With that, I walked out of their house, and straight out of their life.
I had a feeling that I’d never be welcomed back.
Unfortunately for them, I’d be taking my Abuela and my brother with me—at least the one that was in prison. Oscar was too much of a kiss-ass to ever defy my parents. He liked his cushy, air-conditioned desk job that allowed him to provide for his eighteen children (ok, so it was only seven) from the comfort of his office.
Not only did he get everything he wanted paid for, but he could also escape his horde of crazy children, his wife, and all the responsibilities that came with them by saying he had to work.
I didn’t have high hopes of ever talking to Oscar again, either.
Not when he liked his job too much, and his parents gave him everything he ever could want.
Oscar had the exact opposite of the shitty childhood that I had. He, being of the male persuasion, hadn’t had to worry about the things that I’d had to worry about.
Getting the woman who was now his wife pregnant at sixteen hadn’t been anywhere near the big deal it was when I got pregnant out of wedlock. And, when his second child came along, thankfully with the same woman, at age seventeen and a half, they still didn’t care.
It was the exact freakin’ opposite reaction with me.
“Are you fucking crazy, Isadora?” Oscar hissed from his chair as I walked past.
I looked over at him. “Whatever do you mean, Oz?”
Oscar narrowed his eyes. “All of this over a kid you don’t even know all that well?”
I looked him straight in the eye and nodded. “All of this over a kid I don’t even know all that well.”
On that parting comment, I walked out of their lives and didn’t look back.
Breaking free of their hold on me felt exhilarating.
The entire time that I’d been working there, I’d felt like I’d owed them. But I didn’t owe them anything, they owed me something.
Half of my paycheck every week went to “this or that” they’d say. What it really meant was that they didn’t feel that I was worth what people were paying for my services, so they kept half of it for themselves.
That was why I’d started cleaning on the side in my spare time, and slowly but surely, my side business had started picking up steam over the years. Now, I had more than enough clients to allow me to branch off on my own.
And, I smiled deviously, I also had clients through my parents who only wanted me.
They loved me. Adored me, really.
I had each and every one of them programmed into my phone, and I’d have to call them quickly before my parents tried to call them and spin a different story.
Which was what I did for the hour that it took me to walk to the mansion on the hill.
When I finally arrived at Rome’s front walk, I was breathless from talking to everyone, but happy nonetheless.
All but one of them had agreed to come over to the dark side—meaning they’d switch to my company instead of staying with my parents’—and they also agreed to be flexible with me after I’d explained more of what was going on.
Which led me to now, standing in front of a door, wondering if I should knock.
I didn’t get my fist halfway raised when the door was wrenched open, and his tired blue eyes were on me.
He didn’t say a word, he just wrapped his large hand around my wrist, causing my heart to race for multiple reasons, and gently pulled me inside.
I was in the living room when I realized I’d forgotten the cookies that I normally brought with me.
“Shoot.” I snapped my fingers in frustration. “I forgot the cookies.”
Rome’s smile did nothing to hide his exhaustion. “It’s okay. He hasn’t been able to hold anything down today, anyway.” He looked over at his son where he was laying on a pile of blankets that were covering the couch. There was a large, silver pot on the floor—I assumed for easy reach—and Matias was laying there in only his underwear with his arms sprawled up over his head.
But the kicker? He was smiling in his sleep.
“I’ve never seen him smile as much as he has over the last few days,” I told the silent man at my side.
“I’ve never cried as much in my whole life as I have over the last few days,” he mumbled.
I wasn’t sure that I was meant to hear that, but I had.
I turned, and, without thinking, walked forward and wrapped my hands around the man’s middle.
The moment I touched him, my entire body locked.
I hadn’t touched a man who wasn’t related to me, at least willingly, in a very long time. And Rome? Well, he was most certainly a man. A big, thick, hard-all-over man.