by Lia Lee
“Yeah, she ended up not getting the hint when I said I wanted to end the relationship. Then she stalked me and made tons of scenes that got ‘Xavier Villalobos’s’ image plastered on every tabloid site and all over social media. It was the biggest reason I started keeping a low profile after that, why I make myself like a ghost.”
“I see.”
“No, you don’t,” he said, his hand clutching hers tightly. “You don’t understand because I barely did till you left for America. I’d been hiding my heart for years, only doing flings. What we’ve had so far has been the first time I let it thaw in months. You did that. You’re my east, my sun.”
She rolled her eyes a little at the allusion to her other name, to being Juliet. “I think you’re laying it on a little thick, Xav.”
“No, not really. I was hiding and existing through life, and you changed that. I want to start over. I lied and hid things from you, and you did from me when my own behavior caught up with me.” He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed the back of it as he had before in the club. “I’m Xavier Villalobos of Catalan Food Distribution, and I think you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.”
She blushed and spoke, daring to voice the truth. “Hi, I’m Sandra Gaines, and I’m the mother of your children. All six of them.”
“Ha-ha, very funny.”
She shook her head and dug into the drawer in her bureau. “Actually, that part’s quite real. Congratulations, Dad. I know this sounds impossible, but we’re the only other natural sextuplets Dr. Díaz has heard of.”
He studied the sonograms, his eyes growing wide as saucers. “You’re serious?”
“We’re going to be parents. I…you’re not mad at me?”
Xavier reached out and swept her into a hug, gathering her into him. “I’m scared for you. I can’t imagine how much this has to be on your body.”
“I’m barely three months. The worst and hardest is yet to come.”
“You were going to do this without me?”
She dug deeper into the drawer and handed him two pieces of paper. “Javier offered me money to go away. I was so humiliated that I took it, but the minute I got here, I shredded it.”
Xavier eyed both halves, then balled his hands into fists at his side. “I’ll kill him.”
Sandra’s shoulders deflated, and she surprised herself with her next words. “He was trying to protect you.”
“By lying about your sickness? By hiding my children from me? He didn’t have the right to mess in my business, to make me feel like this, let alone speak so sharply to you.”
“But…” she said, snuggling into him. “He was scared I was a gold digger. After Tina, I can understand. I get it now. He loves you, Xav. He wants what’s best for you. Javier just messed up big time in this case.”
“Oh, I’ll say!”
“I never would have taken the money. My parents and I would have figured something out if you really didn’t want us.”
Xavier looked at the sonogram and then placed both hands on her belly. She responded by setting her own over them. “There’s nothing on Earth I want more than you. No one I could ever love as much as I love you and now the little ones.”
“You mean that?” she asked, her eyes welling with tears.
“Every word,” he said, kissing her. “Come home. Live in Barcelona with me forever. We’ll put the movie on hold, and when you’re ready we’ll go back to it.”
“I…really?”
“Yes, but for now, we have a family and that’s what matters most.”
“I agree.”
Epilogue
Almost five years later…
“Daddy!” Isabella said, reaching over and petting the pony beside her. “I want a turn to ride Buttercup. Don’t let Maite hog her!”
Maite narrowed her eyes at her sister. “Well I like riding, and it was my turn. Tonya took forever.”
He looked toward his wife for help, but she was busy keeping a tight rein over their three boys, Felipe, Alexander (named after Sandra’s father), and Raul. The trio were gathered around the newborn ducklings on the farm. Little Raul, who’d had the most difficult time at birth and had been the one to leave the incubator last, adjusted his thick glasses on his nose. It was rare for a child of barely four, but if vision problems for Raul and Tonya were the only things they ever had to deal with from a high-risk pregnancy, then he and Sandra were beyond lucky.
Blessed, really.
Raul petted the little duckling in his hands and helped it into a small bucket to practice swimming. Xavier chuckled at the sight and then groaned when Isabella shouted again. “Papa, it’s my turn!”
“I think we’re all going to take a break in a minute and go and get some ice cream back at the house. Wouldn’t you like that?”
Isabella considered that, setting her hands on her hips and glaring at him. She had a withering look already, and was easily as commanding as her director mother. “Not good enough.”
Sandra laughed and led the three boys over to the pony paddock. “We’ll get ice cream, and then Daddy will tell your favorite story. After that, Uncle Javi and your cousins are coming over.”
Six little voices squealed and little hands clapped.
Xavier shook his head. His brood of six loved their older cousins. It was their need to be together almost all the time, to spend long hours with Teresa and Juan Carlos, that had helped him mend fences with Javier. For years, he’d barely spoken to his brother. It had been painful, but it had also been a blessing in disguise. The desire not to be near Javier had made the decision to quit, to leave the CEO work behind to his brother and start his own horse farm that much easier. Then the playdates had started, and finally they’d had a long talk.
“Really?” Raul asked, his eyes wide and owlish behind his glasses. “Everyone’s coming over?”
