by Dani Collins
He sounded like one of those cartoon villains who revealed his dastardly plan so the hero was forewarned and forearmed, but there was a part of Kiara that didn’t want to fight him. The primal female in her was darkly excited by the threat of being dragged to a cave by the male who claimed her.
That ancient imperative to submit had a purpose, however; one that was as clear today as it had been then.
“Can I ask you a related question?”
He looked over his shoulder.
“Do you want more children?”
“No.”
It was such a swift punch; she caught her breath.
He turned and frowned. “You do?”
She nodded jerkily. “I hated being an only child.”
“Siblings aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.”
“You were poisoned from an early age against one another.” She took a step forward, anxious to persuade. “Have you even given Javiero a chance lately?”
“No,” he scoffed. “And I won’t.”
She shook her head in bafflement while her heart felt pulled and strained between him and Aurelia, the past and the future, her own will and his.
“That sort of hatred is not what I want Aurelia to learn.”
His jaw tightened. “That is why I won’t have another one,” he shot back with a forceful point of his finger. “You’re already using her to manipulate me.”
“Into doing what?” she cried. “Reconciling with your brother? That’s between you and him. Do it or don’t. I don’t care. But my job as a parent is to teach Aurelia how to be a decent human being. To model behavior like kindness and forgiveness. If you’re only going to show her how to hate, then no. You don’t get to be her parent.”
A muscle in his cheek ticked.
Remorse gripped her. She felt as though she was kicking a dog for being a dog.
“Do you understand that being a father is more than giving her a name and a bedroom and three square meals?” she asked more gently. Maybe she even spoke with tendrils of pity because her life might have been a lonely struggle, but his had clearly been a Siberian wasteland.
“This isn’t an ultimatum, Val. It’s a choice. One you have to make. If you want me to marry you, you have to also want a relationship with Aurelia. You can’t let her form an emotional attachment that isn’t reciprocated. That’s cruel. You know that. She needs all the compassion and respect and affection you can pour over her. You’ll have to listen and compromise. That’s what was lacking between you and Niko, wasn’t it? That’s why you’re so bitter and malevolent. Do you really expect me to set her up to become just like you?”
CHAPTER FOUR
WALK AWAY, VAL THOUGHT.
But Kiara did it first, saying, “I’m going to check on Scarlett.”
He had instructed his driver to park at the hospital, which was the direction she took, but he stayed where he was, staring at one of the handful of shiny coins in the bottom of the fountain.
Did he feel manipulated? Yes. Aurelia had already become a pressure point and he hated giving anyone leverage over him. He’d been weak and manipulated and exploited as a child. Objectified and controlled, lied to and lied about. He’d been abandoned by Niko when he had most needed him to stand up for him.
So yes, he was bitter and malevolent. Mostly, he compartmentalized and got on with life, but he had made a habit of caring very little about anything. The minute he cared for more than money or his immediate comfort, he opened himself up to being used and cornered and crushed.
But he already cared about his daughter. He didn’t understand the powerful force that had risen in him at the sound of her voice, but something instinctive within him wanted to protect his child in every possible way, most especially from the bullies and predators he’d experienced in his own youth.
Of course, his mere presence in her life would expose her to the tainted world he came from so the best way to protect her was to walk away.
His feet refused to budge.
Why not? Kiara had the means to take excellent care of Aurelia. She was proving fierce enough to stand up to him, wasn’t she? A savage excitement swelled in him, witnessing how glorious she was in her desire to slay dragons for their daughter.
Then there was their kiss. Their sexual compatibility hadn’t faded one iota. Her fire and simple truth drew him as inexorably as the night they’d met.
Do you really expect me to set her up to become just like you?
He pushed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets, convinced he was too far gone to become the better man his daughter deserved.
But he couldn’t bring himself to walk away.
* * *
Prepared to wait, Kiara detoured to the car to collect a pad and some graphite pencils.
After a brief inquiry with the main desk clerk who promised to make a call to the maternity ward, she settled into a corner of the waiting room and looked for something benign to draw. There were a handful of people here, an elderly couple and a woman with a child absorbed in screen time. There was a potted plant in the corner and a small courtyard beyond the window, but nothing inspired her.
Her mind was brimming with Val and all the fresh angles and expressions he had revealed in the hours she’d been with him. His blade-like cheekbones and the inimical set of his jaw, the sensual sweep of his mouth and the spiky lashes around his pale, steely eyes.
Her own eyes were damp, her throat tight.
She felt so stupid for hoping. No. Robbed. Somehow, deep down, she had convinced herself Niko and Scarlett were wrong. It wasn’t as if Val went around murdering people or committing high treason. Sure, he was given to making scathing remarks and pulling ruthless business moves, but he wasn’t a bad person. Was he?
She wanted—needed—to believe he possessed a heart and was capable of offering it to his daughter and yes, she was chagrined to admit, to her, too.
