Harlequin Presents: Once Upon A Temptation June 2020--Box Set 1 of 2

by Dani Collins

  “You’re coming here?”

  “Don’t bother preparing a room,” he said with distaste. “I have a yacht on standby in Athens. I swore I’d never sleep another night in that house and I refuse to start now.”

  Besides, he wasn’t staying. And neither were they.

  * * *

  “I looked up postpartum symptoms,” Scarlett told Kiara the next morning. “I think you’re right.” Her eyes welled, but when had they not been soggy lately? Her inability to control her emotions added to everything else that made her feel like a giant failure. “But making an appointment with the doctor feels like one more thing to deal with.” She hated herself for sounding so miserable and weak.

  Kiara, bless her, crinkled her brow in empathy and said, “I called already. I’ll take you this afternoon.”

  “Your being here means the world to me, you know. Thank you.”

  “Of course. There’s nowhere else I want to be.”

  A slight shadow flickered across Kiara’s warm smile. She wasn’t being completely truthful. She wanted to be with Val. Scarlett had watched Kiara’s face soften and glow each time she spoke of him—which baffled her because Scarlett had always found Val to be very challenging. Sarcastic and superior and devoid of kindness. There was even less tenderness in him than Javiero, as far as Scarlett could discern.

  Val had won the heart of his daughter, though. Aurelia had had a meltdown last night, missing her papà. Kiara was making a family with the father of her baby and Scarlett was envious as hell.

  Kiara hadn’t heard from Val since yesterday, though. She had been talking to him on her mobile when Javiero’s call had come through on the line into the studio. Val had mistaken it to mean Javiero was there and had hung up on Kiara, furious. Kiara had been trying to get hold of him to explain, but he wasn’t responding.

  “Oh,” Scarlett moaned as she saw the boat appear on the horizon. “That’s him.” She didn’t know how she knew it was Javiero, but she did.

  “I’ll take Locke.” Kiara reached out her hands. “You can shower and dress.”

  “I can manage,” Scarlett insisted, even though a simple shower felt like a marathon through quicksand.

  “I want to hold him.” Kiara was the gentlest bully, taking the baby and enfolding him to her bosom as though he was her very own. “I’ll put him down when he falls asleep.”

  And here came the tears again, these ones stemming from gratitude. Scarlett left for the shower if only to hide that she was such a complete wreck.

  Twenty minutes later, as she stepped from the shower, she heard a helicopter approaching. She glanced out the window and saw Javiero coming off the yacht into shore, piloting a launch himself. So who was landing in the back—?

  Oh, no. Val.

  In all her years working for Niko, Scarlett had never seen the two men together, but Kiara had relayed the scene at the hospital as a narrowly averted clash of the titans.

  Scarlett met Kiara on the stairs. They could already hear raised voices outside and hurried onto the terrace.

  Val had indeed arrived. Rather than come into the house, he was confronting Javiero in the middle of the lower lawn.

  “Javiero,” she called, but they didn’t hear her.

  Harsh words were being slung between them. Blows were seconds away. They were a pair of territorial wolves thirsty for a taste of blood, neither likely to come away unscathed.

  Kiara ran down to them as Scarlett stood paralyzed, fingernails scraping against the stone balustrade. A bleak blanket of despair, heavy as lead, pinned her in place.

  She was so tired of the anger and blame. She couldn’t hear them, but she could see the bitterness and antipathy that permeated every cell of their beings.

  Javiero hated this place. He hated being here, hated his brother and hated the man she had worked for. He could say he didn’t hate her, but given that endless well of bitterness in him, he could never look past her connection to Niko, never look past her family.

  He could never love her.

  That filled her with such despair she could hardly stand it.

  Below her, the energy between the three changed. Whatever Val had said had shocked Javiero into stepping back.

  Val turned to walk away, rejecting them. Kiara caught at his arm, but he rebuffed her and walked around the house toward the helicopter pad while Kiara stood there, fingers curled against her mouth, devastated.

