like that,” I promised her, chuckling. “That’s a long way down the line. But we wanted to ask you …”
I hesitated for a moment. Should I give her some time to process everything I’d just dumped on her head? Or should I just get it all out there now and let her make her own decision? All of this was happening so quickly, and I didn’t want my baby sister to be left out of a single thing.