by Alexa Verde
For the kids’ sake. Purely for the kids.
Chapter Six
Mirabella blinked fast. If Colt didn’t know better, he’d think she was resisting tears. But in all their time together, he’d never seen her crying.
A signal came on the radio, and Jackson picked it up. “Everything’s fine, boss.” Zack’s voice sounded confident, and as soon as Jackson replied, the remote-controlled gates swung open.
As the big SUV cruised along the oak-lined driveway, Colt checked the house cameras on his cell phone. It all appeared peaceful. Finally, he relaxed a little. He’d asked Moirah, his cook, to prepare a larger lunch than usual.
A pot roast, Mirabella’s favorite dish. Corbin would have preferred barbecue ribs, of course. Equally, of course, there’d need to be several choices of vegetables with a protein-packed nut sauce for Kitty, who insisted on going vegetarian.
He avoided looking at Mirabella and listened to Corbin telling everybody about his favorite horses at David’s ranch, instead. The kid already knew he wanted to be a jockey when he grew up and so far couldn’t be swayed in the direction Colt thought would be much safer, a racehorse owner or trainer.
Colt swallowed. He’d get gray hair fast if that kid started racing. God willing, Corbin would either change his mind or grow too tall.
“I’m sorry I had to go away again,” Mirabella’s quiet words made him look in her direction.
Did she mean him, too, though she gazed at the children? The Mirabella he’d thought he knew had never said sorry. Maybe things were changing.
He caught her glance at him, and just like that, his heartbeat pounded. As they had that day she’d come to his lab, the years apart melted away. She might look different, but she was still his Mirabella, the woman who stirred his emotions like no other.
But not “his” Mirabella. Even during their brief marriage, she hadn’t been his. Not really. Reminding himself about everything that stood between them stopped him from reaching for her hand.
When the vehicle slowed outside the house, he checked the cameras on his phone again, both inside and outside the house. Though everything appeared peaceful, he waited until he got the okay from Zack to leave the vehicle.
“Dad, can we go now?” Corbin unclipped his own seatbelt and scrambled onto Colt’s lap in his rush to get to the door.
“Wait.” Kitty reached out to haul him back. “As we’re billionaire’s children, we can’t just do what we want like other kids. We have to be patient.” Her lips turning down a little, she sighed.
Colt suppressed a grimace. His wealth, while it gave him the opportunity to provide his children with so much, had downsides, too. At least, his daughter understood the reasoning behind the security measures. He’d taught them well.
Maybe too well.
He glanced at Mirabella. Her well-sculpted brows pinched together. She might’ve realized that today’s extra precautions weren’t just “billionaire kid” stuff, but because of her.
“It’s okay,” he mouthed.
The gratitude in her half-smile touched something deep inside him, something he’d once assumed her leaving had killed stone dead.
The signal came on the radio at last. “All clear, boss.”
Letting Corbin climb over him this time, Colt exited the big SUV and hurried around to open the door for Mirabella. Of course, she’d already opened it for herself. He offered his hand, but as she alighted elegantly, she gave no indication she’d noticed. He stifled his disappointment.
Some things never changed. Right from the day he’d met her at his brother’s office, she’d been independent to a fault. Always refused help.
He took a lungful of air filled with the welcome scent of recently mown grass. Another good thing about the ranch—fresh air. Remaining alert to his surroundings, he stayed close to Mirabella and the children as they walked past tall exclamation marks of cypress trees, too thin to provide cover for an assailant. Zack and Fred flanked the family group.
The children had a skip in their step, obviously happy to have Mirabella back. When she’d reappeared in their lives a year ago, worry how they’d handle it had clenched him. But it appeared to be true that children were resilient. It took time, but they’d handled it all fine.
And Mirabella, with all her faults, was an attentive and caring mother.
When she was there.
He pushed the thought out of his mind as he opened the door for her and was greeted with the delicious aroma of pot roast.
