by Dani Collins
He wasn’t used to her taking an avoidance tack, though. In Bali, she had looked him in the eye and smiled every time he caught her eye, then blushed and shied maybe, but she’d never refused to meet his gaze. Her brisk movements around the flat were as much about putting distance between them as securing the space for the children.
Aware he was seeking his own sort of reassurance, he made himself halt in one spot and quit tagging after her like a lost puppy, but he couldn’t stop himself from watching her slender limbs and smooth efficiency. He couldn’t help remembering that her skin had smelled like cloves and almonds and her hair had been a cool weight of silk that had warmed against his bare chest.
She paused to scan the equipment littering the entrance.
“That seems like a lot of stuff. Two highchairs and a booster?” It looked like there were three portable cots, not that he was an expert on baby furniture.
“We can deal with this later. What did your brother-in-law say?”
He brought her up to speed and she nodded jerkily. “So a couple of days. You’re really sure you want me here? I’ll have to spend the night. That means—”
“It’s an imposition, I realize. Do you—” He swore under his breath, unable to put off asking. He didn’t even want to know, but it might help control his still thriving attraction. “Is there someone in your life this will affect?” he forced himself to ask.
She stilled, not looking at him. After a long second, she nodded. Then she lifted an expression that was frozen between tortured and fretful.
He swallowed, surprised how deeply the knife thrust and twisted even though he’d braced for it. Even though she had every right to get on with her life. He certainly had no right to possessiveness. This situation was going to be unbearable.
Let her call an agency.
Before he could work up the will to make the concession, soft, pitiful whimpers rose over a lullaby being sung on screen. Evie’s sobs turned into a heart-wrenching wail that made Jaya’s eyes pop. She rushed toward the girl.
“Baby, what happened? Did you hurt yourself?”
Theo lowered his lids in a wince. “I didn’t realize what you’d put on. That’s Rowan’s voice as the fairy godmother.”
Jaya gathered up the toddler in a cuddle and murmured words of comfort. Her swift loving care to a child she barely knew struck into his toughened heart like an axe, leaving a wound that gaped and ached. He’d just realized how perfect Jaya was on the heels of learning she belonged to another man. She should be with someone. She deserved to be happy.
He still hated himself for never calling her back. He’d never felt so alone and lonely—and he knew loneliness like other people knew the lyrics to a favorite song.
With his breath burning his lungs, he asked, “What should we do?”
He meant, Should we call in someone else? But she only rocked Evie and said, “There’s nothing we can do. Little ones need their mamas.” Her brow flinched before she tried to distract Evie with a cheerful, “But we could go swimming. Do you like to swim?”
The bait and switch worked and after waiting for swimsuits and special diapers, they all climbed into the pool. Again Jaya was a natural, showing him how to hold Androu and coach him to kick while Evie proved to be part mermaid, pushing herself free of Jaya’s grip and swimming to the edge where she came up to grin proudly.
It was a surprisingly conflict-free hour as he shifted his focus onto the moment and the safety of the children. Okay, he was also pretty damned aware of Jaya’s nipples poking against the wet cups of her modest one-piece black swimsuit, but thankfully the cool water kept his libido from responding too wildly. She was way off-limits, even further than when she’d worked for him, so he suppressed his interest as best he could.
They were back to their Bali roles, polite and capable of basic camaraderie as they discussed neutral topics like the children, the weather, and Marseilles.
Until she said, “Theo,” with surprising gravity behind him.
“Yes?” he prompted, keeping his back to her as he boosted Evie toward the edge.
Ah, hell, he had his back to her. Inner tension came on so fast he felt like he solidified and fractured in the same breath.
The scars should have become less of an issue for him in the last year. His whole family had started coming to terms with their childhood, but he’d spent so many years clenching his teeth against it all that he couldn’t bring himself to open up to any of his siblings about what was plain as the stripes on his back. There didn’t seem any point and they were still so awkward with each other. He wanted to be friends with his older brother, but making that happen was easier if they both pretended the ugliness in their early lives hadn’t happened. Maybe it was counterproductive, but all of them had been raised to be polite and ignore. They very easily fell back on that coping strategy.
Jaya was private and quiet, but she was soft. Anything that moved her started at heart level. If she asked him about this, it would be because she was concerned.
Knowing that made the cracks in him extend to even deeper places, touching into areas that were raw and sensitive. Thank God he had a baby to keep an eye on and didn’t have to turn and face her pointed silence. He waited with ears that felt stretched and hollow, not ready for this conversation, not imagining he could ever be ready, but he didn’t know how to avoid it.
After a long interminable moment, she asked, “What happened to your back?”
Ensuring Evie was out of the water and sitting safely on the edge, he kept a hand on her tiny frame and glanced at Jaya, dreading her pity.
Her anxious frown was so kind it made him want to shudder, like he’d had too big a taste of sugar. He swallowed back a thickness in his throat and was left with the bitter residue of a bleak time when he’d been insignificant and helpless.