She understood now, though. He was broken. He was all ropy scar tissue, no flexible tendons or muscles capable of stretch. He was contemptuous of humanity and lacking in compassion. It was sad. What the man needed was some unconditional love and if she didn’t have Aurelia’s trusting heart to protect, she might have taken a chance on him.
But she had to put Aurelia first.
Oh, shoot. Her pencil had absently begun blocking in his naked shoulders, about to re-create the moment when he had turned his head and asked with throaty seduction, Would you like to make love?
Her heart had flipped over. She had already been doing so in her mind. The compulsion to caress him with more than her eyes had been impossible to resist.
Her defenses were still as easily breached by him. Was it purely her inexperience? Or that chemistry he’d alluded to? She hadn’t known what to think of that. He was a highly sexed man; that wasn’t up for debate. She was not a highly sexed woman. Unless she was around him, apparently, because he turned her into some kind of nymphomaniac.
Cheeks stinging, she glanced around as she surreptitiously flipped her page to hide what she’d begun to sketch.
The sound of the entrance doors sliding open lifted her head.
Val entered. His gaze found her, and her heart leaped at the sight of him.
Don’t hope, she cautioned herself, but what did his arrival mean? What did that grave expression mean?
Into the charged silence, the distant ding of an elevator sounded.
Before he even looked in that direction, Val stiffened like an animal going on alert.
Footsteps approached. She couldn’t see who it was, but Val turned his head, his expression hardening to iron. He was bristling like a wolf and it made all the fine hairs on her body stand up with trepidation.
Instinct had her rising against a cloud of such dark animosity; the elderly couple sensed it and frowned with concern as she moved past them.
Javier
o. She’d seen photos of his rugged features before the attack, but her heart bottomed out when she saw him in person. He was a little taller and broader than Val and wore a black eye patch. Savage red lines stood livid on his face and across his throat. His haggard expression was as rigid as Val’s.
They held an unblinking stare, a pair of territorial beasts primed to rip out each other’s throats at one false move from the other.
She made herself ignore Javiero’s disfigurement and forced a friendly smile.
“Javiero. It’s nice to meet you. I’m Kiara.”
She tried to put out her hand to shake, but Val swept his arm in front of her, catching her wrist and wrangling her behind him, all without breaking eye contact with his brother.
“For heaven’s sake,” she muttered, struggling against his tense hold. “He’s not going to eat me.”
“No comment?” Javiero taunted Val, completely ignoring Kiara. “Not going to say you like what I’ve done with my hair or something equally banal?”
Antagonism simmered off Val in waves. She fairly tasted it. How could she not? He had his arm bent to wrap around her and she could hear his teeth grinding together.
She gave up trying to twist away and peered around his shoulder. “How is Scarlett?”
“Sleeping.”
“She delivered? Boy or girl?” she asked with excitement.
“Boy.” Javiero was still holding a macho staring contest with Val.
“How lovely! Congratulations.” She pinched Val, trying to get him to ease his grip on her. “Everything went well? No complications?”
“None.”
These men! She leaned into Val, trying to nudge him off balance to break their stare, but he was a concrete wall. “Have you chosen a name?”
“No.”
“I’d love to see him,” she said wistfully.
“No.” Javiero seemed to enjoy rounding out the word. His brows lifted ever so slightly in a signal that he was refusing purely out of spite toward Val.
Somehow Val grew harder and larger, his muscles seeming to gather for attack, threatening to tear through the constraints of his shirt, but all he said was a gritty-voiced, “I’ll stay here. Let her up.”
“No.” The satisfaction that dripped from Javiero’s tongue should have left a puddle on the floor.
Val’s body bunched further.
Kiara wrapped her arms fully around him and squeezed with all her might.
“It’s fine,” she declared firmly. Strenuously. Even though Javiero’s refusal fractured her heart. “It’s late.” It wasn’t, but she would defuse this any way she could. “I’m sure you all want to rest. Please give Scarlett and your son my love. Tell her to call me when she’s up for a chat,” she babbled.
Javiero didn’t promise to relay any messages. He pivoted and stalked away.
* * *
The press of Kiara’s curves against him eased, but Val had to consciously tell himself to release her. His heart was slamming in his chest, adrenaline leaving an ache in his muscles.
She expelled a hissing breath of pent-up tension. “I’ll get my things.”
He watched her return to her seat and collect her pad and pencils and followed her out.
He should have walked away instead of coming after her. What had he thought to accomplish? He had only known he was still determined to marry her, not expecting an immediate test of his resolve.
For all his claims that Javiero had no effect on him, the sight of his half brother had clashed old anger through him—after the unsightly, stitched-up tears in Javiero’s face had briefly taken him aback. The damage was more extensive than reported, but Val knew better than to pity Javiero. He was still the arrogant hard-ass Val preferred not to know.
And after all the times Val had knocked over Javiero’s attempts to claim authority over him, today he’d had to stand there and suffer it. Javiero’s refusal to let Kiara see his baby had been pure malice. It had been an attempt to dig at Val and it had worked.