“I’ll set the table!” Corbin took off in his usual little-tornado manner. As Mirabella had joked before, one needed a scooter to move around the house and keep up with Corbin.
“I’ll help.” Far more dignified, Kitty followed him at a stately pace.
“Make sure you wash your hands first,” Mirabella called after them as she placed the monkey toy on the console table. In less of a rush, the adults strolled across the spacious entrance hall to the living room, and she turned to him. “It’s good you’ve taught them to be helpful. Thank you for all you’ve done for them. I couldn’t wish for a better father for Corbin and Kitty.”
Her praise uncoiled something pleasant inside him, something deep and warm. He shoved his hands into his pockets and kept his expression neutral. Best not to show her how much it meant to him. “Easy. I just explained to them that, if they help Moirah set the table, we’ll eat sooner. Usually, they’re hungry enough for it to be a good motivation.”
“When I married you, I worried they might grow up spoiled and lazy. Billionaire’s kids.” Approval of his parenting warmed her smile.
When her eyes lit up and she looked at him like this, he had difficulty remembering why they couldn’t be together.
She stopped and looked around the large room while Zack and Fred disappeared quietly.
Colt followed her gaze, trying to see the house through her eyes. Though it had been almost a year now, since her return, he’d taken the kids to meet with Mirabella on neutral territory. The zoo or a park or a private resort with a large swimming pool. This was the first time she’d stepped inside his ranch home.
After the two-floor mansion he’d built for her and the twins burned down last year, he’d built this ranch house. Open, spacious, and with only one floor for safety reasons. Outside, the house looked different. But inside, he’d made sure to reconstruct as much of the same interior as he possibly could. The only change in this room was the soaring oak-beamed cathedral ceiling.
Huge windows gave an expansive view of the grounds and the hills beyond. His own invention of extra-safe bulletproof glass, of course. Big squishy sofas flanked the glass-doored fire. Oak paneling that slid back at the touch of a button hid all his modern electronics. The side tables held silk-shaded porcelain lamps incongruously shaped like monkeys.
Once Mirabella could remember their home again, had she missed it? Missed him?
She raised an eyebrow. “So you managed to find a replacement for Kitty’s lamps.”
Longing mixed with the laughter in her eyes. Maybe she had missed their life together, after all. Though missing a house and her children wasn’t the same as missing him.
Her fingers traveled along the paneling’s smooth surface, then on to the rich cream-toned wall. “You’ve done a great job. It feels like our old home inside. We were happy in that house.”
“Yes, we were.” The words echoed in the empty chamber his heart had become since losing her.
Past tense. What would it take to change that to present tense?
He was content just living with the children, he really was, but now he realized that something—somebody—was missing from his life. The women he’d dated since divorcing Mirabella a year after she’d disappeared hadn’t filled the void. They’d only highlighted how much he missed her.
“I appreciate how you built the original house for me and the children—I mean, for us.” Her features softened, and her gray gaze warmed as she smiled at him.
“I enjoyed doing it.” He’d be
en so crazy in love with her and had tried so hard to make her happy. Creating a wonderful place for their lifetime together had made him happy, too. Though that “lifetime” lasted only half a year. He swallowed the bitterness rising in his throat. “We had fun, choosing everything from paint colors to lamps.”
Chuckling, she ran her finger over one of the lamps. “I don’t think we had too much choice about these. Once Kitty saw the monkeys, she cried till we bought them.”
His heart expanded. Seeing a grin on Kitty’s face was more than worth putting up with interior decorations he wouldn’t have chosen himself. Seeing Mirabella’s delight in her daughter’s happiness, even more so.
Different features or not, her eyes and soul were still those of the Mirabella he’d loved. He stepped closer to her, enjoying her familiar jasmine and peach scent. But the scent aroused too many sweet memories, made him want to pull her into his arms and plant kisses all over her face. He’d unwind that long gauzy scarf she wore, and shower kisses down the length of her neck, the way he’d done so many times when they were married.
