Free Momentum by Cassandra Carr Page B

an overwhelming need to get away from him as quickly as possible. “No, Marco, you are.” Slamming the door, she grabbed her suitcase and began to throw things in it.
    Marco stormed in. “Where are you going?”
    “I just lost my father because of my own selfishness, because I didn’t look beyond my own nose enough to see he wasn’t as quick as he used to be. I sent him out to look for a stray calf with just our seventy-year-old foreman and he died out there. Now I’m here watching you do the same thing. I loved,” her voice cracked and she cleared her throat, “I loved my father even during our times of disagreement. And now he’s gone and everything I knew and loved went with him.”
    “Cara—”
    She rounded on him. “Do you know how lucky you are to have so much family around you? So many people who care? I have no one, Marco, no one . No family at all, well, besides my drunk of a mother who hasn’t been a parent to me in years, no money, no job, no place to live. Nothing and no one. If you want to behave like a spoiled brat, that’s your problem, but I sure as hell won’t stay around to witness it.”
    “ Cara , I am sorry I have upset you—”
    Natalie hastily wiped at the tears forming. “Forget about it. I shouldn’t be your biggest concern right now.” She tried to heave her suitcase off the bed and staggered a little under its weight. Marco reached out to steady her.
    “Don’t go like this. We’ve still got the entire competition ahead of us, two more nights we have to be in the hotel. Where are you going to go?”
    “Anywhere but here,” she practically spat at him, her anger getting the better of her as she thought back to how Marco had spoken of his father. Natalie barely contained the wail surfacing as all the pain and guilt from losing her own father bore down on her.
    “ Cara , you’re not even dressed. Come on, let’s sit down. We’ll have breakfast—”
    “No. And stop calling me cara . I’m not your dear. I’m not anything to you.”
    Marco’s face turned stormy. “You are my lover.”
    “Not anymore. I can’t tolerate someone who doesn’t appreciate what’s been given to him, who turns his back on his family when they need him.”
    She watched as he sighed, running his hands over his face. “Natalie, you don’t understand what it is like. But if you stay, I will try to explain it to you. Think about it, ca —” He was obviously about to call her cara again but stopped himself. His lips, those lips that had brought her to new heights last night, thinned into a line. “Please, just stay with me. All the hotels are booked.”
    He had her there. This was a huge competition and there would be few to no rooms within any reasonable distance of the arena. She considered sleeping in her car, but the thought of doing that in Houston made her blood run cold. “Fine.” Natalie stalked out to the living room, poured herself a cup of coffee and sat on the couch. “Explain.”
    Marco took a moment to get himself a cup, glanced at the remainder of the bottle of whiskey but then left it on the counter. He sat down at the opposite end, looking at her with trepidation and some leftover anger clear in his eyes. “It’s not that I’m unwilling to be in the family business at all…” He looked away as if trying to form the words, and she gave him time, knowing English wasn’t his first language. “But I want to be me. How do you say it…my own man. My father wants me to be a piece of him. I don’t know how to put it in English, cara . I want something that is mine.”
    Natalie nodded. “I can understand that. But why the anger? Why the disrespect?”
    “You do not know what it is like to be the oldest son in my family. My father and I, we are very different people. So we fight.” He shrugged. “And when I get mad, I swear.” One corner of his mouth crept up in a smile. “We have that in common, actually.”
    “Have you tried telling him that? Telling him that