Was that how he had regarded his engagement? She’d been informed that his arranged union was about financial compatibility, not affection or passion. It had still made her sick to contemplate him being tied to another woman. Sleeping with her.
He wasn’t offering love here, either. That shouldn’t sting when it was unrealistic, given the circumstances. They really were strangers, but she’d like him to like her. To want to like her at least.
She cleared that yearning from her throat.
“What I know about partnerships is that they require compromise.” As opposed to being controlled by your husband until you were too exhausted to fight anymore, the way her mother had been by her father. “I’ll agree to go with you to Madrid. In return, you agree to hold off on marriage.”
“No.” Just that. The same aggravatingly pitiless refusal he’d always given her.
She wasn’t Niko’s envoy any longer though. This was about her and her son. She narrowed her eyes and tightened her ponytail.
“If we ever marry, I want Kiara and Aurelia there.” On that, she would not budge.
His expression hardened, exactly the reaction she expected.
“You don’t have family?”
“I do, but…” If she thought her mother would come, she would make the arrangements. The rest of her family was a wedding photo he didn’t want. “We’ll discuss the guest list if we agree to marry—which I haven’t. I have my hands full, in case you haven’t noticed.”
Locke had begun to fuss so she picked him up and sank into the rocking chair, but that wasn’t the reason an unsteady wobble accosted her stomach. What if he agreed?
“What do you really want?” he asked grimly. “This isn’t about a guest list.”
“No, it’s not,” she allowed shakily. “I want you to trust me.”
He snorted, telling her how far-off that was.
Which was the crux of her reluctance, and each time she pushed back, she undermined what little regard he might have for her. It made a future with him impossible.
“Let’s table marriage until we see how we get along as parents,” she said in a conciliatory tone. “We may decide killing each other is preferable to sharing our lives.”
“I’ll table it until we get to Madrid.” He moved behind the rocker and stuck his foot in the rail so the chair stopped moving. The hair on the back of her neck stood up.
“I don’t want to delay the rest of our arrangements with an argument I’ll win.” The pendant flashed in front of her eyes, then settled as a cool weight against the base of her throat. His fingertips brushed the sensitive skin of her nape and his hand nudged against her ponytail, sending a sensual tingle across her scalp and down the front of her chest.
She hugged Locke to breasts that began to ache.
Javiero moved in front of her and centered the pendant. His smile pulled at the scar across his lip and became more of a sarcastic sneer. “Compromise is fun.”
CHAPTER FOUR
SCARLETT STILL HAD a thousand concerns about her future with Javiero, but she wanted to coparent in good faith. She climbed aboard the private jet that would fly them to Spain.
She thought she would finally see Casa del Cielo, the Rodriguez estate south of Madrid. The sprawling villa had been featured in architectural magazines and overlooked hills covered in wine grapes. His family owned properties in Valencia and Seville, too, obtained generations ago and retained by the skin of their teeth after Paloma’s divorce from Niko.
All Javiero’s estates were profitable and worth millions now, but the bulk of their fortune had always been in telecom, energy and infrastructure. The corporate offices for those were in Madrid, ten minutes from the family apartment in the city center.
The scene of the crime, as it were.
As they arrived, she thought back to the first time she’d met Javiero here. Paloma was too proud to ask Niko for money, but Evelina had demanded funds once or twice a year. Niko had never simply transferred a balance. He had liked to make a statement of his “generosity” and use his supposed benevolence as an opportunity to lure his sons back into the fold.
Mere weeks into her employment, Scarlett hadn’t yet realized the murky history between all the players. Niko had sent her to Evelina first—a stunning, scorpion of a woman whose son hadn’t even bothered to show up for the meeting although Scarlett had gone to great lengths to accommodate his schedule.
Then she had arrived here expecting to meet Paloma, but the broad-shouldered, square-jawed Javiero had opened the door. He’d been unhurried, shirt open at his swarthy-skinned throat, charming and hospitable as he invited her in—yet intimidating as he issued an order that had somehow come across as an understated threat.
“Never approach my mother directly again. Come to me first with anything Niko wishes to convey. I will decide if she needs to hear it. And don’t get your feminist feathers in a ruffle.” A cynical smile had widened his masculine lips as she sat straighter. “I’m protecting her from a conscienceless tyrant, not controlling her. How do you come to work for such a monster? Do you need help? Blink twice.”
She’d been stunned, utterly out of her depth; her blood felt thick in her veins, her skin oversensitive, and her entire being throbbed with a sensual beat. Somehow, she’d stammered into her spiel about Niko wishing to entail Javiero’s birthright on him with the caveat he come to Greece to claim it.
“No,” Javiero had stated before she’d even finished.
Minutes later, he’d dismissed her. She’d left feeling as though she’d barely escaped with her life, yet she’d been brimming with excitement and sexual fantasies.
The handful of meetings she’d had with him in the next five years had all been held here in this six-bedroom residence. It was a stunning home that took up the top floor of a complex built in the 1800s. The ornate decor reflected its history, but
