by Dani Collins
He had assumed she was impervious as well, handling their notoriety like the stalwart soldier she’d always been.
He could feel tension in her, however, even as she kept it from her face. The silver gown she wore was stunning and draped her figure lovingly, but he suddenly saw it as the armor it was. Delicate chain mail with a protective ruffle at her neck.
Was she feeling attacked? Had she been struggling with these appearances all along?
A wave of protectiveness had him closing his arm across her back and drawing her closer. “I don’t care what people think. If you’re tired, we’ll go home.”
“I’m fine,” she insisted, fingers cool in his as she smiled a deflection. “Did you hear someone ask her if you had called me your fiancée? She gets to be the source of that fresh gossip and will be forced to admit that, yes, she had the chance to marry you and blew it. You couldn’t have devised a more diabolical revenge if you had tried.”
Another time he might have appreciated the irony, but he was infuriated that she hadn’t been forthright with him about her troubles. She would share her body, but not the bruises his world was leaving under her skin?
“If you’re struggling with something, I expect you to tell me,” he said. Demanded.
“I fight my own battles.” Her chin came up in the unbothered way it always had when she had crossed swords with him. Exactly the way it had all those times she had driven him crazy, acting tough and unwavering against any pressure he had put on her. “This isn’t even a skirmish. Don’t worry about it.”
He didn’t want to worry. Deep in the back of his head, he was still thinking of her as his enemy. It was a slippery label to hang on to, though. She was also his son’s mother. His lover. Soon he would make her his wife.
As he whirled her on the dance floor, he tracked his one eye around the room, letting the feral beast inside him signal a deadly warning to any coyotes and wolves who thought they could nip at his woman and get away with it.
Beauty and the Beast. Which one is which?
That remark continued to grind against Scarlett’s self-worth because, beneath the anger was hurt and—she winced as she acknowledged it—shame. She was the beast. That’s what she kept thinking. She wasn’t a good person. She had left her mother and siblings to their father’s anger, first escaping to university and later to Greece.
She could rationalize all she wanted that by working for Niko she had “saved” them, but Niko hadn’t been a pillar of the community. He’d been horrible to Javiero. Selfish and demanding and cutthroat. Entitled. No wonder Javiero hated her for working for him.
Now she was a terrible mother who couldn’t seem to comfort their child. The doctor assured her Locke was healthy, that it was “just colic,” but she had tried every tip she could find online and nothing seemed to help.
Javiero knew on some level. He must. He began curtailing their socializing, something that should have been a relief and, instead, made her feel as though he didn’t want to be seen with her.
At least he still wanted to kiss and touch her. He did every night, until they were sighing with bliss.
She needed that. She craved his touch because his kisses and caresses drowned out the blaring, berating voices in her head and, for a brief time, she felt beautiful and cherished and good.
But she wasn’t. Even when it came to the work she had fought so hard to continue she was dropping balls and making stupid mistakes. She managed to clean up her own messes, but it took extra time and she was so embarrassed she didn’t tell anyone, not even Kiara, afraid her friend would insist on replacing her.
She put her mental state down to stress over Javiero’s suggestion they go to London. He had business there and suggested she accompany him as a mini honeymoon of sorts, once she had her final checkup. He even arranged for her mother to come down to London and meet her grandson.
Scarlett appreciated all of that, but she couldn’t shake a sense of impending doom at the prospect of going back to England. She didn’t have energy to come up with reasons to put it off, however.
She saw her doctor the morning they were leaving, mostly as a formality. Locke was hitting all his milestones, and Scarlett needed only a proper prescription for the minipill. She’d started a sample pack after her last visit to see how she reacted.
When the doctor asked whether the baby blues were still troubling her, she brushed off mentioning the weepiness and fatigue she continued to experience. She was still adjusting to her new life. Anxiety and impatience were to be expected. Nothing could be done except wait it out. Eventually things would settle down and she wouldn’t feel so overwhelmed, she reasoned.
Besides, she was afraid the doctor wouldn’t give her the all clear to use the bed for other purposes if she mentioned she wasn’t sleeping well. The physical closeness she had with Javiero was so reassuring that she wanted to continue it. She hoped taking it to the next level would draw them even closer.
She filled her prescription on her way back to the flat and smiled shyly when she found him in his den.
“Cleared to travel?” he asked as he ended a call and rose to come around his desk.
Dear Lord, the man was sexy as hell. His shirt shifted across his bulky shoulders and chest. He had the natural grace of a predator lazily coming across to its mate, brimming with confidence in his right to push into her space.
She swallowed and nodded, blushing deeply. “And to resume all other activities.”
“Well, that is good news. I’ve been anxious to go ice-skating.” He tilted up her chin and set a teasing kiss on her laughing mouth. “Unfortunately, I have some news that’s less so. I’ll stay with you in London long enough to meet your mother, but I have to leave for New York by tomorrow afternoon.”
“Should Locke and I come to America with you?”
“I’ll be tied up every day,” he dismissed. “You’ll be more comfortable making your way back to Casa del Cielo at your own pace. Spend as much time as you like with your family.”