  Her expression of anguish matched exactly the shattered hopes in Scarlett’s heart. She was so unutterably sad then, so defeated by this terrible, tangled history, she couldn’t bear it.

  There was no hope for any of them. Her heart gave up and shattered into pieces.

  * * *

  Javiero had had one purpose in coming here—retrieve Scarlett and his son.

  As he approached the island, his anger and resentment had climbed to levels he hadn’t experienced since his adolescence. This villa was a place he’d been forced to visit as a child, and being dropped here had always felt like being thrown into a dogfight.

  First his mother would fill his ears with Val’s inferiority, warning him against trusting his half brother while stressing, “Be nice to your father.” In those early days, she had been certain there was a path to having her son recognized as Niko’s rightful heir if they could only flatter Niko enough and expunge the imposter.

  Evelina had done the same to Val. They would glare at each other with suspicion, equally miserable to be left with a man whose idea of parenting was to “toughen them up.” Chores in the vineyard had been the easy part, all things considered. It had been hot and hard, and it had forced them into each other’s company, often requiring cooperation to get a task done. That had led to power struggles, but they’d also wanted to finish as quickly as possible. They had managed.

  No, the truly hellish part had been Niko’s constant desire to test which one of them was stronger, faster, smarter. He would demand they count the number of cases and barrels they had moved, review their grades, and send them swimming to a buoy and back. He’d judged them on everything, including their looks.

  “Val is the good-looking one. The other one is Javiero.”

  Javiero didn’t care. He didn’t care. But who the hell treated any child that way, let alone one’s own?

  His gut was churning as though he was still seven or nine or eleven. The fact Scarlett was forcing him to come to a place that held not one single decent memory did nothing to soften his mood.

  Then, the cherry on top. Val was here.

  As Javiero’s feet found the lawn, he ran straight into his tempestuous past.

  Everything and nothing had changed. Val glowered and came at him like a feral dog, spitting warnings that Javiero should stay the hell away from his wife and child—as if Javiero had any damned interest in either of them.

  Javiero was in a mood to rip his half brother’s throat out once and for all when Kiara thrust herself between them.

  “For the sake of your children, bury the hatchet,” she cried.

  Maybe it was childish to say Val had started it, but it was the truth. Javiero found himself churning up Val’s crimes, compelled to make one final effort at forcing Val to take responsibility for what he’d done.

  “You set me up,” Javiero snarled. “You knew Dad would yank his support when you left, but you did it anyway.” Val had sentenced Javiero and his family to years of hardship. He wanted to kill him for that—he really did.

  “I had to get away,” Val spit back, so bitter it was palpable. “If you had backed me up when you had the chance, I might have made other choices. You didn’t.”

  This was supposed to be his fault? Javiero wanted to knock him into next week for having the temerity to suggest such a thing.

  Then some flicker of a memory glinted in the recesses of his mind. A brief conversation that had seemed so insigni
ficant he had buried it beneath a thousand others.

  But that ring of blame in Val’s hostility made Javiero recall Niko’s question. What do you know about your brother and this teacher?

  Javiero hadn’t wanted to know. Val had been a rival who existed to be derided. Javiero had been young enough that he hadn’t fully grasped what was being asked. Or what it meant.

  He was a man now, though, hearing it and seeing it as an adult. Val had been a child. A rebellious pain-in-the-ass adolescent, but a child all the same.

  The look in Val’s eyes today was one of infinite betrayal. Revilement.

  As comprehension dawned, Javiero’s face nearly melted off his head. The ancient rumor that he’d dismissed as salacious and unimportant had had truth behind it. His vision of Val and their shared past broke open, leaving him reeling.

  Val’s rejection of Niko’s fortune came into focus under a fresh light. Val hadn’t done it as a deliberate effort to harm Javiero. Val had escaped an untenable situation, plain and simple.

