Time became nothing.
The weight that had compressed in him on his wedding day had become a leaden pit that crushed all his organs.
Thoughts and memories he’d never allowed freedom to roam in his head had rebelled and now crowded in on him.
The ache in his guts was far beyond mere nausea.
And still he didn’t move.
Not until the sun made its first peak on the horizon to start its ascent and clear the darkness did he break out of his stupor.
Sophie was his sun.
Without her, his life would remain cold and barren.
Without her, he would never feel the warmth she shone on his skin.
Without her, he was nothing.
He needed to go to her.
But first, there were things he needed to do. Wrongs he needed to right.
He needed to cleanse his conscience.
Breathing heavily, he groped for his phone.
He dialled from memory the number he had deleted from his contacts months ago.
The sleepy voice answered after three rings. ‘Javier?’
His throat had become so tight it was an effort to speak. ‘Hello, Luis.’
* * *
Javier took a deep breath, then rang the bell of the sea-fronted villa along the Mediterranean coast, less than thirty kilometres from Spain’s border with France.
He was expected. The bell still echoed when the door was opened and a member of the household staff admitted him into the spacious, modern home.
Footsteps sounded in the distance, hurried, nearing towards him.
Then the gangly form of Chloe Guillem...no, Chloe Casillas appeared.
‘You’re early,’ she said stiffly, making no pretence at pleasantries.
He did not blame her.
‘I apologise,’ Javier replied carefully. ‘The drive was quicker than I anticipated.’
She scowled but then her face softened as Luis appeared from a side door.
The look on her face was all Javier needed to know that she loved his brother.
And now he too looked at his twin, struck by the changes he saw before him.
His perennial tan had deepened, his hair lightened by the sun...
But these were only surface changes.
His brother radiated happiness...but also wariness and curiosity.
There was none of the malice Javier had expected to see and which he knew he deserved.
‘I’m going to leave you two to it,’ Chloe said, planting a kiss on Luis’s lips, then adding a whisper Javier knew he was meant to hear. ‘Call me when he’s gone.’
‘Not my biggest fan?’ Javier asked wryly when it was just him and his brother alone for the first time in months.
Luis ran a hand through his hair and pulled a face.
‘I don’t suppose I can blame her,’ Javier said heavily.
Luis stared at him for a long time, eyes narrowed. Then he gave a sharp nod, the beginnings of a smile hovering on his lips. ‘Let’s get the pleasantries over with, shall we? Then we can talk.’
After a quick tour of the house Luis and Chloe had moved into only days earlier, both having developed a love of beach life from their time in the Caribbean, they moved outside to sit on the wall that overlooked Luis’s private beach. Stilted small talk had been the extent of their conversation up to this point, catching up with each other’s lives, both learning for the first time that they were going to be uncles as well as fathers.
‘When do I get to meet Sophie?’ Luis asked. ‘I know I must have done when she danced for us but, to be honest, I don’t remember her.’
Javier swallowed. ‘I don’t know. She’s in England. She’s...left me.’
‘Oh.’
‘It’s my fault. All my fault. Everything is my fault.’
Luis’s silence gave voice to his thoughts on that.
‘Did you speak to Benjamin?’ Javier asked, breaking it.
He had tried calling him a number of times but his messages had gone unanswered. In the end he had called Luis again and asked if he would speak on his behalf and arrange a meeting for them.
Luis nodded. ‘He is expecting you this evening.’
‘Thank you.’
More silence fell, broken only by the waves crashing onto the shore.
‘Why did you do it?’ Luis asked quietly.
He’d been waiting for this. ‘Rip Benjamin off?’
‘Yes. Was it deliberate? Did you deliberately fail to warn him of the change in terms?’
They both knew the answer but Javier knew his brother needed to hear it from him.
And he needed to say it too. ‘Yes.’
Luis nodded thoughtfully, his gaze fixed out on the sea. ‘And did you know the night we signed the contract with Benjamin that he thought he’d signed it under the original terms?’
Javier closed his eyes.
‘Yes,’ he admitted heavily. ‘He mentioned the percentage before I left. I knew then that he hadn’t read it. I didn’t see fit to warn him or correct his mistake or give him the chance to renegotiate because I was a stone-cold bastard who didn’t care that he was suffering over his mother. I had no empathy. I was...dead inside.’
He’d been dead for so long that he hadn’t noticed Sophie bringing him back to life until it was too late.
‘The only person I cared about was you and I harboured a resentment towards Benjamin for the closeness you had. A part of me had always resented him. I see that now.’
It was an admission that left his veins cold.
‘You were jealous?’
‘I resented that you could have fun with him.’
‘You were too busy trying to keep me out of trouble for fun.’ Luis’s own voice had the same heaviness to it. ‘I regret letting you bear that weight.’
