Ring of Lies (16 page)

He flinched.
How the hell did she know these things?

‘
I met an old friend.
She wanted my advice.
’

‘
What kind of old friend?
You bastard!
You’re cheating on me!
’

‘
S
hush
!
Calm
down
or
you’ll wake
Emilia
.
Grace
really
is an old friend, nothing for you to get worked up about.
’

Rosa folded her arms across her chest.
‘
You’re lying
.
’

‘
I don’t lie, Rosa, you know that
.
Now, instead of standin
g here arguing over nothing, wh
y don’t you tell me how
Emilia
is
?
’

She shook her
head. H
er thick black hair tumbled loose from
its
clip.
‘
I don’t know what to do with her.
I fed her and she threw up all over my shirt.
It’s silk.
It’s ruined.
The stain will never come out
.
’

‘
Who feed
s a baby in a silk shirt?
’

‘
I do, you asshole!
’

‘
Okay, you do.
I officially give up.
’
He
groaned and walked down the hallway to the
family
room
.
He’d hoped that looking after the baby
for a few hours
would have enable
d
Rosa to
bond with the child.
He was obviously mistaken.
Emilia lay on her back in the
Moses basket
. H
er unfocused eyes stared
at the mobile
hanging
from the frame.
The
n
she saw him and cooed,
favo
u
r
ing him with a gummy grin.
He tickled her tummy and she
gurgled
.
He turned back to Rosa.

‘
She looks all right now.
P
robably
ate
too quickly.
’

‘
But what about my shirt?
’

He closed his eyes and fought his anger.
‘
Screw the shirt, Rosa
.
Is that all you can think of?
If your clothes are more important tha
n
our child why did you go ahead with the pregnancy?
’

She
started shrieking in Spanish,
and
slapped him hard across the face
.

‘
Stop it.
’
He placed a
hand
on her arm.
‘
You know I can’t understand you when you speak so quickly.
’

‘
I said
I only had the baby so that you’d marry me.
’

‘
And that’s not going to happen—ever
.
’

The blunt words made her flinch.
She
stared at him with something akin to disgust in her chocolate brown eyes
.

‘
You’re a cold b
astard
, Jack.
I hate you!
Jorge
and Ramon
told me about you
.
’

Jack looked at Rosa and wondered what he’d ever seen in her.
‘
What do your brothers have to do with this?
’

‘
Jorge
said that if I got pregnant you’d
never
marry me.
He warned me.
He was right
.
’

‘
Warned you?
Wait a minute—
’
Then
he
realize
d
that he’d been played
.
‘
Green cards.
That was it, wasn’t it?
’

Rosa said nothing, but hatred burned in her eyes.

‘
That’s what you really wanted, wasn’t it?
You wanted me to sponsor the whole damned brood for green cards?
Well,
I never promised marriage
.
I said I would
take care of
you and Emilia.
’

‘
But—
’

‘
Look, Rosa.
I’ve seen what
working
in law enforcement
can do
to a family.
My mother watched my father walk out the door each day never knowing if he was coming back.
It
tore her apart.
When I was six she had a breakdown and spent the rest of her life in a mental
institution
.
I
promised I’d
never risk
that happening to someone I care about.
’

Silence stretched.

Rosa gave a broken laugh.
‘
But what will I tell my family
?
’

‘
I don’t give a shit what you tell them
.
Marriage was never part of the deal for us
.
’

‘
So what is the deal for us?
’

Jack rubbed the back of his neck.
‘
I don’t know, okay?
I just don’t know.
Now,
I
’m
going to get changed, have a
beer
,
and then
I’m going to finish painting the nursery.
’

He stormed into the
master
bedroom.
The door closed behind him with a thud.
Emilia began shrieking again and he instantly regretted what he’d done.
He hadn’t intended to
fight
with Rosa
, but he only had to open his mouth and she found something to complain about.
He supposed it had something to do with her
hormones and
Latin temper, but he sure could do without having an argument every time he
walk
ed through the door.

He stripped of
f
his shirt and threw it in the laundry basket along with his jeans.
He wasn’t in the mood for painting and had
planned
to spend the evening doing some research on his laptop, but that was out of the question now.
If he went anywhere near the
family room
Rosa would glare at him and pout her lips like a spoilt child.
No, it was better to let her work the angst out of her
system on her own.

He pulled on a pair of shorts, and an old T-shirt
,
and then walked
into the kitchen
.
He du
mped the laundry in the machine
then turned his attention to the
sink full of unwashed dishes.
He stacked the dishwasher
and
mixed sufficient baby formula for the following day.
He placed the bottles in the fridge
, and took out
a
Budweiser
.
He took a long swallow from the bottle
, and
carried it
into
the nursery
along with the brushes and paint
.
Across the hall Rosa had the TV on
,
no doubt watching some mindless
reality
show as usual.

He opened the tin of gloss
, dipped the brush in
and started painting the mouldings on the cupboard.
If he’d known how things were going to turn out he would never had moved Rosa and Emilia into the condo.
Instead he’d have done what many other men
did
, and
simply
paid
child support.

He would
talk to Rosa in the morning.
Maybe she woul
d be less pissed off by then.
Or more.
Who knew?
It didn’t really matter if she understood why he needed to go with Grace to see the attorney.