“Here she is now,” she heard Paloma say.
“Pardon?” She jerked out of her fog as she passed the archway into the lounge.
“Javiero would like to speak to you.” He was on a video call on his mother’s tablet.
“Oh. Hello.” Her heart gave a dip and roll, but her shy smile died before it formed as she took in his distracted frown.
“I was telling Mother that things have gone sideways.” He gave a terse nod toward someone off camera. “I’ll be here the rest of the week.”
“Oh.” And this was how she was being informed? Second to his mother, called onto the carpet so Paloma could look down on her from her seated position, her expression a mix of superiority and boredom?
“That’s unfortunate.” Scarlett met his gaze in the tablet, trying to hide her disquiet with an unbothered smile. Words like I miss you tangled on her tongue and she bit them back. Her love was too new to reveal for the first time like this, in front of his mother.
Given Javiero’s seeming indifference, she wasn’t sure there would be a good time. He didn’t look receptive at all. The skinless feeling she’d been suffering made her feel positively translucent. Tumescent. Tender and sensitive and throbbing painfully.
“Perhaps try me later and we’ll chat properly,” she suggested.
“With the time difference, you’ll be in bed. No, not that one,” he said impatiently to someone off-screen. “I have to go.”
“Of course,” she murmured as Paloma took back the tablet and ended the call with, “Cuídate bien.”
Scarlett hovered a moment, turning her ring, not sure she could endure more of this tension with Paloma. Maybe this was the opportunity she’d been looking for to defuse it?
“May I have a seat and speak with you about something?” she asked.
Paloma lifted her gaze from the tablet as she set it aside, regarded her a moment, then assented with a tiny nod at the chair.
Scarlett lowered into it, trying to find the woman she used to be when she had been Niko’s emissary. That had been such a different dynamic, though. Her only priority then had been to advance Niko’s interests. It had been easy not to care too deeply whether Paloma liked her. Now, however, every action she took had to be bounced off a mirror to see how it reflected on Javiero. Paloma had asked her yesterday how long she intended Locke to remain illegitimate, and loved to report on how much sleep she had lost due to Locke’s fussy nights.
Scarlett couldn’t go on like this, not with so many other concerns drowning her. This animosity with Paloma was choking her. If she was going to seriously consider Javiero’s proposal, she needed to lift some of the pall off her relationship with her future mother-in-law. She had to find a way to make this villa feel more like her own home, as well as her husband’s and son’s.
“Yes?” Paloma was exactly as frosty as she’d always been, making sure Scarlett knew her patience was razor thin.
“In the past,” Scarlett began carefully. “It was always important to Niko that he be seen as treating his sons and their mothers equally.”
“Yes, I know,” Paloma cut in icily. “I was his wife, yet I received as little consideration as his mistress. It was galling.”
And thirty-three years later, she still clung tightly to her grudge.
“Well, in the spirit of Niko’s wishes, I thought it fair to inform you...” Scarlett licked her lips. “I’m not sure if you were aware of all the details in the will. For instance, Kiara and I are each entitled to an allowance.”
“I’m sure, as trustee, that was something that was very important to you.”
“It was something Niko stipulated so we could raise his grandchildren in the standard of living he enjoyed.” Scarlett’s own patience was eroding.
Paloma’s brows went up at Scarlett’s impertinence.
Scarlett scraped herself back under control. “Since Val is supporting Kiara, she doesn’t need her allowance. She made an arrangement with Evelina to use her allowance to purchase an estate Evelina may use for her lifetime and which will ultimately benefit Aurelia.”
Paloma’s sour expression didn’t change. “I don’t understand why you think I have an interest in those people and how they conduct their financial affairs.”
“Well, I thought it was a sensible compromise. I know you feel what Niko bequeathed to you is inadequate.”
“You think I ‘feel’ it was inadequate? It was insult after years of injury.”
“Yes, well, that’s why I wanted to offer you the same thing.”
“Are you suggesting you will pay me to leave my home so you can live here on Javiero’s good graces? How dare you? Really.” Paloma leaned forward to emphasize it. “I genuinely want to know where you find the nerve to make such an offer to me.”
Scarlett was slack-jawed, frantically trying to see how she’d failed to say this respectfully. Her stomach turned. She should have waited until Javiero was back and run it by him first, but the damage was done now.
“I suggest you keep that allowance for yourself. You’ll need it when you and Javiero divorce.”
“We’re not even married!”
“And why is that? Because you were hoping to get rid of me first? You lived off Niko, you control his fortune, you have a generous allowance, your son will inherit from Javiero, yet you want more. You want to push me out and take the home my ancestors built! I have never in my life met a more avaricious opportunist, and I am acquainted with Evelina Casale!”
“That is not what I’m trying to do,” Scarlett cried on a flash point of heat, then forced her indignation back into its box, trying to see this from Paloma’s side. “I know you still harbor rancor, because I worked for Niko. That was my job, Paloma.”
Using her name got her a stiffened spine for the overstep.
“I would hope you would give me a fair chance to prove who I am
