Page 71 of Shame
Salvatore leans over the baby. I hold my breath. He glances up at me and our eyes meet. There’s an odd expression in them, something vulnerable, gratefulness.
Then they turn and Lucas reaches me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Carmen
No! No, I can’t! I’ll die!
My insides scream in the purest of agony, worse than anything I’ve felt in my life.
“Wait here,” I gasp.
Then I run. Everyone looks up. Passengers, guards. Everyone but the little group with their backs to me, leaving with my boy.
I grip his solid arm, pulling him to me. Salvatore spins on his heels and everything stops. Elena is still holding my son and my chest swells with emotions stronger than life. Love. Pure love and a need to be together.
“I need to talk to you.”
A small smile plays on Salvatore’s lips. “I always enjoy talking to you, my dear.”
I scoff. “Knock it off. Come.” Pushing at him is like pushing at a boulder, he’s immovable, but he lets me steer him. I take him to a spot just around the corner, but out of sight from the others. My heart nearly pounds its way out of my chest. I have everything to lose, and everything to win.
“What’s eating you, sweetheart? I thought you got what you wanted. The pup, and rid of the baby.”
I push him up against the wall, my sudden motion surprising him enough to actually stumble. “I’m not your sweetheart,” I sneer. “Now you listen to me. That baby needs me. You can’t take care of a child for shit, and you know it. You’d put him in the hands of nannies, strangers who would care for him, but not love him. My breasts are full of milk, my heart is full of love. I’m putting everything on the line here, and if you want to break me for real, this is your chance. Let me raise him. Let me be his mom.”
Salvatore looks positively stunned, his eyes roaming my face. Emotions I haven’t seen in him before flit through his gaze.
“You know it’s the best choice you can make,” I add.
“You’ve got some nerve, Carmen. A second ago you were so willing to leave him. Now you tell me you love him?”
“You don’t know anything. You have no idea of the bond that forms between a mother and her child. You have no idea of the pain I’ve been in, you shit!”
Silence mounts between us. People rush past us, on their way to faraway places. I know exactly where I need to be. Nothing has been clearer in my life.
“I have an inkling of an idea,” he says slowly, his gaze darting in the direction of the little boy we can’t see at the moment. “You won’t hear me say this again, but I admire you. You’ve always shown a strength I rarely see in people.”
“I do what I must to survive.”
His eyes narrow. “Yes. You do. We’re not that different, you and me. One day, I’d love to pick that clever brain of yours.”
“We have a deal then?”
“You want to see the baby?”
“I want to be his mom. Not just ‘see’ him. I want to be there.”
An amused expression comes over him. “You want to live with me, then? What about the pup?”
“Oh God, I don’t want to set foot in your house again, but I’ll do what I have to. And Lucas stays. You’re not touching him again. He’s out. I’m out.”
Salvatore scoffs. “He’s a traitor.”
“You owe me this!”
“I don’t owe you shit.”
