One way or another, he decided, as he transferred his gaze from her innocent-looking face to the tiny blameless one peeking from the swaddle, they were coming home with him.
“Sir?” A nurse entered the private room and spoke softly, noting with a glance that Scarlett was fast asleep. “There’s an inquiry from a woman downstairs. A friend of Miss Walker’s.” She glanced at a pink slip in her hand. “Kiara O’Neill. She’s wondering if there’s news. May I pass along a message?”
For a moment, he had expected his mother was there. She hadn’t responded to his text that she had a grandson, but she’d had dinner plans with old friends tonight. She would likely check in with him later.
“I’ll speak to her.” He rose and settled Locke—it was a strong name and he liked it—into his bassinet, then went down the corridor to the elevators.
He could have dismissed Kiara with a message through the nurse, but he had promised Scarlett he would inform her, and Scarlett had called Kiara the best friend she’d ever had. Plus, there had been genuine caring and respect in her voice when Kiara had asked Scarlett, “What do you want?” He appreciated that she hadn’t pushed her way between them or forced Scarlett to take sides when she’d been in such a state of heightened anxiety.
Maybe he was also looking for insight into how Scarlett had remained so devoted to Niko. What sort of troll-like spell had Nikolai Mylonas cast over two seemingly sensible women, compelling them to live with him and keep their children a secret?
Whatever mellow mood had fallen over him with the birth of his son dropped away as the elevator doors opened and the first thing he saw was Val. His half brother’s cover girl face was nothing but chiseled cheeks and trademarked brooding sulk. His black shabby chic jeans and shirt were tailored for his lean frame by his personal design house in Milan.
Javiero almost hit the button to close the doors, but he would be damned if he would allow that bastard to affect him. He stalked forward, his fuse beginning to burn.
Val recoiled infinitesimally as he took in the evidence of Javiero’s mauling.
Javiero didn’t falter, but he might as well have been going for round two with the cat. Val was every bit as dangerous as a jungle feline, attacking on a whim, bordering on sociopathic in his propensity to torture for the fun of it.
If Val had ever demonstrated a conscience or an ounce of reason, he and Javiero might have moved on from the bitterness of their early years, but Val hadn’t been willing to leave their rivalry in their report cards or on the track. No, he had insisted on making things personal—and as devastating as possible.
They’d been thirteen when Val had gotten himself expelled from boarding school and had thrown Niko’s financial support back in his face. Val had had that luxury. He’d already been drawing a six-figure salary looking pretty for magazine photographers. As he departed, he’d made a point of taunting Javiero with the fact he didn’t need their father’s money.
Have it all. You need it more than I do.
Javiero had needed it for the same reason Paloma had, but Niko had always been pathological about treating his sons with precisely equal measures of tough love. By Niko’s sense of twisted impartiality, if Val was leaving school to work at thirteen, Javiero ought to be able to support himself as well. His tuition payments to the exclusive boarding school were halted.
Val’s immature desire to rebel had thrust Javiero into years of struggle. Javiero had spent the next five years eking out an education while working alongside his maternal grandfather, fighting to turn a profit on an energy corporation that had been impacted by a massive downturn and breaking his back in the fields with his uncles and cousins, trying to retain properties they’d owned for generations. They had hung on to the family assets by their fingertips, but those long days and the heavy weight of worry had prematurely ended his grandfather’s life. Javiero had shouldered everything alone ever since.
And why had Val hit out at him like that? Because he could. Selfish, malignant tumor that he was.
Everything in Javiero congealed to a gritty ball of antipathy as he faced Val. At least their father was dead. This was the last time he would ever have to so much as look at him.
“Javiero.” A warm, lilting Irish accent sounded on his blind side, but Javiero wasn’t stupid enough to take his eye off his enemy. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Kiara.” He caught a glimpse of an extended light brown hand.
Javiero had an impression of voluptuous curves and a flash of a white smile in a light brown face, but Val swept his arm out and shoved her behind him in a protective move that was insulting as hell. All Javiero glimpsed now was masses of curly black hair and dark brown irises blinking wide-eyed from around the width of Val’s shoulder.
“For heaven’s sake,” she grumbled as Val moved her out of Javiero’s reach. Val’s entire body had hardened with unjustified, pumped-up aggression.
Javiero returned his loathing tenfold.
“No comment?” Javiero taunted into the thick silence, suddenly thrilled to look like a street thug who’d lost a knife fight. “Not going to say you like what I’ve done with my hair or something equally banal?”
“How is Scarlett?” Kiara asked brightly, still behind Val.
“Fine.” Javiero told her they’d had a boy and Scarlett was sleeping, all without wavering from his locked stare with Val.
“I’d love to see him,” Kiara said with a pang of yearning in her voice.
“No,” Javiero said, silently conveying to Val he was the reason for the refusal.
“I’ll stay here,” Val said grittily. His unblemished features twisted into