Counteroffer, she wanted to say, but he was turning her toward the door.
“I’ve made dinner reservations. Let’s get to London before I become distracted with ‘other activities.’”
Scarlett had traveled extensively with Niko and had always stayed in five-star hotels or luxury properties that he owned. She’d overseen enough of his real estate deals that she immediately understood what a gem Javiero had obtained with this penthouse atop a newly built glass skyscraper in Mayfair.
The views were stupendous, of course, and the terrace was to die for, but the interior was equally beautiful. It was furnished in ultramodern clean lines, the color scheme a neutral bone with pops of silver and blue gray. There were five bedrooms, each with a bath—the master had two, a his and a hers.
Javiero nipped out briefly while she was getting settled and returned with a pair of drop earrings, fanned white diamonds that draped a string of dangling pale blue ones.
“Please tell me that’s a loan,” she said on a gasp.
“It’s a gift. This is our first proper date.”
“Flowers would have sufficed,” she said, but the sweetest pleasure bathed her. He was trying to make this evening special and she found that incredibly endearing. Promising, even. “Thank you. They’re beautiful.”
She put them on. She had already done her hair and makeup, and was in her robe, about to dress. She picked up her loose hair so he could see the earrings.
“That’s very pretty,” he said, touching her elbow in a way that acted like a spell, freezing her with her hands in her hair while he tracked the view all the way down the front of her robe to where her raised arms lifted her breasts against silk. “Perhaps you should stay exactly like that while I push our reservation.”
“I just put Locke down. We probably have at least...ten minutes,” she joked.
His brutish face softened
into something like tenderness as he hooked his hand behind her neck and drew her close.
“I can work with that. Can you?”
“Try me.” She played her touch over his buttons. His particular scent, spicy and elemental, lingered in the air around her and called her to step even closer.
It struck her that no man had ever made her feel this way—soaked in yearning. She doubted any other man ever would, and that was both a relief and an unbearable loss. Her eyes grew hot as a strange, clamoring desperation gripped her. What if he rejected her? What would happen when he rejected her?
That wasn’t happening now. He drew her closer and covered her mouth in a languorous kiss that had nowhere to be except right here. It was dreamy and reassuring and made a moan of sheer luxury climb from her chest into her throat. She leaned into him and he cupped her head, and they stood like that, kissing and kissing. He drew on her bottom lip and returned to capture her open mouth. She greeted his tongue with her own and her knees nearly disappeared from under her, but she didn’t care so long as they kept doing this.
He was hard behind his fly. She shifted to press herself into his shape and ran her hands over his back. She wanted to do everything—tear off his clothes and feel his skin and stroke him past his control and feel his lips mapping her every curve. But as he lifted his head and revealed the heat in his gaze, giving her a slow, wicked smile, she knew they had time. Her heart could race, but they didn’t have to.
She was so happy in that moment. Deliriously happy. She ran her hand up to the back of his head, urging him to return for another kiss.
When her fingers grazed the strap of his eye patch, he flicked it off and tossed it toward the night table, then scooped her off her feet and into his arms.
A knock sounded on the bedroom door.
His face blanked with outrage.
“Busy,” he bit out.
“Shall I dismiss the woman downstairs?” the butler asked. “Ms. Walker?”
“Mum?” Scarlett asked with concern. “Tell them to send her up,” she called while Javiero set her onto her feet. “I’m so sorry. I texted her when we were leaving Spain, telling her we would be here this evening. I thought she was coming on the morning train. Maybe she misunderstood.”
“Nothing a cold shower can’t fix,” he said with rueful frustration. “Invite her to join us for dinner.”
“I’m really sorry.”
“I’ve waited this long.” He caught her chin and kissed her once. Hard. “Make it up to me later,” he suggested, and disappeared into his bathroom.
She heard the ding of the elevator and hurried out of the bedroom, not worrying about the fact she was in her robe. It was only Mum.
Except it wasn’t. It was her sister, Ellie.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ELLIE WORE FULL makeup. Her hair was bumped and curled and teased into flyaway wisps. She was dressed for clubbing in a short, tight skirt. Her leopard-print top was scooped low to show a lot of her breasts.
She took a pull off her vaping pen and released a cloud of moisture while she looked Scarlett up and down, gaze sticking at her chest. “Are those real?”
“What?” Scarlett touched the pendant of the diamond-encrusted lock that Javiero had given her. “This?”
“Your boobs. They used to be a lot smaller.”
“I just had a baby.”
“Oh. Right. Where is he?” Ellie glanced around.
“With the nanny. Sleeping.” Scarlett glanced at the butler with a strained smile. “This is my sister, Ellie.”
“Shall I prepare a room?”
Scarlett realized Ellie had brought an overnight bag. “Arrange something with a nearby hotel. My treat,” she assured Ellie with a smile that hid the way she was freaking out. “So the baby doesn’t keep you up.”
Ellie made a choking noise as the butler melted away. “You have a nanny and a butler?”
And a housekeeper who also cooked, but Scarlett didn’t bother to mention it.
“It’s nice to see you. How are you?”
