“I know exactly who you are,” Paloma hissed. “I have a full report on your entire family. Your father is a drunk who went to prison for nearly killing people. Your mother runs some type of brothel—”
“Excuse me? She takes in students from time to time.”
“Your sister has light fingers and a light skirt.”
“Hey!”
“She’s a freeloader who can’t hold a job cutting hair. Your brother escaped drug charges by fleeing the country.”
“That’s not the way it is at all!” It was a lot like that.
“And everyone knows what type of work you were really doing for Niko. It makes me sick that my son has to attach himself to you. Do you think Javiero wants to be tarred with that brush? No. He’ll do it for his son, but your marriage won’t last. Dragging your feet won’t change anything. Move this cart along.”
“You didn’t even love him.” Scarlett found herself shooting to her feet.
All the taut strings that had been pulling her in a dozen directions for weeks snapped, and she stepped out of her own body while a fiery demon took over, spewing venom she hadn’t known was inside her.
“You have spent three decades crying ‘Poor me!’ because Niko hurt your pride. You want to know how I dare suggest you live somewhere else? Because I don’t know how anyone lives with you, especially yourself. You let Niko and your father throw adult responsibilities onto a child. You turned your son against his own father so he wouldn’t even see Niko when he was dying. You are the vile human being here, Paloma. Not me.”
Paloma’s eyes were wide. Appalled. “Yes,” she bit out in a glacial tone. “I can see that I’m the one whose behavior deserves to be criticized. Your roots are showing.”
The monster inside her ghosted away as quickly as it had taken her over. Scarlett sagged where she stood, her rage gone, leaving a swell of reactionary tears and a massive sense of mortification that she’d utterly lost control of herself.
Humiliation as much as anger prompted her words. “I’m taking Locke to Madrid.”
“What the hell, Scarlett?”
She had ignored his texts and calls while traveling into the city, but now that she was behind the closed door of their bedroom in Madrid, she had returned his call—without video because she was a coward—and that was his searing greeting.
“I shouldn’t have lost my temper.”
She had had time to absorb how terribly she’d behaved. Yes, she’d been provoked, but she felt sick at not keeping control of herself. The fact that she didn’t know what had come over her was sitting like a nest of snakes in her belly. She already felt so miserable, so unloved and wrong, she could hardly bear it. Now she’d made it all worse.
The dark clouds that seemed to follow her around closed in and jabbed lightning bolts of admonition and insecurity through her, wearing her down even more.
“Is it true?” he cut in. “You suggested she move out?”
“It wasn’t like that. I know I should have talked to you first. Your mother and I have been on the wrong foot from the beginning. I thought she would like having options.”
“You thought calling her a vile human being was an option? You don’t know what she’s been through! You don’t know what treatment we had to suffer from Niko all those years. All you know is the last few years when he’d lost all power to hurt us any longer. You were totally offside.”
“Do you want to hear my side of it at all?” Tears were cracking her voice, filling her eyes and seeping like fiery poison into the cracks of her fractured composure.
“Your side is always Niko’s,” he said coldly. “So, no. I don’t.”
“That’s not fair! She... She—” She had to swallow back a choke of anguish. “She said you just wanted to marry me so you can divorce me. That you’ll never want me because of my family. Is that true?”
“It wasn’t. Now that I’ve met them, I definitely have reservations.”
Wow. She stood there stunned, breath punched from her body.
After a moment, he swore and asked, “Is it true? What your sister said? Has this been your master plan all along, get Dad’s money, then get mine?”
The pain kept rolling over her in waves. “You really believe that?”
“I want to hear you deny it.”
“You’re the one who has been pushing for marriage, not me.”
“Marriage. Not a coup. You waited until my back was turned to try to evict my mother.”
The world around her seemed to expand while she shrank until she was nearly nothing at all. She felt very, very alone then. Bereft and unwanted. Useless. Off in the bedroom, she heard Locke begin to cry and despair engulfed her.
“If that’s what you think of me, then it’s a good thing we’re not married.”
“Oh, we’re still marrying, Scarlett,” he ground out. “I want my son.”
His son. Not her.
Something broke in her. Drips of mascara were falling off her cheeks onto her blouse.
“I can’t do this anymore.” She ended the call and made another one.
Javiero wrapped up in New York as quickly as he could, irritated that Scarlett didn’t call or text after hanging up on him—although he didn’t reach out, either. He was too furious.
Too conflicted. Did he want to marry her? Yes. They had a child. And after he had cooled down, he recognized that his mother wouldn’t have been as blameless in their argument as she cast herself. She had transferred her grudge against Niko over to Scarlett, and that needed addressing.
London was supposed to have gone very differently. Javiero had been waiting for Scarlett to be cleared by the doctor before pushing for a wedding date. With a special night and a seduction, he had expected to secure her commitment. He then would have had a conversation with his mother himself. Paloma had had enough time to lick her wounds over Niko’s abysmal last act. She may not like her son’s