“Exactly what you imagine happened,” he answered in as controlled a tone as he could manage. Maybe he should have seen a counselor by now, but why? The emotional scars were as permanent as the physical ones. All he could do was accept them and try not to feel ashamed. He was smart enough to know it wasn’t his fault, even if he’d grown up believing he must have done something to deserve all that abuse.
“Who—? When...? Why?” she choked.
“My father.” A shadow of chagrin touched him. Shame that he had been so reviled by his own flesh and blood. Surely that meant there was something wrong with him.
Swallowing, he tried to find his equilibrium. He stepped back and nodded at Evie, inviting her to jump and swim toward him. Once he’d caught her up safe against his chest, he forced himself to look into Jaya’s appalled face again.
“He was drunk.” He tried to say it matter-of-factly, but a taut line inside him vibrated, making him unsteady. “I didn’t keep my brother in his room as I’d been told.”
“That’s...” She shook her head and he could imagine someone as tenderhearted toward children as she was couldn’t comprehend such cruelty. “How old were you?”
He reached for his well-practiced technique of shutting down, wanting to shrug off the details, but he couldn’t seem to make it happen. No one had ever invited him to talk about this.
His body shivered as though the water he stood in was full of ice. “Eight. That’s why I don’t drink. That’s why...”
He didn’t want to apologize for Bali. They’d been using each other, she’d said so, but she had wound up expecting more after all. He’d let her down. He hated failure, but he didn’t have anything else to offer. Maybe if she understood that, she wouldn’t hate him so much.
Squinting into the sunlight reflected off the water, he spoke in a graveled voice. “That night in Bali...Adara had called me earlier that day to tell me she’d contacted Nic. We hadn’t seen him in years, not since we were kids. Before he left home, our lives were pretty normal and decent. After Nic was g
one, both our parents drank. Our father became violent. I blamed Nic because I never paused to think about how we were all kids when it happened. He hadn’t had a choice, either. I hadn’t considered that he might have suffered in his own way. When Adara told me he had...”
He shook his head, remembering how everything had skewed in his mind, falling in a jumble he couldn’t make sense of. Then Jaya had arrived, sweet Jaya, soothing and earnest and warm, wanting to say goodbye. He hadn’t been able to bear the idea of her leaving. All he’d wanted was to keep her close.
“It was a lot to process,” he said, hoping his strong dose of self-deprecation hid the impact her sharing herself had had on him.
“I understand.”
“Do you?” he asked gruffly.
He wasn’t a talkative man. He didn’t have drinking buddies or squash partners. Men didn’t typically share their personal garbage anyway. Not with each other, but he’d entrusted Jaya with his emotional safety that night. Maybe he hadn’t shared his inner dialogue, but when she’d lain against him, naked and soft, her breath caressing his neck and her hair tickling his arm, he’d wanted to.
He wanted that emotional safety net again. Craved it like air.
Bending her dark head over Androu, she said, “I’m lying. I don’t understand how anyone can be cruel to someone smaller than they are. It upsets me.”
She looked up and the unprecedented connection he’d felt with her in Bali manifested like a beam between them, pulling them toward each other. The urge to move close and cover her mouth with his own was almost irresistible. He could practically taste her papaya flavor, could almost feel the cool mango smoothness of her lips against his.
A buzzer broke the spell.
Jaya’s expression fell to one that was appalled and startled before she buckled her shoulders in a cringe. She wasn’t given to swearing as far as he knew, but she muttered something in Punjabi that might have been a curse.
“Who is it?” he asked, worried they’d suffered a leak to the press.
“Quentin. I asked him to bring...” Her look of remorseful appeal made all the sharp edges in him abrade against each other.
“Your things?” he guessed. “Understandable.”
A ripping sensation went through him nonetheless, tearing away the paper walls he used to disguise the fact his childhood still affected him. He thought, Lucky, lucky man, and hated his rival for being smart enough to win her heart and keep it. The bastard had better be good to her.
He waved her to climb the stairs before him then had to avert his gaze from her ass and the backs of her long slender thighs. “Is he staying?” There’ll be a murder-suicide in tomorrow’s papers.
“I thought we’d have more time to talk before he arrived,” she said, handing him a towel before wrapping Androu like a Mexican burrito.
“What else is there to say?”
Her flashing glance was loaded as a hot pistol, but she only carried Androu inside. He followed on heavy feet, reluctant to meet her...what was the beau’s label? She wasn’t wearing a ring so they weren’t married or engaged. Maybe they were only dating.
“We’ll swim more later,” he promised Evie as she protested leaving the pool to come inside. He paused to reach up and lock the door behind him as he entered, then forced himself into the foyer where more bags had landed among the flotsam there.
A stocky blond man chopped his German tirade short as he spied Theo over Jaya’s shoulder. His blue eyes were sharp, his manner too damned proprietary.
Every male instinct came alive in Theo, despite having no claim on Jaya. He looked right into the man’s eyes with challenge, mentally aware it was wrong, but he couldn’t help himself. If the guy wanted her, he could damn well fight for her.
“So. You finally turn up,” the German gruffed.
