by Dani Collins
She caught her breath. She hadn’t felt sexy in months, but a shiver of awareness swirled into her middle and sent echoes of pleasure into her erogenous zones.
Whatever had driven them into a frenzy that day was still there, lurking and circling under the surface, teasing her to let it swallow her again.
Apparently, he was impervious. “Get settled. I’ll be back in an hour,” he said, and abruptly left.
It was a kick in the face. A profound rejection that left her floundering in a sea of abandonment. Never mind the nurse or housekeeper hovering behind her. They seemed nice and well-meaning enough, but she wasn’t about to hand over her newborn to strangers. She didn’t want to.
She asked to be shown to Locke’s room, where she changed and fed him.
Self-reliance had been drilled into her from her earliest memories, when her father had been surly and hungover, her mother nursing a bruised jaw or a wrenched shoulder, unable to do much. Scarlett had made the breakfast, and gotten herself and her siblings to school. When she’d begun needing female necessities, she’d found herself a job to pay for them. When she had gone to social workers, her mother hadn’t backed her up and things had almost returned to the way they’d been—only worse. When she’d had to stay home to nurse her mother, teachers hadn’t given her a break on exams.
There’d been no concessions at university, either, when she’d had to drop out to help the family. Niko, demanding and vainglorious as he was, had made her work herself to the bone for the job she held. Kiara had promised to show her the ropes of new motherhood, but their talk of rearing their children together at the villa had been a fantasy. Texts from Kiara revealed she was off to Italy with Val while Scarlett had come to Madrid.
Despite having no one to rely on, ever, Scarlett had thought things might be different with Javiero. He’d been so considerate yesterday. He had sounded so determined to be part of their son’s life. When he’d talked of a partnership, she’d heard team.
But this relationship would be as one-sided as all of them, she supposed, ignoring the fog of despondency that manifested around her. She would manage. She always did.
* * *
When Javiero returned two hours later, Scarlett had just settled Locke in his bassinet and was at the door, taking delivery of the parcels she’d ordered.
“Why aren’t you resting?” Javiero’s hair and beard were freshly trimmed. It was a startling change, exposing more of the discolored claw marks, but reinforcing his natural, commanding air.
He took all the bags from the intimidated young man and gave him a few euros to send him on his way.
“I thought you were going to your office.” She gazed at Javiero, once again struck by what a close call he’d had yet rather taken with the clean-cut version of his brutish looks. “You look nice.”
His flat stare refuted her compliment. “It’s a haircut. I couldn’t blame you for rejecting my proposal when I literally looked like something the jaguar had dragged around its pen.”
“Javiero!”
He brushed away her pang of hurt and dropped the bags into a chair. “I spoke to my doctor about a prosthetic eye. I need more reconstruction before I can be fitted. He wants another week of healing before I go for the consultation.”
“Your scars have nothing to do with my reasons for putting off marriage. I’ve...” She faltered with self-consciousness, then pressed on. “I’ve always found you attractive. I still do.” Her voice faded, not from a lack of sincerity, but from the way he trained his one eye on her and made the floor go soft under her feet.
“Really.”
“Why do you sound so skeptical?” she asked crossly. “You’re very...” Virile. He must work out like a demon because he had a chest and shoulders like a stevedore. His biceps were equally powerful and his thighs were like tree trunks. She would bet any money that his strength had saved him, allowing him to fight off the jungle cat.
She swallowed and looked away as heat came into her cheeks. The sensual awareness she’d always felt around him was back with a vengeance, now coupled with the knowledge of how making love with him really felt. Their connection through their son magnified it, leaving her defenses in tatters.
“Really,” he said in a tone heavier with speculation and traces of the charisma that had drawn her so inexorably.
“Well, I wouldn’t have slept with you if I wasn’t attracted, would I?” she defended hotly, unable to look at him.
“The jury is still out on your motives.” His voice turned flinty. “Val would have slept with you if you’d wanted him to. He and Evelina would have loved to screw my side out of Dad’s fortune completely. I can’t believe he didn’t offer.”
“Of course he did,” she said with a snort of obviously.
A flash of something murderous flickered in his expression. “When?”
“In the early days.” She hugged herself. “Before he learned that I would keep talking about your father until his libido shriveled back into its shell.” She shrugged off what had been a minor annoyance in the big scheme of things. “Val wasn’t serious, just testing me the way you’re doing right now. You’re trying to see if you can disconcert me into saying something that will prove I’m a liar. You want me to admit I found Val attractive so you can hate me for it. I did,” she said, her heart pounding at the risk she was taking in being so blunt.
He snapped his head back.
“In a very objective way,” she clarified. “Who wouldn’t? He made his fortune in fashion because he epitomizes fashion’s idea of masculine beauty. And he knows it. Which is why I’m not genuinely attracted.”
He studied her. “You don’t find arrogance attractive?”
“No, I don’t. That’s why I never slept with your father. Or you. Until you quit talking down to me.” That was a prevarication. She had always found Javiero compelling. Val hadn’t stood a chance after Javiero had set the bar. No man had.
