Was she a master gold digger and he the ultimate fool?
Whether she had set him up or not didn’t change the fact they had a son. But did they have a future?
If he could keep her at arm’s length, he would have done that by now, but she exerted this damned pull on him. He’d resisted it as long as he could, and then she’d taken apart his control piece by piece—which added to the grate of discontent in him.
Then she had cried afterward.
He’d hated himself, feeling like an animal even though she swore he hadn’t been too rough. She had mumbled something about hormones and fallen asleep, then reached for him again a few hours ago.
She hadn’t cried that time. She hadn’t said anything but his name, and that had been a cry of ecstasy while her body had quaked in climax beneath him.
Why had she wanted to make love again? Because they were a potent combination? Or because she wanted to keep him in a sexual stupor so he wouldn’t ask too many questions about her situation with her family?
He didn’t want to deconstruct their lovemaking or her motives and, most of all, wanted to avoid considering how powerfully their lovemaking had impacted him. He was left feeling knocked off his foundation. The entire night, from the first touch of her lips against the scar on his chest to the tender joining an hour ago, had been conducted behind his firewalls. He’d run the gamut of emotions from anger at her and himself, to suspicion and disgust, with impatience and hurt ego following. They all terminated in a greedy desire he hadn’t been able to resist.
Then pleasure. Such intense, prolonged pleasure laced with concern and possessiveness and a strange bleakness afterward because he still didn’t think he could trust her.
Which meant these doors inside him that she’d blasted open had to be sealed shut, with her on the outside.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, he held his head in his hands, trying to pinpoint how and where his defenses had been breached so he could repair them. He wasn’t one of those throwbacks who refused to feel anything at all, believing tears made a man weak and love was a lie. He respected the power of emotions, though, especially their ability to devastate and manipulate. Between his parents’ backstabbing intrigues and his bitter rivalry with Val and the loss of his grandfather, he had learned to be judicious about allowing anyone near his heart.
His son had slid right in, of course, and he didn’t regret that at all, except that Locke had created a massive vulnerability in him, and now he was much more cautious about letting Scarlett in. It would be years before his son was old enough to betray him, but she could turn on him at any moment. He didn’t want to believe she would, but nor did he want to trust her completely and find out the hard way he’d been imprudent to do so.
He dressed and went through to say goodbye to his son. Locke was sleeping and Javiero told the nanny to let Scarlett sleep as long as possible. She would be annoyed with him for it. She pumped so Locke could take a bottle when they went out, but thought it fostered better attachment if she fed him herself as much as possible.
She was a devoted mother. He couldn’t dispute that. He also couldn’t shake the “Sugar Daddy to Baby Daddy” accusation her sister had dropped.
As he left, he experienced the same tug in his heart at leaving her that he felt at leaving his son, which told him how necessary this small separation was. He needed time to put his defenses firmly back in place.
Three days later, Scarlett braced herself, then started down the stairs to the small office Javiero had arranged for her there at Casa del Cielo. It shouldn’t feel like a gauntlet—or a green mile to an execution room—but Paloma was invariably in the main lounge or otherwise taking note of her every move.
Scarlett didn’t have the energy to bear up bravely in front of her. Not today. Depression and exhaustion had her feeling like the walking dead, but she couldn’t blame all her sleep deprivation on Locke. A gnawing insecurity had been keeping her awake since London. A harrowing sadness she couldn’t seem to shake.
Javiero had left while she’d been sleeping and they’d barely spoken since. She had texted him to let him know she’d arrived back in Spain safely. They’d managed an abbreviated call yesterday, with Locke fussing throughout. She hadn’t had much to say anyway. She was still very sensitive over the awkward dinner with her sister, and their torrid lovemaking and her newly identified feelings.
Should she have told him she loved him? In the moment, being physically close with him had been an expression of everything in her heart. Since then she hadn’t been able to read his mood, and her own had descended into despondency.
It didn’t help that Ellie hadn’t answered any of her texts. She’d had to hear from her mother that Ellie had arrived home safely. For some reason Scarlett was the one feeling horribly guilty and ashamed over the way things had gone with her sister. And then there was the brief call from her mother that had ended in a plea for money. Her mother had to pay some legal bills for her father to work toward his early release.
Scarlett’s stress level was already through the roof, which was affecting her work. Now she was worrying about her mother, and being here with Paloma without Javiero’s buffering presence was awful. She felt like a guest who had long overstayed her welcome.
All of