Ellie released a fresh cloud of cherry-scented vapor through a pursed smile that derided Scarlett’s manners.
And Scarlett gave them up as she waved to dispel the sickly sweet aroma from the air, already feeling a headache coming on.
“Can you not do that in here? Where’s Mum?” She glanced toward the elevator.
“Didn’t want to come.” Ellie turned off her pen and dropped it into her overstuffed bag. “Dad asked her to visit him tomorrow. She’d rather do that.”
“But...” Scarlett’s heart plummeted with disappointment while part of her had to wonder if she deserved that disregard. “So she’s not coming at all? Did you try to talk her into it?”
“What’s the point?”
It was a careless dismissal of Scarlett’s feelings, but not deliberately cruel. Ellie had been as affected as all of them by their twisted upbringing. Her way of coping had been to act out and run around with boys, all of them terrible. Ellie’s pain was the same as Scarlett’s and Scarlett’s was so acute her chest was tight.
“Mum sounded so excited to meet Locke,” she murmured.
Actually, Mum had tried to talk Scarlett into staying with them at the house and going to the prison with her, but Scarlett had made excuses about Javiero’s demanding schedule and her colicky son.
Maybe she shouldn’t complain about her mother’s priorities when her own were deeply self-interested, but her reasons for refusing were about protecting herself and her son while trying to help her mother. She had hoped her mother agreeing to a day trip had meant she was moving past allowing her husband to control her every move.
So much for that. Why was Mum still pinned under his thumb? Scarlett had done so much to try to pull her out of that pattern—supported her, invited her a million times to come to Greece, offered to pay any bills that would get her a divorce.
Mum stayed grimly tied to her husband. Why? Dad wasn’t using his time in prison for self-reflection and meetings to overcome his alcoholism. He wasn’t seeking counseling over the abuse he’d inflicted. Anytime Scarlett brought up his behavior, her mother defended him. Your father loves all of us very much.
“This place is unreal.” Ellie was wandering the flat, goggling at the cut crystals dangling off the lampshades and smelling the enormous fresh-cut floral arrangement. She trailed her fingers along the back of the overstuffed leather sofa. “‘Luxury must be comfortable, otherwise it is not luxury.’ Coco Chanel,” she informed in an aside, one that held the canny calculation of a fox. A survivor by any means. “You’re living really well these days.”
“This belongs to Javiero,” Scarlett dismissed.
“You’re marrying him,” Ellie said in a harder voice, her sharp gaze hitting Scarlett’s ring, then her necklace, then her earrings.
“We haven’t set a date.” Scarlett pinched her lips together.
“I guess that’s why I haven’t received an invitation. But, oh, that’s right. We never get invited anywhere. Except London. For a sandwich.”
“I’ve been working.” Paying for where you live. “I didn’t get vacation except for a few days here and there. Then Niko was sick—”
“Whatever.” Ellie dismissed her words with boredom.
It was the same stale argument they’d been having for years.
“Mum could have called to say she couldn’t make it.” You didn’t have to come. She bit back the words. “We were expecting her tomorrow and were about to go to dinner.”
Ellie snorted and gave her a side-eye. “I can tell what you were about to do. I guess that’s what you have to do, isn’t it? To get all this?”
“Don’t be gross.”
“I’m gross? You’re the one who slept with an old man to get your hands on his money. Then got yourself knocked up by his son to seal the deal. I have to give it to y
ou—you’re platinum level at this game. I’m just wondering when you’ll start sharing the—Oh, hello.” Ellie batted her thick lashes.
The bottom of Scarlett’s stomach dropped out before she turned to see Javiero had silently come from the bedroom. He wore a fresh white shirt and crisp black trousers. His hair was damp, his expression stiff and unreadable. He offered a distant nod.
“My sister, Ellie,” Scarlett said, mortified at what he must have overheard. “Mum couldn’t make it. Ellie, this is Javiero.”
“I didn’t want the train ticket to go to waste.” Ellie swanned across to shake his hand. “And I fancied a taste of London’s nightlife. Sounds like you two were about to enjoy some yourselves. Mind if I tag along? I haven’t caught up with Scarlett in ages.”
“Of course,” Javiero said as Scarlett opened her mouth.
“I’ve booked Ellie into a hotel,” she hurried to assure him. “Our tame, early dinner isn’t what she had in mind for nightlife.”
“Oh, it’s definitely a start,” Ellie said. “Get dressed while I chat up your fiancé?”
Scarlett had never zipped herself into a dress faster.
When they got to the restaurant, she could have cried. It was exclusive and intimate and obviously a careful choice by Javiero for its air of romance. There was a small dance floor and a live trio playing swoony tunes. If they had come here alone, it would have been a perfect evening.
Instead, it was an uncomfortable meal, with her sister asking pointed questions about Javiero’s properties while making not-really-kidding suggestions that he introduce her to his rich friends. All the while she swallowed back one fancy cocktail after another.
Scarlett was dying to end the night, but didn’t want a scene.
“Have you had many bites on doing hair and makeup for the movies? I thought you were planning a trip to California?” Scarlett tried to keep Ellie talking so she wouldn’t swill her drinks.