“Did I talk down to you?” he asked blithely.
“You’re doing it now.” She copied his humorless smile.
He made a noise of false regret and ambled closer. “I can’t help it if you’re shorter than I am.”
He wore his customary tailored pants and a crisp button shirt, sans tie, with the collar open at his throat. He also wore his particular brand of superiority that she found enormously exciting. He’d inherited that authority from his father, same as Val, but Niko hadn’t had any humbleness in him and Val’s conceit was too self-aware. Javiero’s confidence was earned. He hadn’t made his fortune by gambling with other people’s money in the stock market or applying his good looks to an ad campaign for cologne. He built things.
The aura of cool assurance that surrounded Javiero enveloped her as he came closer. His steady gaze dared her to look away, and part of her wanted to. It was far too revealing to let him read her expression and the effect he had on her. He had always had this ability to disconcert her and she feared he always would. But even though holding his gaze was like dropping all the defenses she possessed, allowing him to see her flaws and broken dreams and cheap foundation, she also knew she couldn’t flinch from him, not without losing whatever respect he had for her.
She compromised by studying his face the way she had allowed herself only once, when she’d sleepily opened her eyes and found him dozing with repletion beside her.
Javiero was not classically handsome. His face had held character marks before the attack. He had a bump in his nose and a strong brow and a wide jaw. His rugged features weren’t refined. They were rough-hewn and all the more mesmerizing for having been scored by that cat.
“Still attracted?” It was a light taunt, but she saw the tension that invaded behind his indifference. He was bracing for criticism or rejection.
She couldn’t lie. She had to tell him the truth even though it made her feel as though she had stepped off a cliff blindfolded and
trusted him to catch her.
“Yes,” she whispered.
He touched her chin, tilting her mouth up a fraction while he looked from her eyes to her mouth and back to her eyes.
“I’d say that’s a point in favor of marriage, wouldn’t you?”
Had she thought about spending her life in his bed? Only a million times and well before she’d carried his baby.
Those fairy tales were supposed to stay in a book on a shelf deep in her personal library, though. For one moment, however, she opened those pages, peeked and glimpsed them falling in love and making a life together.
Whatever dreams softened her expression seemed to have made up his mind. He dipped his head.
She had wanted this, she acknowledged as his mouth covered hers. She had hated herself for walking away nine months ago. Or, rather, she had hated that she had had no choice but to do so.
For every waking minute of every day since, she had wanted to return to this moment. To one more kiss. To see what might have been.
He played his lips smoothly across hers. It was a lazy return to a place that was familiar. He settled with ownership, with a long, leisurely taste that made her sigh in welcome. Her toes curled and her hands splayed across his stomach, feeling his abs tighten.
He rocked his mouth over hers with more purpose, deepening the kiss by degrees until she was sliding closer, into the sensual pool he conjured so effortlessly.
His arms went around her and it was like coming home. She melted, feeling the stir of his firming flesh against her middle while her arms climbed to curl behind his neck. She moaned with pleasure and skimmed one hand into his hair.
Her finger caught against the band on his eye patch, not dislodging it, but startling them both.
He jerked his head up and she dropped her hand to his shoulder.
The heat of their kiss dissipated, leaving a chill that grew more strained by the second.
She was dazed, still in his arms, not immediately processing his, “Where’s the nurse?” He set her back a step.
That day nine months ago, he had let the kiss go on until she hadn’t had a rational thought in her head. He’d broken it only to say in a smoky voice, I’m going to my room for a cold shower. Or a condom, if you’d like to join me?
She had hardly debated at all before she’d followed.
Today she wasn’t so aroused she couldn’t think straight, but she did cling to his arm as she tried to maintain her balance and catch up to his abrupt mood switch.
“I...um...” She glanced around, then remembered. “I sent her to buy some iron tablets if she’s that concerned I bring my levels up.”
“That’s exactly the sort of thing she should be concerned about. Your doctor said you have to take it easy this week. And no lovemaking for six,” he reminded her pointedly.
Oh, right. That.
“That wasn’t—” She stopped to clear a huskiness from her throat only to discover she didn’t know how to excuse their kiss. She decided not to try. “Well, there’s no point in discussing marriage until we pass that six-week mark, then. Is there?” She spoke with false cheer and dug into the bags on the chair, ducking her head to hide her disconcerted blush.
“Having sex is not the reason I want to marry you, Scarlett. The physical attraction between us is simply nice to have.”
“No kidding. If our lovemaking had meant anything more to you than ‘nice to have,’ you would have shown up to propose long before today.”
“I asked you to stay that day,” he reminded while her insides fell away. “If you had, we might have come to a proposal eventually. We’ll never know, though, will we? You chose my father.”
“Easy to claim that now,” she muttered, certain their relationship would not have progressed beyond a brief affair. “Will you be going into work this week?”
She was trying to change the subject and he hesitated as if wanting to win their argument, but there was no winning.
