by Dani Collins
“You were incredible,” he told her as a nurse took their son to measure and swaddle him. Javiero carefully brushed away the tendrils of hair stuck to her temples. Nothing in his life had prepared him for such an internal upheaval.
Shadows came into the dreamy blue of her eyes. Her mouth trembled. “I know you’re still angry.”
“I am.” He wouldn’t lie to her. “But all that matters right now is that you and our son have come through this alive and well. I didn’t expect to be a father when I woke up this morning, but I’m grateful, Scarlett.” The word wasn’t big enough for the swell of thankfulness in him. He was incredulous and dumbfounded and deeply moved.
“I love him so much and we’ve only just met.” Her wet lashes blinked as she looked for him, the sweetest smile trembling on her lips. Javiero wanted to set his own there to steady them.
“Does he have a name?” the nurse asked.
“I thought Locke for a boy,” Scarlett said tentatively. “But you can think on it.” Her eyelids blinked heavily. “I need to tell Kiara. She’ll be anxious.”
“I’ll do it,” he promised, continuing the rhythmic caress of his thumb across her brow, bemused that she could think of anything beyond this moment. “You should rest.”
“I haven’t slept properly in months,” she admitted on a yawn. “Will you wake me if he needs me?”
“Of course.”
“Thank you.” Her voice was fading and her eyes stayed closed on the next blink. With a small sigh, she drifted into sleep.
He straightened, and the nurse handed him the bundle that was more blanket than baby, far lighter than Javiero expected, and such a punch in his chest he had to sit down to absorb it.
The lens through which he had viewed his life had completely inverted. He was no longer a son with a father, but a father with a son. He was overcome with pride, and also responsibility and an unmistakable fear. One day this infant, who was at this moment unmarred by life, could turn on him with abhorrence and tell him to go to hell, the way he had done with Niko.
I will do better, Javiero swore compulsively even though he wasn’t sure what “better” would look like. He had only ever thought of himself as a parent in the vaguest of “someday” terms, not the immediacy of every day.
His psyche leaped on the words. He wanted every day with his son.
He wouldn’t be a father in name only, as Niko had been. An imposing stranger who enforced a handful of visits a year, someone who provoked fear and insecurity, resentment and rebellion. He would not fill his son’s ears with disparagements of his mother.
Javiero moved his gaze from the eyelashes against a delicate pink cheek to the longer, blond lashes on Scarlett.
It seemed impossible that the two of them had made this fragile miniature person. Oh, he remembered every second of the act. A stir of the infuriating attraction he’d always felt toward her teased him even now, calling up wispy memories of a lush breast in his hand and the incredible sensation of sliding into her heat. She had smelled of sunshine and crushed flower petals and had held back nothing.
At the time, it had seemed so deliciously spontaneous yet inevitable.
Given his father’s behavior, Javiero had always guarded against letting his nether regions take control. Scarlett had tested his resolve from their first meeting.
He wasn’t sure what had driven that depth of attraction. Her classic beauty, obviously, but she had worked for his father. He’d wanted to shoot the messenger as badly as he’d wanted to seduce her. He’d sent a message to his father by barely giving her the time of day, but he’d always had a sense of possibility where she was concerned, certain she would one day turn her back on Niko and come to him.
There’d been something in her self-possessed demeanor that had intrigued him. She wasn’t a doormat. Hell, no. From the first moment, he had seen she was intelligent and witty and capable of withstanding high stress. She hadn’t let him or his father’s complicated love life get under her skin.
Maybe that had been the draw. Val and the war between their mothers had always been a stain that Javiero couldn’t erase, yet Scarlett had disregarded it. Or regarded it as normal?
Either way, the far more interesting reaction was her betraying awareness of him. She’d done her best to hide it, but he’d seen it in a lingering look or a poorly disguised blush.
He had fought his own sexual tension, suspicious of her even then. When he had ultimately lost that battle, it had been a deeply humbling experience. Not only had he succumbed to his primal instincts and discovered his perfect sexual match, she had left him afterward. For his father.
He’d been ripe with self-disgust then, angry with himself for giving her the upper hand.
He had followed his mother’s suggestion that he propose to Regina as a means of moving on from Scarlett. To firmly closing off roads back to the madness he’d shared with her.
Yet here he was with her, holding the baby they’d made that day.
The baby she had kept secret out of loyalty to a man he despised—possibly to gain control of that man’s fortune.
On the other hand, her anxiety through her labor had been for the safe delivery of their baby. Her maternal connection to their son was indisputable. They would both want “every day,” so how did he proceed?
His mind leaped to marriage, the historically presumptive course of action when a couple shared a child. His mother had been after him to provide an heir and here the boy was. Did Javiero need to marry?
His libido rushed to vote in favor of every night with Scarlett, but he made himself ignore the tantalizing thought and consider the idea more dispassionately. Marriage came with no guarantee of success. His mother had married Niko in good faith and dutifully conceived Javiero, only to have Evelina emerge pregnant as well. Paloma had been so humiliated she had divorced Niko. The ensuing hostilities and financial hardship had become Javiero’s blighted childhood.