Why, after all these years, did this woman still have such an incredible pull on him? He reined in his emotions and forced his feet to stay glued in place on the spotless oak hardwood floor. He’d been wise to only meet on neutral ground, not have time alone together, not discuss anything but the children.
Until today.
Appearing unaware of his inner battle to resist her, Mirabella opened a glass-doored cabinet and lifted one of the miniature porcelain and glass monkeys arranged on the shelves. Kitty’s collection from all over the world. It had taken some careful doing to reconstruct that collection in the past year.
Another reminder of all they’d lost. He and Mirabella had talked about traveling the world as a family, just as soon as the twins had grown up enough to appreciate it. Taking Kitty to see the monkeys she loved in the wild.
The twins grew up enough, but Mirabella had gone. Would she disappear as easily again?
His gut twisted.
“Do you still have the monkey murals on Kitty’s bedroom walls and horses on Corbin’s?”
The soft smile curving her red-lipsticked mouth attracted his attention to her lips far too much. He had to drag his gaze away.
Her smile irresistibly reminded him of all the times he’d kissed those sweet lips, and a wave of awareness rippled through him. He wanted to breathe deeper the scent of peach and jasmine coming from the red hair curling around her face. He wanted to feel those silk-soft tresses under his fingertips. Then he’d start kissing her, first the corners of her mouth, then her lips, and hear—no, feel—her sigh softly as she melted against him.
Another wave of awareness, stronger this time, coursed through him at his memories of their past intimacy.
Oh man.
A guy needed a lot of willpower around this woman. Reminding himself how she’d walked out on him didn’t douse the desire coiling inside him.
Not one bit.
Her eyes widened and fixed on him as if she, too, felt the awareness vibrating in the air. Her lips parted as if she wanted to say something, and a struggle reflected on her beautiful face. Despite her heavy makeup, she visibly paled.
The familiar longing stirred inside him again. He knew every contour of those sweet lips, every tiny crease enhancing their perfection. But did he really know her? She was unpredictable, stubborn, courageous to the point of reckless, and had kept important secrets from him, things a husband surely had a right to know.
Her dangerous occupation proved it. Disappearing for years proved it. Him discovering from someone else that she wasn’t the twins’ biological mother proved it. What other secrets did she hide?
Not a good foundation for a relationship.
Her eyes darkened, and she shifted away from him. Somehow, he sensed her retreating from him emotionally, far further than the few steps back she’d taken. “I’d love to see the twins’ rooms again.”
Maybe another reason than the past had her choose to put up a wall between them. A new man in her life? Jealousy, like the day she’d announced she’d needed to leave for some time, slashed at him, razor-sharp.
It shouldn’t matter to him. It shouldn’t matter at all. She’d left him and the children, her job more important to her than their happiness. He’d be wise to remember that.
He led the way to Kitty’s room. Mirabella loosed a long breath as she moved her fingers across the monkeys dancing, climbing trees, and eating bananas on the wall. She’d always been incredibly tactile.
“It looks exactly the same.”
“I had an artist recreate the mural as near as possible to the few photos I had showing how we’d painted it.” He’d done that purely for his daughter’s sake, and not because the memory warmed him inside.
Though it did. One of the good memories from their marriage.
“I remember the day we painted them. You could’ve hired somebody to do it. Instead, you chose to paint along with me.”
Her praise shouldn’t mean so much to him. Again, he had to steel himself against the tingling warmth spreading inside him. Focus on the walls, not his ex-wife.
“I had a great time doing it. Especially when we ended up painting each other, too.” Remembering their shower afterward to wash off the paint didn’t help reduce his response to her.
Eyes sparkling, she laughed. “Yes. When things were good, they were so good!”