  Niko was the one who had used Val’s quest for independence as a benchmark against which he had compared Javiero. Niko had used it as an excuse to yank his support and leave Javiero flailing. Javiero could blame Niko for his struggles and his grandfather’s early death, but he couldn’t blame Val. Not anymore.

  Struck dumb, he watched Val and Kiara hold a sharp exchange that resulted in Val walking away from her.

  A movement in his periphery dragged his attention to the terrace.

  He couldn’t tell if Scarlett had heard, but she was so pale her lips had disappeared. Tears tracked her cheeks. Her hopelessness was so visceral, her heartbreak so tangible, he nearly buckled under the agony of it.

  She turned into the house and he felt it as an indictment. Reflexively, he started to go after her.

  Kiara stopped him with a distraught hand clenching his sleeve. “Javiero, you have to tell me.”

  He splintered, longing to go after Scarlett. Not ready to face the shame wedging into him, cleaving a line through him, splitting Val off the block of hatred he’d nursed all these years.

  He told her what he knew, which was only a whisper of gossip about Val and one of their female teachers. He still couldn’t fathom it, but it had to be true.

  “Did you tell Niko?” she asked, eyes wide with horror.

  “He asked me what I knew and I told him the truth, that I hadn’t seen anything, only heard other boys tease him because she flirted with him.”

  Val had been thirteen. Tall and mature looking and, yes, selling a glossy image of sex for stupid amounts of money. That didn’t mean an adult woman having sex with him was okay. That didn’t mean it had been his choice.

  “What did Niko do? Anything?” Kiara asked desperately.

  Javiero drew a deep, pained breath, appalled as he recalled with a harsh, humorless laugh, “He said, ‘I guess your brother is a man now. When will you become one?’”

  Javiero had pushed that out of his head the way he’d pushed away all his father’s disparaging comparisons.

  What Val had suffered had been abuse, though. He could see that now and was filled with self-loathing at not having done more. No wonder Val had walked away without a backward glance.

  “I have to go after him,” Kiara said, tears in her eyes. “But Javiero, we have to talk about Scarlett. She needs to see her doctor.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  SCARLETT WAS SHAKING as she paced the upstairs sitting room. She knew there was no avoiding Javiero, but he didn’t follow her right away, which only set her nerves more on edge.

  When he did appear, Kiara was with him. They both looked shell-shocked.

  “I have to go after Val,” Kiara said in a plea for understanding. “I’ve requested the corporate helicopter and will leave as soon as it gets here. I’m so sorry to abandon you like this. Javiero will explain.”

  As Kiara disappeared, Scarlett looked to Javiero, whose profile was stony and unreadable. He stepped onto the small terrace that overlooked the pool. Waves of emotion rolled off him., but they were strapped down beneath layers of acute tension.

  He wasn’t railing at her or demanding she come back to Spain, and she realized with deep chagrin that that was what she had been hoping for. She wanted him to want her. Needed him to demand she remain a part of his life.

  He was damningly silent.

  Nausea cramped her stomach.

  “What happened with Val?” she asked in a voice that creaked with the strain she was under.

  “I let him down.” His voice was brutally unforgiving. “I can blame Niko and our mothers and the fact I was a child, but—” He raked his hand across his stubbled beard, making a noise of self-disgust. “Kiara tells me I let you down, too.”

  He turned, and his one eye was so empty of light it was a depthless sea of futility.

  That bleak look cut through what was left of her nervous energy, reaching the parts of herself she kept hidden and protected from everyone.

  “You didn’t.” She sank into a chair, exhaustion falling over her the way it did lately. “I didn’t see it. Didn’t tell the doctor how bad my symptoms were. I thought it was hormones or grief or the stress of being fully in charge of Niko’s money. I used to get blue sometimes, during my cycle, if things were particularly difficult. It always passed. I was sure this would, too…” These stupid tears. She was so tired of feeling weak! “I don’t want to be this unhappy, Javiero.”