“I was going to play it by ear.” He frowned at the box she withdrew from the bag. “I thought your laptop was being shipped from the island.” He glanced at the Bluetooth earpiece and high-speed, ultrasecure modem she’d ordered along with other gadgets.
“It will take at least a week before everything gets packed up and forwarded. I decided to start fresh. This way I can get back to work right away.”
“Back to work? You gave birth three days ago. No. Go to bed.” Javiero pointed toward the hallway to the bedrooms.
“Excuse me. I’m not five.” She brought the box to the sofa, sat and swung her legs onto the cushions. “I just want to set it up so I can answer a few emails. I’ve spent the last three months building management teams, and they still need guidance.”
Javiero moved to the chair and sat, hitching his pants and settling into a casual pose that was as lethally dangerous as any boxer or black belt who took up an agile stance, ready to both defend and attack.
“You mentioned you’re supposed to manage my father’s estate,” he recalled.
“I am doing it, under a trustee arrangement, yes. Kiara is my co-trustee but prefers to be a silent one. She has voting and veto powers, but she doesn’t want to be involved in the day-to-day decisions.”
“But you do.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because you have a newborn who needs you?” he suggested.
“Will you be quitting work?” she shot back, but her bravado was caked in guilt. She knew babies required a lot of attention, and she wanted to be the best mother possible; nonetheless, she had additional responsibilities.
“I intend to be home more,” he asserted firmly. “This isn’t a debate on your right to work. It’s about timing.”
“And my time is now,” she insisted. “This is exactly the sort of position I have always aspired to. Say what you will about Niko, but he knew what he was doing with money. I not only finished my business degree during my employment, I apprenticed under him. I worked my tail off to prove I was the best candidate to run his enterprises. Better than either of his estranged sons even, because I have been involved in every aspect for the last five years. I wouldn’t be named as primary trustee if he hadn’t believed I was qualified to do the job.”
“That’s the issue. He’s dead, but you’re still working for him.”
“Actually, I work for your son.” She picked a hole in the shrink film on the box.
“And Val’s daughter, apparently. That’s a mountain of responsibility to take on for someone else’s child when you’re still recovering from delivering your own. Are there provisions for alternates?”
“Like who? You?”
There were instructions to approach him and Val first if she was incapacitated, but all Scarlett could think was how smug Paloma would be if Javiero took control of the fortune she had always regarded as hers.
“I’m surprised you would even suggest taking over. You had your chance.” She tore off the plastic and crinkled it into a ball. “I was here several times, asking if you wanted to. You declined.”
“My interest in Dad’s money is so remote, I want my future wife to treat it like the radioactive waste it is and distance herself completely,” he bit out. “Set aside the fact my mother’s obsession with keeping that money from going to Evelina broke something in her.” His hand flicked angrily. “My aunties and uncles love to tell me what a sweet, kind, loving person she was before Niko. I never saw her like that. My whole life, she’s been a cynical, angry victim.”
“Then why didn’t you go back and work for him? Take control of your share?” She had never understood the incontrovertible rift between the men in this family. “He wanted you to.” With strings, she recognized, but even so...
“That was later,” he said tersely, his hand knotting into a fist on the armrest. “After he realized both Val and I were serious about disowning him. Then h
e sent you along like a good little recruitment officer to try conscripting us back. Don’t pretend it was an engraved invitation on the bottom of an apology. It was an order. The only reason I ever did him the favor of hearing you out was for my mother’s sake, in hopes he would relent in some way toward her. As we’ve seen, he did not. So as far as I’m concerned, he can rot in hell. I hope he’s there now.”
“But why did you reject him in the first place?”
He shook his head as though he pitied her. “You worked for him—lived with him—for five years and never saw what a manipulative and unforgiving person he was? Val gets his streak of malice from somewhere, Scarlett.”
“And that’s the other thing I don’t understand! Why do you hate Val so much? Niko said you were competitive as children—siblings can be. I get that.” Her own sister was a constant aggravation. “But he said your mothers were the ones who poisoned you against each other and him.”
“He said that?”
“Yes.” She could see she was riling him up, but she had always been baffled by these wide channels of animosity. “He said Val was a troublemaker and was expelled from the boarding school you attended. That after Val gave up any claim to his fortune, you did the same. That’s never made sense to me. You cut off your nose to spite your face.”
“What a liar,” Javiero said through his teeth, his hand now clenching the arm of his chair as though to hold himself back from launching himself at her. “Val had the luxury of throwing Dad’s money in his face. He was making six figures wearing a hoodie and a scowl. Where would I get that sort of income at thirteen? My mother’s marriage was supposed to square off the debt my grandfather was in, but once she divorced him for his infidelity, Niko refused to pay her anything but child-support—in scrupulously equal amounts. Do you know what Niko said when my next semester came due and Val had dropped out?”
Oh, no.
“That he wanted to treat you equally,” she surmised with dread. She wanted to bury her face in her hands, hiding from what she suddenly saw as the bitter truth.