“Quentin, please.” Jaya murmured as she turned to look at Theo. Her imploring eyes filled with compunction while she kept a hand in the middle of her paramour’s chest. No, not on his chest. As she shifted, Theo saw the baby trustingly clutched in the man’s curved arm.
Don’t drop Evie, Theo reminded himself, but the sight of that mite with black hair, dusky skin and curious brown eyes was a kick in the gut. He was Jaya’s. There was no mistaking the maternal protectiveness in her hand on the baby boy’s tiny blue T-shirt.
Time stood still as he processed all of them standing there with babies in their arms, Quentin with his rumpled suit and grim expression, he and Jaya practically naked with towels around their waists. Yes, this was good and humiliating to meet the father of her child with his pants proverbially around his ankles and his ineptness with children on full display.
“Quentin is my cousin’s husband. I told you about Saranya when I was leaving Bali. Do you remember?” Jaya asked.
“Of course.” Not the father then. His mind cycloned as he attempted to process this new information. If Quentin wasn’t the father, who was? To hide his inner chaos, he fell back on the scrupulous manners drilled into him as a child. “How is she?”
“Dead,” Quentin said flatly.
Nice. Theo surprised himself by thinking he might understand Quentin’s bitterness a little, given how agonized he was at the mere thought of Jaya not being available to him. He couldn’t imagine how he’d react if she were beyond his reach in a grave.
“I’m sorry,” he offered, aware how useless the words were, but it’s what you said.
“You should be,” the German growled.
I didn’t kill her, Theo bit back, able to curb the desire to be cruel because Quentin wasn’t involved with Jaya, but if he wasn’t the man in her life, who was?
His gaze returned to the bright brown eyes that were almost familiar, yet not like Jaya’s nearly black irises. A hit of déjà vu accosted him because he could have sworn he’d looked into those eyes earlier today...
The air dried up around him. His heart began to pound with thick hammer blows inside his chest. The kicked feeling in his gut tightened around a serrated blade that turned low and without mercy. If he had bones, they’d vaporized.
Don’t. Drop. Evie. He rather desperately tried to recollect if Demitri had been to Bali or had business in Marseille last year.
“Will you please let me handle this?” Jaya’s voice seemed to come from far away. She tried to take the baby from Quentin, but she already held Androu.
For the life of him, Theo couldn’t approach and take his nephew, even though he knew he should.
“Let you play house?” the German grumbled. “For how long? There’s a reason you and Saranya were always railroaded by the men in your family. You let them.”
“So if I tell you to butt out and leave, you will?”
Quentin gave her a stern look, but followed it with a resigned sigh that ended in a kiss on her cheek. He transferred the baby into her arms and straightened to throw another bitter glare at Theo.
The animosity in that look told Theo who the father was. Not Demitri. Hell, he didn’t know if he should be relieved or not. How he stayed on his feet, he’d never know.
“Call me if you need me,” Quentin said to Jaya and walked out.
Jaya took a shaken breath as the door closed, then turned to face him. The two boys she held weren’t far apart in age and despite the slightly darker skin tone on the smaller one, and the black hair where Androu’s was brown, their eyes and mouth were mirror images.
The sensation of dissolving from the inside out continued to assault Theo. He couldn’t form a proper thought. He tried, but this was more than he could grasp. More than he wanted to believe.
“This is Zephyr,” Jaya said, voice strained, but firm and a trifle defiant. “My...our...son.”
CHAPTER SIX
THEO STARED AT her like she was a stranger. His wide tanned chest didn’t seem to rise and fall at all where he c
lutched Evie in a towel against it. His lips were white and severe, his stillness frightening.
Accusation sharpened his level glare.
“I tried to tell you,” she began, then thought, No. No remorse. He hadn’t returned her calls. That’s why this was a shock to him. If she hadn’t found the right time to bring it up in the past hour, well, he’d had plenty of opportunities in the past year.
Nevertheless, a vision of the striped scars on his back flashed into her mind’s eye. Her indignation deflated and their situation became a tangle again. How had they even got here, staring like a pair of cowboys waiting for the other to draw?
Her arms ached worse than her head, but not as bad as her heart.
“They’re heavy,” she said. “Can we move into the lounge?”
“Of course.” He stepped forward and lifted Androu from her, averting his gaze from Zephyr’s shy smile.
Zephyr was an engaging little chap, happy as anything, and Theo’s turning away from him struck at the very core of her, setting her blood to boil.
Hugging her baby’s tiny frame into her wet swimsuit, she told herself to turn around and walk out, leave Theo to his “real” family.
Zephyr’s connection to the other children stopped her. Without her own cousin’s love and support, her life would be very different right now. Those sorts of ties were sacred to her and Zephyr wasn’t likely to enjoy many of them with her side of the family. Her parents and siblings were even less inclined to speak to her now that she had a bastard soiling the family name.
Was Theo really as narrow-minded as they were, capable of rejecting a boy who hadn’t done anything except have the gall to come to life inside her?
“Did you seriously just wet through this towel onto my arm?” Theo asked Androu in an aggrieved tone. “This kid hates me.”