They both exhaled at the same time. Luis gave a grunt-like laugh, then said, ‘What do you feel now?’
‘Sick with myself. I shut down after our mother died. I was afraid I was like our father and that if I let emotion in I would become him. Instead I became a monster in a different form.’
Another long silence fell between them.
Javier knew Luis was thinking the same as he, of their childhood, two boys who’d shared a womb before being born into a world where the only option had been to survive by sticking together and protecting each other.
Eventually Luis said, ‘Our parents screwed with our heads long before our father did what he did. But it doesn’t have to define us.’
Javier thought of Sophie, again, the woman who had no idea who her real parents were, where she came from or why she’d been abandoned. She had never allowed that beginning to define her or close her heart off.
‘Does Chloe make you happy?’ he asked.
‘More than I ever dreamed possible.’
‘Good. You deserve happiness.’
Luis looked at him. ‘So do you.’
He shrugged. ‘I think it might be too late for me. I pushed her too far this time. I think she has let go.’
In his heart he knew she would never keep their child from him. But as for their marriage...
That he did not know how to fix.
‘Talk to her. She might surprise you.’
‘Sophie has never done anything but surprise me.’
Much later, Luis showed him to the door, promises made to get together very soon and work out a plan for their future.
‘Good luck with Benjamin,’ his brother said as he embraced him.
‘Thank you. And thank you for getting him to agree to see me.’
‘No problem. I’m just grateful to have you back in my life. I’ve missed you.’
‘Did you approach Dante with the offer for the land deliberately?’ Javier suddenly remembered to ask.
‘How high would you have gone?’
‘As high as was needed for you to come to your senses and talk to me. I never would have guessed a woman would have done that for me.’
He managed a returning smile. ‘Neither would I.’
* * *
Sophie concentrated hard on the document she was reading at her parents’ kitchen table, wishing she’d asked for the English version rather than the Spanish. She wouldn’t have to keep looking words up for their meanings. But it was necessary doing it like this.
Once the baby was born she would return to Spain. It was going to be her home. If she wanted to be a vet there she would have to become fluent in all aspects of the language.
There was a rap on the front door.
Getting to her feet with a sigh, she closed the living-room door and went to answer it.
The top half of the front door was frosted glass. Through it she could see her visitor was a person of immense height and width...
Her heart thumped, then set off at a canter.
Keeping a tight grip on the door handle, she tried to breathe.
You’re being ridiculous. It isn’t him. It couldn’t be him.
Javier had sent her only one message since she’d left him and that had consisted of two words—Thank you—after she’d emailed the scan.
It had taken him two days to write those two words.
She had read those two words so many times her eyes had blurred.
From that, nothing. No call, no message. Every letter dropped through the post in the eight days she’d been in England and every ping of an email had brought a thud of dread in her, fear that this would be the moment she received a legal notice of his intention to fight for custody.
It had taken every effort to keep her resolve and ignore the plaintive voice in her head pleading with her to apologise.
She mustn’t.
Their marriage was over. All she could do was pray Javier came to his senses and realised he had it in him to be a real father to their child. Freya’s phone call three nights ago had given her cause to hope. Now she had to hope this unexpected visit was the start of that journey and not the first blood of a nasty legal battle.
She counted to five, fixed a smile to her face and opened the door.
The smile would not sustain itself.
The moment she stared into the light brown eyes she’d missed more than she had thought possible everything swelled inside her and it took every ounce of effort not to burst into tears.
The features she had soaked into her memory bank were taut, his jaw clenched in that, oh, so familiar way.
She couldn’t tear her gaze from his eyes. She had never seen that expression in them before. Such...softness...
‘Hello, carina,’ he said in a tone she’d never heard before either. It contained the same softness as his eyes. ‘I apologise for turning up unannounced. May I come in?’
It seemed to take for ever before she could get her throat to work. ‘Yes, of course.’
Her legs as she led him inside felt drugged. Her head felt drugged too, as if a thick fog had been injected into it.
So dazed was she at Javier’s unexpected appearance that she’d forgotten Frodo was in the living room until she opened the door and he went bouncing round the room, his tail wagging as he then ran circles around Javier.
He gave a grunt-like laugh and picked the puppy up, Frodo immediately licking his cheek with frantic excitement.
‘He’s grown,’ Javier said, carrying Frodo to a seat at the dining table and sitting him on his lap. Then he stared at Sophie, his eyes drifting down to her ripening belly. ‘And so have you.’
Stunned at the welcome Frodo had given the man who had rarely paid him any attention, equally stunned at the fuss the man in question was making of him, Sophie could only nod vaguely. Her bump seemed to have exploded these past few days.
‘Can I get you a drink?’
‘No. Thank you.’ He grimaced. ‘Please, sit down. We need to talk.’
She took the seat next to him but backed it away to create distance and bunched her hands together on her lap, desperate to contain the tremors in them.
