“Easy to claim that now,” she muttered, certain their relationship would not have progressed beyond a brief affair. “Will you be going into work this week?”
She was trying to change the subject and he hesitated as if wanting to win their argument, but there was no winning.
“I was going to play it by ear.” He frowned at the box she withdrew from the bag. “I thought your laptop was being shipped from the island.” He glanced at the Bluetooth earpiece and high-speed, ultrasecure modem she’d ordered along with other gadgets.
“It will take at least a week before everything gets packed up and forwarded. I decided to start fresh. This way I can get back to work right away.”
“Back to work? You gave birth three days ago. No. Go to bed.” Javiero pointed toward the hallway to the bedrooms.
“Excuse me. I’m not five.” She brought the box to the sofa, sat and swung her legs onto the cushions. “I just want to set it up so I can answer a few emails. I’ve spent the last three months building management teams, and they still need guidance.”
Javiero moved to the chair and sat, hitching his pants and settling into a casual pose that was as lethally dangerous as any boxer or black belt who took up an agile stance, ready to both defend and attack.
“You mentioned you’re supposed to manage my father’s estate,” he recalled.
“I am doing it, under a trustee arrangement, yes. Kiara is my co-trustee but prefers to be a silent one. She has voting and veto powers, but she doesn’t want to be involved in the day-to-day decisions.”
“But you do.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because you have a newborn who needs you?” he suggested.
“Will you be quitting work?” she shot back, but her bravado was caked in guilt. She knew babies required a lot of attention, and she wanted to be the best mother possible; nonetheless, she had additional responsibilities.
“I intend to be home more,” he asserted firmly. “This isn’t a debate on your right to work. It’s about timing.”
“And my time is now,” she insisted. “This is exactly the sort of position I have always aspired to. Say what you will about Niko, but he knew what he was doing with money. I not only finished my business degree during my employment, I apprenticed under him. I worked my tail off to prove I was the best candidate to run his enterprises. Better than either of his estranged sons even, because I have been involved in every aspect for the last five years. I wouldn’t be named as primary trustee if he hadn’t believed I was qualified to do the job.”
“That’s the issue. He’s dead, but you’re still working for him.”
“Actually, I work for your son.” She picked a hole in the shrink film on the box.
“And Val’s daughter, apparently. That’s a mountain of responsibility to take on for someone else’s child when you’re still recovering from delivering your own. Are there provisions for alternates?”
“Like who? You?”
There were instructions to approach him and Val first if she was incapacitated, but all Scarlett could think was how smug Paloma would be if Javiero took control of the fortune she had always regarded as hers.
“I’m surprised you would even suggest taking over. You had your chance.” She tore off the plastic and crinkled it into a ball. “I was here several times, asking if you wanted to. You declined.”
“My interest in Dad’s money is so remote, I want my future wife to treat it like the radioactive waste it is and distance herself completely,” he bit out. “Set aside the fact my mother’s obsession with keeping that money from going to Evelina broke something in her.” His hand flicked angrily. “My aunties and uncles love to tell me what a sweet, kind, loving person she was before Niko. I never saw her like that. My whole life, she’s been a cynical, angry victim.”
“Then why didn’t you go back and work for him? Take control of your share?” She had never understood the incontrovertible rift between the men in this family. “He wanted you to.” With strings, she recognized, but even so...
“That was later,” he said tersely, his hand knotting into a fist on the armrest. “After he realized both Val and I were serious about disowning him. Then he sent you along like a good little recruitment officer to try conscripting us back. Don’t pretend it was an engraved invitation on the bottom of an apology. It was an order. The only reason I ever did him the favor of hearing you out was for my mother’s sake, in hopes he would relent in some way toward her. As we’ve seen, he did not. So as far as I’m concerned, he can rot in hell. I hope he’s there now.”
“But why did you reject him in the first place?”
He shook his head as though he pitied her. “You worked for him—lived with him—for five years and never saw what a manipulative and unforgiving person he was? Val gets his streak of malice from somewhere, Scarlett.”
“And that’s the other thing I don’t understand! Why do you hate Val so much? Niko said you were competitive as children—siblings can be. I get that.” Her own sister was a constant aggravation. “But he said your mothers were the ones who poisoned you against each other and him.”
“He said that?”
“Yes.” She could see she was riling him up, but she had always been baffled by these wide channels of animosity. “He said Val was a troublemaker and was expelled from the boarding school you attended. That after Val gave up any claim to his fortune, you did the same. That’s never made sense to me. You cut off your nose to spite your face.”
“What a liar,” Javiero said through his teeth, his hand now clenching the arm of his chair as though to