Javiero had always wondered how different his life might have been if he’d had united parents who eschewed others for the sake of providing a stable foundation for their offspring. Could he provide that for his son? Javiero would honor his vows if he was legally bound to Scarlett, and he experienced a possessive thrill at the idea of his ring on her finger—one he shied away from examining too closely.
He couldn’t trust her, he reminded himself. The deep knot of betrayed fury that he’d ignored while she’d been writhing in labor tightened into a harder lump in the pit of his belly, but his acrimony was as much reason to marry her as not, he rationalized. Keep your enemies close, and all that.
One way or another, he decided, as he transferred his gaze from her innocent-looking face to the tiny blameless one peeking from the swaddle, they were coming home with him.
“Sir?” A nurse entered the private room and spoke softly, noting with a glance that Scarlett was fast asleep. “There’s an inquiry from a woman downstairs. A friend of Miss Walker’s.” She glanced at a pink slip in her hand. “Kiara O’Neill. She’s wondering if there’s news. May I pass along a message?”
For a moment, he had expected his mother was there. She hadn’t responded to his text that she had a grandson, but she’d had dinner plans with old friends tonight. She would likely check in with him later.
“I’ll speak to her.” He rose and settled Locke—it was a strong name and he liked it—into his bassinet, then went down the corridor to the elevators.
He could have dismissed Kiara with a message through the nurse, but he had promised Scarlett he would inform her, and Scarlett had called Kiara the best friend she’d ever had. Plus, there had been genuine caring and respect in her voice when Kiara had asked Scarlett, “What do you want?” He appreciated that she hadn’t pushed her way between them or forced Scarlett to take sides when she’d been in such a state of heightened anxiety.
Maybe he was also looking for insight into ho
w Scarlett had remained so devoted to Niko. What sort of troll-like spell had Nikolai Mylonas cast over two seemingly sensible women, compelling them to live with him and keep their children a secret?
Whatever mellow mood had fallen over him with the birth of his son dropped away as the elevator doors opened and the first thing he saw was Val. His half brother’s cover girl face was nothing but chiseled cheeks and trademarked brooding sulk. His black shabby chic jeans and shirt were tailored for his lean frame by his personal design house in Milan.
Javiero almost hit the button to close the doors, but he would be damned if he would allow that bastard to affect him. He stalked forward, his fuse beginning to burn.
Val recoiled infinitesimally as he took in the evidence of Javiero’s mauling.
Javiero didn’t falter, but he might as well have been going for round two with the cat. Val was every bit as dangerous as a jungle feline, attacking on a whim, bordering on sociopathic in his propensity to torture for the fun of it.
If Val had ever demonstrated a conscience or an ounce of reason, he and Javiero might have moved on from the bitterness of their early years, but Val hadn’t been willing to leave their rivalry in their report cards or on the track. No, he had insisted on making things personal—and as devastating as possible.
They’d been thirteen when Val had gotten himself expelled from boarding school and had thrown Niko’s financial support back in his face. Val had had that luxury. He’d already been drawing a six-figure salary looking pretty for magazine photographers. As he departed, he’d made a point of taunting Javiero with the fact he didn’t need their father’s money.
Have it all. You need it more than I do.
Javiero had needed it for the same reason Paloma had, but Niko had always been pathological about treating his sons with precisely equal measures of tough love. By Niko’s sense of twisted impartiality, if Val was leaving school to work at thirteen, Javiero ought to be able to support himself as well. His tuition payments to the exclusive boarding school were halted.
Val’s immature desire to rebel had thrust Javiero into years of struggle. Javiero had spent the next five years eking out an education while working alongside his maternal grandfather, fighting to turn a profit on an energy corporation that had been impacted by a massive downturn and breaking his back in the fields with his uncles and cousins, trying to retain properties they’d owned for generations. They had hung on to the family assets by their fingertips, but those long days and the heavy weight of worry had prematurely ended his grandfather’s life. Javiero had shouldered everything alone ever since.
And why had Val hit out at him like that? Because he could. Selfish, malignant tumor that he was.
Everything in Javiero congealed to a gritty ball of antipathy as he faced Val. At least their father was dead. This was the last time he would ever have to so much as look at him.
“Javiero.” A warm, lilting Irish accent sounded on his blind side, but Javiero wasn’t stupid enough to take his eye off his enemy. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Kiara.” He caught a glimpse of an extended light brown hand.
Javiero had an impression of voluptuous curves and a flash of a white smile in a light brown face, but Val swept his arm out and shoved her behind him in a protective move that was insulting as hell. All Javiero glimpsed now was masses of curly black hair and dark brown irises blinking wide-eyed from around the width of Val’s shoulder.
“For heaven’s sake,” she grumbled as Val moved her out of Javiero’s reach. Val’s entire body had hardened with unjustified, pumped-up aggression.
Javiero returned his loathing tenfold.
“No comment?” Javiero taunted into the thick silence, suddenly thrilled to look like a street thug who’d lost a knife fight. “Not going to say you like what I’ve done with my hair or something equally banal?”
“How is Scarlett?” Kiara asked brightly, still behind Val.