‘How have you been?’ he asked.
Miserable. Scared. Heartsick. ‘I’m good. Baby’s good. She’s learned how to kick.’
‘You can feel it?’
She nodded. ‘She’s very active, especially at night. I think she’s asleep now though.’
‘She?’ His eyes widened. ‘We are having a girl?’
‘I didn’t ask but the scan was so clear it was obvious. The nurse confirmed it for me.’
His features tightened. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t there.’
‘So am I.’ She felt no malice towards him, only a deep sadness.
Her anger had barely lasted longer than the walk down the driveway from his home, its residue long put to bed.
‘Freya tells me you’ve seen Benjamin.’ That was what her old friend had called to tell her; their first real conversation since Freya had left Javier for Benjamin. Or, as Sophie now knew, since Freya had been kidnapped by Benjamin.
Kidnapped or not, Freya had been delirious with happiness. She had also been astounded at the contrition Javier had shown when he had turned up at their chateau.
Hearing his name had been a stab to Sophie’s heart.
The next stab had come from Freya’s demand to know what magic she had woven to make the ice-cold Javier Casillas admit to his faults and ask, in all sincerity, for forgiveness.
It was hearing this that had given Sophie the kernel of hope about Javier and their child.
But she had refused to let that hope gain traction.
The pain at the recognition that Javier would never change, would never love her, would always push her and the baby away...that pain had lanced her like no pain she had ever felt before. She could not put herself through that again.
He blew out a long puff of air and put Frodo on the floor.
Then he straightened in his seat and looked at her. ‘I needed to apologise to him. I behaved... I can make all the excuses in the world but it doesn’t change the fact that I did rip him off and for that there is no excuse. It was me. No one else.’
‘How did he take your apology?’
‘He refused to take the money back from me but he had the grace to listen. I hope one day he can forgive me.’
‘I hope that too,’ she said softly. ‘I’m glad you accept what you did and that you had the guts to apologise. It couldn’t have been easy for you. What made you do it?’
‘Apologise?’
She nodded.
‘You did.’ He rubbed a hand through his hair. ‘You’ve done something to me.’
‘What?’
‘You’ve...infected me. The way you see the world. What you lived through, your abandonment. That could have made you bitter and cold like me but you turned it into a force for good. You refuse to see the bad; you turn it over and see the sunny side.
‘You and I... I’ve been doing a lot of thinking...’ He rubbed his hair again. ‘I have treated you very badly. I cannot tell you how sick I am with myself. I thought my behaviour was justified because I was trying to protect you but I see the truth now and the truth is that you were right—the only person I was protecting was myself.’
He closed his eyes. ‘I shut myself off from emotions so long ago it is hard for me to be any other way. I do not know how to love. I’ve never been taught how to love a person in the way they should be loved. I want to try but...’ His throat moved and now he fixed desolate eyes on her. ‘I need your help. I want to love our child...that scan you sent to me, it made my heart hurt. It hasn’t stopped hurting since. I know what I n
eed to do but I don’t know how. Please, carina, help me.’
Stunned, her own heart aching with pain at this admission she knew must have cost him everything to make, Sophie squeezed her balled hands even tighter to stop them from touching him.
‘Of course I will help you,’ she whispered.
How could she not? This was what she had demanded from him when she had walked out of his home: when he was ready to be a father to come and find her.
He was ready.
He had come and found her.
Whatever her feelings for this man, he was her daughter’s father and she would do whatever it took for them to forge a close and loving relationship.
He blew out a heavy breath. ‘In the back of my mind, I keep thinking, what if I’m like my parents?’
Now she did reach for him, unballing her hand to rest it on his arm. ‘You are not your father.’
His eyes narrowed with intensity. ‘I know. You have shown me that. I do not fear hurting our child any more but I do fear...’
‘Fear what?’ she asked gently, moving her hand down his arm to wrap her fingers around his.
He squeezed. ‘My mother never liked me. She never abused me the way my father abused Luis but she was never warm to me. My parents each had their favourite and we both suffered in different ways for it. What if I don’t like our child?’
‘You will. You will like her and you will love her.’
‘How can you be so sure?’ he asked, his expression haunted.
‘That pain you feel in your heart? That’s your heart opening itself up for you to love her. Your love for her is already in you. When she’s born and you develop a bond with her, that love will grow, I promise. And I will help you. She’ll have to live full-time with me in the early months as I’m hoping to feed her myself, but that won’t stop you being with her. You can see her as much as you like and stay with us for as long as you like. My door will always be open to you.’
Javier stared into the only eyes in the world that had ever looked at him and seen the man he could be and not the steel façade he’d built to protect himself.
‘Will you not come home to me, carina?’
Her silence before answering went on so long that the beats of his heart turned into the chimes of doom.
Billionaire's Baby of Redemption Page 16