After a moment, she nervously settled as though she had decided to submit to her captor. “I’m sure.” She still sounded tentative. “You won’t hurt me. You wouldn’t do that to Locke.”
“I won’t do that to you,” he contradicted, shifting so they were nose to nose. “No matter how contentious things ever become between us, our conflicts will play out in words. Understand? You’re always safe with me.”
Another quake went through her, something so elemental and electric he could feel the individual hairs on his scalp standing up in response.
“Do you believe me?”
“Yes.” It was barely above a whisper, but delivered without hesitation. Her hands against his chest weren’t pushing him away. They shifted to offer the smallest of caresses.
“Good.” Was it? Thoughts of her had stayed with him for months, nearly getting him killed. He needed as many walls as possible between them, but the idea of her fearing him made him sick.
He rolled her so she was spooned into his front, her warm butt snuggled firmly against his aching erection, her breasts a soft press beneath his forearm.
“Feel that?” he asked with a subtle thrust of his hips.
“Yes.” A different type of tremble went through her, one that left her soft and pliant, and incited in him an urge to howl.
“I’m not going to do anything about it. Go to sleep. I’ll get up with Locke next time and we’ll hope he doesn’t need the milkmaid.”
“Is that what I am?” Her gurgled laugh was filled with discomfiture and a note of yearning that provoked as much satisfaction in him as it did sexual frustration.
“You’re my future wife.” Pure arrogance fueled his words.
“Fast asleep and dreaming already?”
He wasn’t surprised by her swift reply. Or disappointed. He rather liked her quick wit. She had always been a worthy adversary, but he nipped her earlobe in punishment, liking the sob of pleasure-pain that sounded in her throat.
“Go to sleep,” he repeated.
She gave one retaliatory wiggle of her behind in his lap and exhaled, relaxing into slumber.
While he lay awake, aching.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SCARLETT STRUGGLED TO find a routine over the next while. Locke developed full-blown colic, which had her feeling incompetent as a mother. Paloma seemed to agree, making judgmental asides every chance she got. Scarlett rode that out, too tired to fight back and having enough trouble concentrating on work. When she did lie down for a nap, her mind raced with everything she ought to be doing and she couldn’t sleep.
Her doctor thought she had a case of baby blues and recommended she let the nanny do more, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave her son with anyone, not even Javiero. Locke sounded too distressed for her to do anything other than hold him, even though she felt helpless when she did.
She would have talked it out with Kiara, but her friend was in the throes of her Paris show. All Scarlett could do was send a hideously expensive gift, express her regret that she couldn’t celebrate with her and wistfully read about Kiara’s explosive success in the days afterward.
Scarlett was so proud of her she wound up crying over it, which flummoxed Javiero.
“You’re still upset you couldn’t attend?”
“I’m just really happy for her.” She laughed off her overreaction, but melancholy had taken hold of her lately, swamping her at different times. She didn’t understand how she could feel as though a rain cloud hung over her when things with Javiero had improved. She ought to feel happier, but she was so afraid that this tentative truce between them could end at the least wrong word, she was filtering everything she said.
Her tension was off the scale and when a package turned up a week after Kiara’s show, she had no choice but to talk about her friend.
She clasped her hot cheeks when Javiero called her to his study, and she recognized the shape. “I completely forgot about that.”
“What is it?” Javiero asked.
“A painting. Of me.”
“By Kiara?” The light went out of his eye and even though he didn’t move, he retreated.
“Yes.” She shrugged self-consciously and would have opened it in private, but he used his pocketknife to release the bands of tape, starting the process.
She carefully worked the rest of the packaging off the framed oil, revealing herself in a summer dress, pregnant, reading a book.
“It’s one of the last ones she finished before Niko passed. She promised it to me, but wanted to display it at her show. It turned out well, don’t you think?”
She peered up at him, anxious for approval on her friend’s behalf. Don’t hate me for loving her.
“It’s beautiful,” Javiero said with surprised appreciation as he studied the expression of concentration Kiara had caught on her face, one that conveyed both the excitement and angst of becoming a new mother. The fact the book was a self-help on motherhood injected a poignant irony to the composition, but Kiara’s deep affection toward her and the affinity all mothers felt toward one another imbued the image as well.
“She’s very talented,” Javiero said after a long minute.
“So talented.” Scarlett hid her gush of fresh tears by plucking the envelope from where it was attached to the back of the frame and swiping her sleeve under her eyes to read it. “Oh, gosh.” She blushed again. “I wouldn’t think anyone would want a pregnant stranger on their wall, but she had several offers. This is a list of collectors to contact if I ever want to sell it.” She showed him the extremely healthy bids.
Javiero gave a low whistle. “That’s a very generous gift. I’ll arrange to have it insured.”
“She is generous. So warm and funny. I miss her a lot,” she said before she thought better of it.
Just as she feared, Javiero seemed to take that as a nudge for him to mend fences with Val. His mood slid into the tundra of the subarctic. He offered her a tissue, but his compassion stopped there. “You’re texting and calling