That sound! He loved the sound of her infrequent laughter. When they’d been dating and newlyweds, he’d even looked online for jokes he could tell her to hear her laugh more often. Comedy wasn’t his style, but for her laugh, he’d done it. He racked his brain to think of a joke he could tell her now.
Only thing coming to mind was a silly one Corbin loved repeating.
Before he could start, the laughter faded from her eyes. The light in them dimmed, became shuttered. She’d retreated again. His jaw clenched and his lips tightened. He was a fool to still feel this attraction to her.
Secret keeping wasn’t his style, either. Even a painful truth was far better than doubts.
But Mirabella had kept secrets, big secrets. Something told him, she still kept secrets.
And all that left him with were doubts.
Chapter Seven
Despite himself, Colt leaned toward Mirabella. He’d avoided asking her personal questions of any type while they’d been married. But now, he had to know. “Are you dating anyone?”
Would she withdraw, shutter those beautiful eyes of hers? Or would she tell him the truth?
Did Mirabella ever tell him the truth?
And there was the problem. He just didn’t know.
In the safety and certainty of his lab, he dealt only with facts, with things that could be tested, could be proved or disproved. With her, he could never be sure.
Her phone beeped.
“Excuse me.” She dug her phone out of her purse, and her gray eyes darkened as she read the text. Seemed whoever it was, she couldn’t wait to hear from him.
Another man? Jealousy flared in him, hot and painful.
Colt pushed down the unpleasant suspicions as he’d done so many times in their marriage. Until it all blew up the night she left.
He’d hated himself for how he’d behaved that night. Last thing he wanted was to become a jealous, angry, out-of-control man. A man like Dad. When he’d become old enough to understand, he’d realized his father used accusations of infidelities as an excuse to beat up his stepmother, later turning on Brett, too. Colt tried to defend them, but at seven, no older than Corbin, what could he do?
“Another threat.” Mirabella’s words interrupted his unwelcome thoughts. Lips twisted to one side, she slipped the phone back into her purse. “Whoever’s sending these says I shouldn’t have stuck my nose into the Daisy Killer’s business.”
The overwhelming urge to protect her replaced his jealousy. Caveman instincts. “I hate that he’s threatening you.” He almost growled the words. “You were d
oing your job.”
Not what he said at the time. Even though one of the victims was her best friend, Karli, whose mom begged her to investigate, he’d been annoyed with her for getting involved. Worried sick for her, he’d wanted her to stay in the safety of their mansion rather than doing her job.
Her risky, dangerous job.
She didn’t respond. Just raised an eyebrow, letting him know she’d noticed the disconnect. “I’m single and likely to stay that way. I intend to dedicate all my time to the twins and my business.” One shoulder raised in a shrug, but something told him her nonchalance was faked. “I dated a few guys while in Australia. But nothing serious. I kept having dreams about being with someone else, someone I knew I had a connection with.”
Someone else. Him?
Relief slammed him with an unexpected force.
“I’m glad.” What was he saying? He lifted a fist to tap himself on the forehead. “I mean, of course, I want you to be happy. To find someone, if that’s what you want.” The first sentence was true. The second—not so much.
She didn’t ask him if he was still unattached, and something inside him dimmed. Did that mean she didn’t care?
“I feel the same way.” She stepped toward him, giving him a wonderful whiff of jasmine, smelling like hope. “I want you to be happy. But selfishly, I’m glad you’re not dating anyone, too.”
Joy exploding in him like fireworks, he reached to tuck a stray strand of her bright red hair behind her ear. Though far shorter now, it still had the same silky feel. She gave the same little gasp she used to, the one that somehow drove him crazy.
Not a good idea. He shouldn’t have touched her, even her hair. While his brain remembered she wasn’t his wife any longer, hadn’t been for years, his body and heart hadn’t gotten the memo.
Then something filtered through the haze of sensation. How did she know he wasn’t dating anyone?
“Did you investigate me?” A hint of annoyance bit off the ends of his words. Though he had nothing to hide, he didn’t like the idea.