“Your father told you to do that.” He knew where this was going. She could see the repulsion in his cold eye.
“You’re judging,” she pointed out with a fire of humiliation burning hot. “What choice did I have? My father wasn’t going to save us. No one was.”
“How old were you?”
“Twenty-one.” She dropped the pendant to tangle her fingers in her lap. “Things were bad, Javiero. My brother was smoking drugs. My sister was shoplifting. Mum was... Dad was abusive when he was drinking and he drank when he was stressed.”
“Violent? You should have let Niko send him to jail. Did he hurt you or your siblings?” His hands fisted, but when he caught her gaze flicking to them, he splayed his hands on his thighs. His tension remained palpable, though, coming off him in waves.
“Mum and my brother caught the worst of it,” she mumbled. “Through most of my life, Dad would stay sober often enough and long enough we would convince ourselves it was behind us. Then something would happen and... After I went to work for Niko, things stabilized. They were back in Stonewood, but Dad was working a janitor job, resenting it and drinking because of it. It was a huge relief when he got picked up on that driving under the influence charge. He told Mum to tell me to hire a better lawyer. I refused, even though I could afford one.”
“Good.”
It hadn’t felt good. It had felt cold-blooded. Cruel.
“Mum was beside herself. She’s codependent, I guess. She keeps my sister very close, even though Ellie is like Dad, drinks and gets nasty. It’s difficult for me to be around them. I support them, and keep an arm’s length. Maybe I’m enabling. I don’t know anymore.”
“So you did sleep with my father.” She’d never heard anyone sound so sickened. “To persuade him to go lenient on your family.”
“No.” Her voice rasped with anger. “I was prepared to. I told him I would do anything to help my family.”
“Anything.” His hands fisted up again.
“Anything,” she confirmed, holding his gaze, holding it even as the tension pulled like a taut metal string between them, sharp enough to sever flesh.
“I have no way of proving it didn’t come to sex. You’ll have to believe me and I know you won’t.”
“How can I? Why else would he help you?”
Although she had braced herself, his ugly conclusion was still a slap in the face. She blinked and looked away, trying to clear the dampness that matted her lashes.
“Because he was impressed by how far I was willing to go for a man I hated. You and I have something in common,” she added with a bitter smile. “My loathing toward my father is as deep as yours toward Niko.” There was no humor in her, only despair as she added, “I used to think you and Val were such spoiled rich infants, throwing a tantrum at Niko when he had never hit you. Never sold your home out from under you or told you to throw yourself at a stranger and beg for mercy.”
Javiero’s nostrils flared right before he jumped to his feet and paced away. “When will your father be released? He’s safer in prison. I hope he knows that.”
“He’s not your problem. He’s mine,” she said miserably. “And Niko was a dream by comparison. He said his sons hadn’t shown him such fidelity and if I gave him that sort of allegiance, he would drop the charges and sell Stonewood back to me. He put the title in my name, then took the mortgage payments from the salary he paid me.”
“So generous,” he muttered.
“My mother got to live in her home and my father couldn’t sell it out from under her. It was an absolute triumph as far as I’m concerned.”
“It’s indentured servitude, Scarlett, and it’s illegal. What else did you have to do?”
“Nothing like you’re implying.” She rose, willing to suffer his disparagement over poor choices, but she wouldn’t stand for being vilified over crimes she hadn’t committed. “I had to work all hours crunching numbers and find rare Scotch at midnight in dry countries and face the scathing sarcasm of his recalcitrant sons.”
He crossed his arms, tracking his one eye from the top of her head to her feet and back, much the way he had the first time she’d turned up in front of him on Niko’s behalf.
“He must have been giddy when you said you were pregnant with my child.”
“Not exactly. He insisted on tests, obviously. Then he was pleased, but...” She moved to the opening to the terrace, hugging herself, still miserable over the way Niko’s hard-won regard for her had shifted. “He was disappointed in me.”
“Disappointed? You made the ultimate sacrifice.” Still so scathing he made her flinch.
“He didn’t agree with me for making that final effort to bring you and Val to see him. He had his heir in Aurelia and didn’t care if that shut out you and your mother. I knew I would be on the hook to have to defend that after he was gone, though. We would all be sitting through litigation for a decade. I couldn’t betray his