“Yes,” Sandra said, ruffling their little boy’s red hair. “So ice cream and cousins, and we’ll go back to riding tomorrow.”
They all cheered again, and Xavier rubbed at his ear in reaction to the loud noise. He was convinced most parents of small children, kindergarten teachers, and daycare workers were functionally deaf.
“You have the better way with them.”
“I bribe them better,” she said, her smile as dazzling as it had been the first time he’d ever met her in that club long ago.
He took her hand in his and both of them watched carefully as the children giggled and chased each other around the field a few yards off from them.
“Thank you,” he said, the sincerity clear in his voice.
“For what?”
“For everything,” he said, looking her in the eyes. “I wouldn’t have anything that mattered if not for you.”
She squeezed his hand back. “That’s not something you hear the average billionaire say.” Sandra wrinkled her nose in the most delicious way. “Wait, is there such a thing as an average billionaire?”
“Compared to Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, I’m an Adonis.”
She giggled. “Don’t sell yourself short. Compared to freaking Channing Tatum and Chris Evans, you know you’re a god.”
“So no ‘dad bod’ here?” he asked, tone wry.
“Hardly,” Sandra said, kissing his lips. “You don’t have to thank me. I have to thank you. Now I have seven people I love so much it’s almost scary. I have the career I wanted, and I don’t have to be hit on by skeevy patrons at last call.”
“And I don’t have a parade of angry debutantes circling in and out of my life.”
“Maybe we saved each other,” she said. “Maybe that’s the secret to all of this. We didn’t even know what we needed till the other came along.”
“I think that’s true,” he said, groaning when he realized that Alexander and Maite had jumped into mud puddles, getting dirt and grime all over their clothes. Off on the edge of the group, Felipe held a fat, green bullfrog that he was clearly trying to get down Tonya’s shirt collar. “Kids!” he shouted, gla
ring hard at Felipe. “You have to be nice to each other or you’ll all get broccoli instead.”
Felipe dropped the frog instantly and looked with practiced wide-eyed innocence at him. “Papa, I wasn’t doing anything.”
“No,” Sandra said, her tone going stern. “You were going to harass Tonya. You need to listen to your father, or I’ll add Brussels sprouts and pulpo.”
All the kids shuddered when his wife mentioned grilled octopus.
As much as the bulk of the brood favored him with their dark hair and swarthy skin, they were pure Sandra when it came to their food preferences.
The best of both worlds, he reminded himself. Utterly perfect.
The kids lined up obediently for Sandra, listening to her rules now that the terrifying threat of green veggies instead of sweets had been laid out. Each boy took the hand of his girl (they’d created the buddy system long ago to make sure that the children didn’t get lost in a crowd). Thinking back to the farm earlier, Xavier spun with vertigo.
“What’s wrong?” Sandra asked. “You look so worried.”
He laughed and kissed her, relishing the honey taste of her kiss and the sweet jasmine of her perfume. “I’m not, but I have to admit. I think we have our own set of ducklings, don’t you?”
She grinned and looked back at their children. “We do, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Me neither.”
THE END
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CHAPTER ONE
New York City, Now
Marnie froze, which was very awkward given the fact that she was currently hovering over the cheese tray in the rear corner of the bookshop. She had wanted to make sure that she got some cheese and some grapes before the rest of the crowd realized that there was free food, and she thought she had done quite well for herself before she turned around and caught sight of the dark-haired man closer to the front of the room.
It really can't be him, can it?
She told herself that it was foolishness. There was no way it could be Philip, none whatsoever, but the longer she watched, the more she recognized the man's way of standing, the tilt of his head, even the way he raked his fingers through his thick, dark hair as he spoke.
Cassie elbowed her in the ribs. "Marnie, you really need to step aside and let someone else—oh hello, that's nice, isn't it?"
Her best friend offered the object of Marnie's regard an appreciative look, but when she glanced back at Marnie, it was clear that Marnie wasn't just appreciating a handsome man.
"Look, I know you've not managed to get out for a while, but seriously, we're in New York. There are lots more handsome men around, though I have to admit, the one that you're eying up is pretty impressive. What gives?"
Marnie recovered enough to step back from the table. Without thinking of what she was doing, she stuck herself behind a shelf of travel books. She was short, and it hid her quite well, but still she had to resist the urge to crouch down.
"I know there are more handsome men out there, but this is one that I know." When Cassie still looked a little confused, Marnie winced. "He's one that I know intimately."
"Oh my, one of those situations, eh? Well, what do you want to do? Want me to start talking loudly about politics so you can make your getaway?"
Marnie bit her lip. If she were being practical and sensible, there would be nothing smarter than to take Cassie up on her offer. Cassie was a good friend, and the only thing she liked more than having a good time with her friends was causing a scene.
However …
It was Philip.