  He blew out a breath as if she had punched him.

  “It’s not your fault,” she murmured.

  “No?” He studied her as though she was a puzzle he couldn’t work out, his mouth tight with frustration. “You ran away.”

  “I couldn’t stay with your mother after blowing up at her like that.” She didn’t know how she would ever face her again.

  “You could have stayed in Madrid.”

  “I wanted to see Kiara. I knew you wouldn’t forgive me if I went to her in Italy.”

  “You could have met her anywhere. Anywhere but here, Scarlett.” His voice was grim. “This was the one place you could come that you believed I wouldn’t follow.”

  Anger reared above her emotional exhaustion. “In case you haven’t noticed, this is the closest thing to a home I have. That’s what every creature does when they’re feeling run to ground. They hide where they feel safe.”

  “You feel safe here?” He gave a ragged laugh of astonishment.

  Not with him here. Maybe she had hoped his revulsion with Niko would act as a moat and drawbridge. There was so much wrong with them and so much wrong in every other aspect. She didn’t know how to deal with everything.

  “At least I feel like I’m allowed to be here,” she murmured. “And having Kiara here—I don’t feel right handing Locke to a nanny.” She shrugged at the way it made her heart hurt to do so. “But Kiara feels like family. She’s the one person I can actually rely on.”

  “You don’t think you can rely on me?”

  “There’s not much room for error, is there? Explain to me how crying for help would elevate me in your eyes.” Hers were welling again with tears.

  Javiero’s cheeks hollowed.

  Into their charged silence, little feet came running toward them.

  Aurelia appeared with a plush koala toy she’d taken a shine to. It had been a shower gift to Scarlett months ago. It had big glossy eyes and a button in its ear that made it say, G’day, mate.

  “Auntie Scarlett, is this Locke’s?” Aurelia asked from the archway into the sitting room. Her little head tilted with entreaty as she hugged it.

  “It is.”

  A rush of love filled her. Not all the emotions that overwhelmed her were dark. Some were so intense she could hardly breathe through them, and love for this little imp filled her up to bursting. She was going to miss her so much.

  “Would
you like to take him home and look after him until we see you again?”

  Aurelia nodded her head of riotous curls.

  “Tell your mama I said you can take him, but can I have a goodbye cuddle?” She held out her arms.

  Aurelia ran to her and climbed into her lap. Her little arms squeezed Scarlett’s neck while her soft mouth pressed a damp kiss to her cheek. “I lub you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  Aurelia started to slide off her lap, but she noticed Javiero on the terrace and froze.

  He seemed equally arrested by the sight of her.

  Aurelia leaned deeper into Scarlett’s lap.

  “It’s okay,” Scarlett murmured, her heart lurching at Aurelia’s instinctive wariness. She gave her a reassuring hug. “This is Javiero. He’s Locke’s papi and your papà’s brother. You can call him Tio.”

  Aurelia tilted her head back to look at Scarlett. “Why is his face like that?”

  “He was hurt. The doctors helped him and he’s still getting better.”

  Javiero stood stiffly under Aurelia’s open stare, and said in a surprisingly gentle voice, “You have your father’s eyes.”

  “Why is that thing on your eye?” Aurelia pointed.

  “It’s called a patch. My eye was hurt, too,” he said simply.

  “Mama should kiss it.”

  And there was why Scarlett adored her. Life was so simple and pure for Aurelia. No injury was too big it couldn’t be healed by a kiss and a cuddle.

  “Mama is probably looking for you.” Scarlett noted the sound of an approaching helicopter and helped the girl slide to her feet. “I’ll talk to you on the tablet soon, okay?”

  Aurelia ran back down the hall, calling loudly, “Auntie Scarlett said I can take him.”

  “Tio?” Javiero repeated on an exhale of disbelief.

  “She’s your niece, whether you want to acknowledge that or not,” Scarlett chided.

  “Exactly what I need, more family I can fail to protect.”