Val was incensed to learn he had a crack in his armor, one that Kiara had caused and that Javiero had found quickly and easily. How? It wasn’t as if Val had wanted Kiara to go anywhere with him. Javiero had talked more than one ally into changing sides in the past. It was one of the reasons Val rarely trusted anyone anymore.
But Kiara’s confession earlier about wanting him with her when she had delivered was still panging uncomfortably in his chest. Given her concern all day for her friend, he understood that reassuring herself Scarlett and the baby had come through the ordeal meant a lot to her.
So there he’d stood, helpless to force Javiero into giving him something he didn’t even want. This was why he hated Greece! There were never any good choices, only lousy and worse.
“What’s wrong?” Kiara asked, coming around from stowing her pad with the rest of her supplies. Her brows came together as she noticed Val’s tense fist braced on the roof of the car.
“Scarlett doesn’t need you. We can leave.” He opened the car door.
“But—”
“He won’t let you see her, Kiara. We’re getting Aurelia, going to Italy and getting married.”
“I haven’t agreed to that!” Kiara’s eyes widened in anxious uncertainty. Her gaze went back and forth between his eyes as she searched for an answer of some kind.
She didn’t have to repeat the question. He heard it loud and clear.
Do you really expect me to set her up to become just like you?
“I didn’t finish what the jaguar started, did I?” He had nearly bitten clean through his tongue for her sake, even though he’d been provoked. “I wasn’t the one being petty, refusing to let you see your friend and her baby. I take your point about Aurelia’s confusion over losing Niko. I’m completely committed.”
Her breath left her, but still she hesitated to duck into the car.
He knew what she was waiting for—his agreement to develop a bond with their daughter. To be a better father than his own. When the bar had been set that low, how hard could it be?
“I will try, Kiara,” he promised through his teeth while a band tightened around his chest. “That is more compromise than anyone has squeezed out of me in years. Accept it as the triumph it is.”
* * *
Kiara didn’t feel as though she was winning anything. In fact, she was losing what little autonomy she still possessed.
She had known her life would change with Niko’s death. She had known Val would be informed and she would have to handle his reaction.
Knowing hadn’t prepared her. Maybe she spent too much time hiding from the real world in her art, making the anguish of daily life easier to bear by painting over it with bright colors and clean lines. That tactic left her with few coping strategies when reality crashed in. She wanted to believe she was strong inside, but she wasn’t. She leaned on Scarlett all the time. And Scarlett wasn’t here. Would she see her again? She’d already lost Niko. Now she would lose her home and her best friend?
What was the alternative, though? She could pick a fight with Val and maybe come out on top after a long, bloody battle, but that would serve no one, least of all Aurelia. If Val was willing to make a concession for their daughter, Kiara ought to, as well, right?
Even if it terrified her?
She kept herself together until they returned to the hotel where she took refuge in the guest bedroom to “freshen up.” Instead, she threw herself facedown on the bed, trying not to scream with hysteria into a down-filled pillow.
Twice. She had met Val twice, and he had completely overturned her life each time, this time even faster and more completely than the first. What did that say about how marriage to him would go? She couldn’t do it. Couldn’t.
But she wanted to. Which scared the hell out of her.
A knock sounded and Val’s rumbling voice had her scrambling
to sit up.
“What?” she stammered.
He opened the door. “I said—”
Her turmoil must have been clear in her flushed, disheveled appearance. His steely gaze flicked to every corner. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s right?” she choked out as she scooted herself to the edge of the bed and grabbed a tissue. Two. Three. She felt like crying if only to release the pressure inside her. “The closest thing I’ve had to a father died two days ago. My best friend had a baby that I’m not allowed to see. Maybe I’ll never get to talk to her again. You expect me to move to a strange country as if it’s as easy as rolling over in bed. Would I even have a studio? Because the culmination of my lifetime’s aspiration is happening in three weeks and I’m not ready!”
If she lost that... Cripes. Now the tears were really pressing up against her composure.
“It’s a lot to process,” she muttered, shoving panic to the edges of her consciousness as she moved to the mirror. Good grief. Her face was ashen, her hair squashed.
“Of course you’ll have a studio,” he said behind her.
She flung around. “Really? Because it is an absolute deal breaker for me.”
He gave her a smirk that could only be described as patronizing. “I don’t claim to be an inventive man, Kiara. If my father was able to bribe you with four walls and a roof, why wouldn’t I use the same incentive?”
Lord, she was predictable. And easy. “Where?” she asked.
“There’s a space on the grounds of my villa that should be big enough. Design whatever you like.”
“Really?” She couldn’t help a skip of excitement at the idea. She loved her studio on the island, but there were things she would do differently if starting from scratch.
“Of course. I want my wife to be happy.”
For some reason, she found that incredibly laughable and she chuckled.
“Why is that funny?” His eyes narrowed.