“Would you like to take him home and look after him until we see you again?”
Aurelia nodded her head of riotous curls.
“Tell your mama I said you can take him, but can I have a goodbye cuddle?” She held out her arms.
Aurelia ran to her and climbed into her lap. Her little arms squeezed Scarlett’s neck while her soft mouth pressed a damp kiss to her cheek. “I lub you.”
“I love you, too.”
Aurelia started to slide off her lap, but she noticed Javiero on the terrace and froze.
He seemed equally arrested by the sight of her.
Aurelia leaned deeper into Scarlett’s lap.
“It’s okay,” Scarlett murmured, her heart lurching at Aurelia’s instinctive wariness. She gave her a reassuring hug. “This is Javiero. He’s Locke’s papi and your papà’s brother. You can call him Tio.”
Aurelia tilted her head back to look at Scarlett. “Why is his face like that?”
“He was hurt. The doctors helped him and he’s still getting better.”
Javiero stood stiffly under Aurelia’s open stare, and said in a surprisingly gentle voice, “You have your father’s eyes.”
“Why is that thing on your eye?” Aurelia pointed.
“It’s called a patch. My eye was hurt, too,” he said simply.
“Mama should kiss it.”
And there was why Scarlett adored her. Life was so simple and pure for Aurelia. No injury was too big it couldn’t be healed by a kiss and a cuddle.
“Mama is probably looking for you.” Scarlett noted the sound of an approaching helicopter and helped the girl slide to her feet. “I’ll talk to you on the tablet soon, okay?”
Aurelia ran back down the hall, calling loudly, “Auntie Scarlett said I can take him.”
“Tio?” Javiero repeated on an exhale of disbelief.
“She’s your niece, whether you want to acknowledge that or not,” Scarlett chided.
“Exactly what I need, more family I can fail to protect.”
“Javiero, you can’t protect me from depression. I’m probably going to need medication.” She sagged into her chair, not understanding why the idea of taking something felt like defeat, but it did.
He nodded with decision. “Let’s get you to a doctor, then. See what we can learn.”
Javiero sat through Scarlett’s appointment with the doctor who had seen her through her pregnancy. It was difficult. Scarlett mercilessly berated herself for not managing better.
“We have staff. I’m not raising this baby alone without resources. This should be easy. I should be happy and I’m not. I keep crying.” She was welling up as she spoke.
When she admitted she had been having spells of tears since before they’d left for London, Javiero was beside himself. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I told you I was struggling when I got Kiara’s painting, but you thought I needed to get out more.”
It seemed to be the last straw. She burst into tears and cried like he hadn’t seen anyone cry in his lifetime.
“Scarlett.” He reached across while looking to the doctor, consumed by guilt that he hadn’t seen what was happening to her. “What do I do? How do I help her?” He was at such a loss he couldn’t bear it.
“A hug?” the doctor suggested gently. “Would you like him to hold you, Scarlett?”
Still inconsolable, with her face buried in her hands, she nodded.
Javiero drew her from her chair. He picked her up like a child and carried her to the sofa, where he sat and cradled her in his lap, his heart breaking at the way she had completely shattered.
The doctor rose and said, “I’ll check on your son.”
Scarlett gulped back sobs and raised her tear-ravaged face, alarmed.
“Not for medical reasons. I was disappointed when you delivered in Athens. I want to see him. You take a moment to gather yourself, then I’ll come back and we’ll discuss treatment.”
“I’m sorry,” Scarlett said as the doctor left. “I hate myself for being like this.”
“Don’t apologize. This isn’t something you’ve done.” It felt like something he had done. He hadn’t seen.
He soothed her and a short while later they left the clinic with a prescription for an antidepressant and one for a different type of birth control since the one she’d been using had a possible side effect of depression. The doctor had also endorsed Javiero’s suggestion that, rather than fly back to Spain, they take a week to sail among the islands.
They boarded his yacht, where Scarlett remained tense and jumpy. She checked her phone several times while they sailed toward a cove on a neighboring island that was reputed to offer excellent sunsets.
“Kiara is home safe,” she murmured, phone in hand yet again as they ate a light snack in the stern. “I hope she and Val can work things out.”
“Scarlett.” He gently took her phone. “Worry about you, not other people.”
Kiara had told him that Scarlett always put herself last and he saw it clearly now. The facade of infinite dependability he’d seen her wear all these years was not infinite, yet it was something she clung to as a means of reassuring herself she had value.
If I don’t look after Locke, how will he know that I love him? she had sobbed while Javiero had held her in the doctor’s office.
And if he wanted to look after her, if she cut him to his very soul when she refused to rely on him, what did that say about his feelings for her?
That thought was a land mine he walked back from, not ready to contemplate it yet. He had arrived in a temper this morning. His entire world had been flipped on edge by his own failings with his half brother. By the fact Scarlett was drowning and he hadn’t noticed.
They both needed a breathing space to assimilate things.
They needed what they had never had—courtship. Time.
He called to a steward and handed over Scarlett’s phone, along with his own.
“Put these in a drawer until morning. If one of us tries to pry them from you before then, drop both of them overboard.”
“He’s joking,” Scarlett said with a panicked look.
“I’m not,” Javiero assured the young man. “The world will not end if we
