She needed that. She craved his touch because his kisses and caresses drowned out the blaring, berating voices in her head and, for a brief time, she felt beautiful and cherished and good.
But she wasn’t. Even when it came to the work she had fought so hard to continue she was dropping balls and making stupid mistakes. She managed to clean up her own messes, but it took extra time and she was so embarrassed she didn’t tell anyone, not even Kiara, afraid her friend would insist on replacing her.
She put her mental state down to stress over Javiero’s suggestion they go to London. He had business there and suggested she accompany him as a mini honeymoon of sorts, once she had her final checkup. He even arranged for her mother to come down to London and meet her grandson.
Scarlett appreciated all of that, but she couldn’t shake a sense of impending doom at the prospect of going back to England. She didn’t have energy to come up with reasons to put it off, however.
She saw her doctor the morning they were leaving, mostly as a formality. Locke was hitting all his milestones, and Scarlett needed only a proper prescription for the minipill. She’d started a sample pack after her last visit to see how she reacted.
When the doctor asked whether the baby blues were still troubling her, she brushed off mentioning the weepiness and fatigue she continued to experience. She was still adjusting to her new life. Anxiety and impatience were to be expected. Nothing could be done except wait it out. Eventually things would settle down and she wouldn’t feel so overwhelmed, she reasoned.
Besides, she was afraid the doctor wouldn’t give her the all clear to use the bed for other purposes if she mentioned she wasn’t sleeping well. The physical closeness she had with Javiero was so reassuring that she wanted to continue it. She hoped taking it to the next level would draw them even closer.
She filled her prescription on her way back to the flat and smiled shyly when she found him in his den.
“Cleared to travel?” he asked as he ended a call and rose to come around his desk.
Dear Lord, the man was sexy as hell. His shirt shifted across his bulky shoulders and chest. He had the natural grace of a predator lazily coming across to its mate, brimming with confidence in his right to push into her space.
She swallowed and nodded, blushing deeply. “And to resume all other activities.”
“Well, that is good news. I’ve been anxious to go ice-skating.” He tilted up her chin and set a teasing kiss on her laughing mouth. “Unfortunately, I have some news that’s less so. I’ll stay with you in London long enough to meet your mother, but I have to leave for New York by tomorrow afternoon.”
“Should Locke and I come to America with you?”
“I’ll be tied up every day,” he dismissed. “You’ll be more comfortable making your way back to Casa del Cielo at your own pace. Spend as much time as you like with your family.”
Counteroffer, she wanted to say, but he was turning her toward the door.
“I’ve made dinner reservations. Let’s get to London before I become distracted with ‘other activities.’”
Scarlett had traveled extensively with Niko and had always stayed in five-star hotels or luxury properties that he owned. She’d overseen enough of his real estate deals that she immediately understood what a gem Javiero had obtained with this penthouse atop a newly built glass skyscraper in Mayfair.
The views were stupendous, of course, and the terrace was to die for, but the interior was equally beautiful. It was furnished in ultramodern clean lines, the color scheme a neutral bone with pops of silver and blue gray. There were five bedrooms, each with a bath—the master had two, a his and a hers.
Javiero nipped out briefly while she was getting settled and returned with a pair of drop earrings, fanned white diamonds that draped a string of dangling pale blue ones.
“Please tell me that’s a loan,” she said on a gasp.
“It’s a gift. This is our first proper date.”
“Flowers would have sufficed,” she said, but the sweetest pleasure bathed her. He was trying to make this evening special and she found that incredibly endearing. Promising, even. “Thank you. They’re beautiful.”
She put them on. She had already done her hair and makeup, and was in her robe, about to dress. She picked up her loose hair so he could see the earrings.
“That’s very pretty,” he said, touching her elbow in a way that acted like a spell, freezing her with her hands in her hair while he tracked the view all the way down the front of her robe to where her raised arms lifted her breasts against silk. “Perhaps you should stay exactly like that while I push our reservation.”
“I just put Locke down. We probably have at least...ten minutes,” she joked.
His brutish face softened into something like tenderness as he hooked his hand behind her neck and drew her close.
“I can work with that. Can you?”
“Try me.” She played her touch over his buttons. His particular scent, spicy and elemental, lingered in the air around her and called her to step even closer.
It struck her that no man had ever made her feel this way—soaked in yearning. She doubted any other man ever would, and that was both a relief and an unbearable loss. Her eyes grew hot as a strange, clamoring desperation gripped her. What if he rejected her? What would happen when he rejected her?
That wasn’t happening now. He drew her closer and covered her mouth in a languorous kiss that had nowhere to be except right here. It was dreamy and reassuring and made a moan of sheer luxury climb from her chest into her throat. She leaned into him and he cupped her head, and they stood like that,