“Fine.” Javiero told her they’d had a boy and Scarlett was sleeping, all without wavering from his locked stare with Val.
“I’d love to see him,” Kiara said with a pang of yearning in her voice.
“No,” Javiero said, silently conveying to Val he was the reason for the refusal.
“I’ll stay here,” Val said grittily. His unblemished features twisted into a frustrated sneer. “Let her go up.”
Wow. That sounded almost as though Val possessed a conscience inside that pinup exterior. Javiero wasn’t fooled. He took supreme pleasure in delivering a second, implacable, “No.”
Val gathered himself and Javiero did the same, distantly thinking it was a good thing they were in a hospital.
“It’s fine. It’s late.” Kiara’s arms wrapped around Val’s waist from behind, as if to hold him back. Or to protect him? She was wasting her energy either way.
“Tell Scarlett to call me when she’s up for a chat,” Kiara added with forced cheer.
Javiero walked away. His win against Val felt empty, but it was a win and that was all that mattered.
A muted hum intruded on the best sleep Scarlett had had in ages. She frowned without opening her eyes, resisting coming back to consciousness.
“A boy. Well done,” a woman’s voice said. “Did you do it deliberately?”
Paloma? Ugh. She’d drifted into a nightmare. She tried to redirect to something pleasant. Clotted cream and strawberry jam on freshly baked scones. Mmm...
“No.” Javiero’s quiet rumble was a staple in her dreams—sensual and invigorating and fantasy inducing. Very mmm...
“At least that would have made sense.” Paloma’s sharp voice faded as though her volume had been turned down. “What were you thinking, taking up with your father’s mistress?”
What? Scarlett scraped her eyes open, barely comprehending that the golden light was a night-light and the metal bar was part of a hospital bed.
“She was not his mistress. Never repeat that.”
“I don’t have to! The rumor mill will do that for us. They’ll rake up every misstep all the way back to my father’s lack of foresight during the oil shock.”
“Gossip is an unpleasant reality of life, like death and taxes.”
“As is the fact you’ll have to marry her? Because you can’t let Val and Evelina waltz away with half the money that should be ours and leave the other half to her. You have to take control of our half.”
That snapped the last of the drowsiness out of Scarlett. She shifted and, as she did, heard a mewing noise. She glanced at the bassinet, which was empty.
“I have to go, Mother. Scarlett’s awake and Locke is hungry.” Javiero was in the recliner, their son in the crook of his arm. He clicked off his phone and set it aside.
“What time is it?” She fumbled for the button that would raise the head of the bed.
“Nearly midnight.” If he felt guilty for what she’d overheard, he didn’t look or sound it. He lowered the footrest and brought the baby over, back to being the effortlessly compelling yet infinitely intimidating man she’d always known.
“Can you look out the window or something?” she asked as she started to fumble with her gown.
He moved away and she latched her son, then draped a receiving blanket over him. With a shaky sigh, she tried to relax, but now that she was awake, she was absorbing the fact her entire life had made one more turn on the kaleidoscope. All the pieces had dropped into a completely new pattern. Niko was dead. Javiero knew about the baby. Her son was here.
And Javiero’s mother wanted Javiero to marry her to take control of Niko’s money.
Scarlett longed to blink herself back to the villa and familiar surroundings so she could catch her breath.
“Did you text Kiara?” She glanced around for her phone, wondering if she could go back to the island with her in the morning.
“She was here a few hours ago.”
“
Oh?” A rush of pride zinged through her. “I wanted to see her when she held him for the first time. She kept saying she was excited to have a baby in the house, especially one she didn’t have to deliver herself.”
He didn’t laugh. “I didn’t bring her up. Val was with her.”
“Oh.” It wasn’t her fault that her friend’s baby had been fathered by Javiero’s detested brother, but she still experienced a stab of guilt. “Did you tell her we’d had a boy?”
“She asked his name and I said we hadn’t decided, but Locke suits him.” He turned his head, voice warming exactly two degrees.
“Locke,” she whispered as she peeked under the blanket. He’d fallen asleep so she fumbled him off her nipple and caught the blanket to hide her breast. “Can you hold him? Kiara made this look so easy.”
He took Locke and used the pad of his thumb to dry the boy’s shiny chin.
She tried to gauge his mood with a surreptitious glance as she tucked herself back in. The tenderness he’d exhibited during the hours she’d been in labor was gone. Because of his altercation with Val?
“How did she seem when you saw her?” she probed lightly.
“Kiara? Ordinary.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” She held out her arms to take back Locke, wanting to cuddle her baby now that she was awake and feeling her new station in life. Mother. It wasn’t so much a title as a compulsion. Why hadn’t Kiara told her about this intense craving to cosset?
“I don’t keep tabs on Val’s love life, but his world is nothing but supermodels. His ex-wife ticked all the boxes for “fashionable heiress.” When you said Kiara had kept his baby a secret, I imagined she was a calculating socialite. Instead she was very...”
Scarlett stared, daring him to say a wrong word.
“Understated. No flashy makeup or jewelry. Val doesn’t have a subtle bone in his body. I don’t understand how she caught his attention long enough to make a baby with him.”