Some people enter your life and write their initials on it. Over time, their initials might become eroded or worn away entirely. When it came to Philip, he hadn't just initialized her rock. He had blasted his full name into it, and some days, the letters looked as if they had been cut yesterday.
"I don't know," she said, but then he turned towards her. If she had had any doubts that it wasn't Philip, the man's nearly black eyes would have blown those doubts away. She had never known anyone with eyes that dark, and as always, it was a struggle to avoid drowning in them.
The moment he saw her, he started cutting through the crowd to get to her, and Cassie tensed.
"So what's the plan? Do I trip him so you can make it through the fire exit?"
"There's no plan," Marnie said faintly, but then what else was new? When it came to Philip, there never was.
***
New York City, Six Years Ago
Marnie had been minding her own business, but if she were being honest with herself, that had never saved anyone. She was as wary and mistrustful as any native New Yorker, but the truth was that you simply couldn't be on guard all the time. That spring day, she had had nothing on her mind more pressing than getting down the street to the café to do some writing. Her small laptop was zipped securely in its bag, safe from theft, but apparently, she had left her wallet in the open front pocket.
The thief saw it, and apparently, it was too good to pass up. In another world, the thief got an easy wallet, she cursed her absentmindedness, and Philip Demarier kept right on walking. She didn't live in that world, however.
The thief plucked her wallet out of her bag, but somehow, at the last minute, his arm got tangled in the strap. Marnie was pulled back with a hefty yank, and thanks to years of martial arts training, she spun around and got her fists up to defend herself and to also make anyone who threatened her very, very sorry.
At that point, the thief wanted nothing more than to get away, but somehow he had gotten even more tangled in her strap. Marnie, who was not entirely sure what was going on, yanked backwards, making things worse, and at that point, she still had no idea he wanted her wallet.
They were both shouting at each other, unwilling to give a single inch, and that was when Philip intervened.
To Marnie's view, a tall, striking man stepped up and grabbed her strap with one hand, while grabbing the thief's arm with the other. With a surprisingly deft move, he pulled them apart, and when the thief tried to melt into the crowd, Philip shook him just enough to make him quit.
"What the hell is going on?" Marnie sputtered, which in retrospect was not the most charming thing she had ever said to a handsome man.
"This man was trying to pick your pocket," Philip replied, a slight note of humor in his voice. "If it helps, I wasn't trying to do anything but help. You, not him, if there's any confusion."
A policeman had been found surprisingly quickly, and then it was just Marnie and Philip standing in the middle of the pavement while people crowded around them.
"Oh, let's get out of the center of the sidewalk, people are trying to walk," she said.
Without thinking of what she was doing, she hooked her arm through his and tugged him into the slight protected area right next to a building. Now that she was calming down, she was startled to see how truly handsome her rescuer was. He towered over her own five feet nothing, and his black hair and black eyes combined to give him a compelling attraction. His face was stern, but his lips were sensual. When he smiled, he sent a shiver up her spine.
"Are you all right?" he asked, and his voice was like chocolate—rich and dark.
"I'm just fine, thanks for the assist," she said. Now that it was over, she was a little shaky, but she wasn't sure if that had more to do w
ith the theft or the man who had helped her.
She patted her bag, startled when she realized that she couldn't find her wallet, the subject of all of this fuss.
"Oh god, I think I lost …”
Marnie blinked when he held her wallet up to her.
"I saw it hit the ground, and I figured that the last thing that you wanted was to go rummaging underneath the foot traffic to find it."
"Yeah, that's a good way to get trampled," she said ruefully, taking the wallet from him.
"I have been in stampedes that were calmer than Manhattan sidewalks," he said with a slight smile, and she realized that while his English was perfect, there was a certain crispness to his words that made her think of Switzerland and Germany.
"Have you been in that many stampedes?" she asked. She wondered if she sounded like an idiot.
At the age of twenty, she had had the odd boyfriend, but she always seemed to fall into relationships rather than have them occur with any planning. She was short, her black hair hanging free to her shoulders, and curvy, but most people would likely say that her best features were her dark blue eyes. Marnie knew that she wasn't bad looking by any stretch, but she wasn't really the type to pick handsome men off the street.
He shrugged. "I've run with the bulls in Pamplona. That's about as close as I care to get."
It sounded like a story or a myth, but he said it as if it was as normal as going to Brooklyn for some really good pastry. Marnie's eyes widened, and suddenly her fascination was deeper than simply for his looks.
"Wow, that sounds amazing," she said. "Look, have you got some time? I'd love to pick your brain all about that, and I could buy you some food for your trouble. Oh, and to say thank you for the help, too, of course …"
She stuttered to a stop, slightly red-faced over her own enthusiasm, but he laughed. At least he seemed to think mouthy little New Yorkers were amusing.
"Well, that sounds entertaining," he said, "but I have to say that I would like to know who I'm talking to."
The implied question caught her off guard, and she laughed a little. "I'm Marnie Drake," she said. "I promise I don't bite."