“Kiara said she would come if I need her. You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.”
“I want to.” His tone was firm and sure. He didn’t ask if she wanted him there.
She did. It didn’t make sense. Their relationship had been stoic, if laden with undercurrents. Then it had been volatile and intimate. Then radio silence while she’d been swimming in a miasma of mixed emotions for months. All of that had imploded in the last few hours, tearing her up while she headed inexorably toward the massive event that was taking over her body and her life.
In this very moment, however, they occupied a serene pool of affinity. She sniffed, not knowing how to handle his tenderness.
If anything happened... Well, she didn’t want to think of that. She was just glad he was willing to stay.
“I should have asked Kiara how it went with Val,” she murmured to distract herself.
A reflexive tightening in Javiero’s body rejected his half brother’s name.
“Tell me what I can do to help. Do you like when I rub your back?”
He was changing the subject and maybe that was a good thing. She nodded against his chest. Her hair was pulling at her scalp and falling apart, but when she reached to pull out the pins, he gently set her arms around his rib cage and removed the pins himself, pausing when a new bout of pain arrived.
“Don’t be afraid of it,” he murmured. “That’s what I learned. Fighting pain makes it worse. When you accept it and let yourself feel it, you discover you can bear it.”
Easy to say, but she tried not to tense up or worry about anything beyond taking slow, measured breaths as she waited for the contraction to subside. It helped a little.
“Okay?” he asked when she was breathing normally again.
She nodded and he resumed taking pins from her hair, then combed his fingers through the strands, making a soothing noise as he massaged her scalp.
Time passed in a blur after that. She paced and had a shower and paced some more. She sat and knelt and stood and swore. She cried and said awful things to him about his libido and the patriarchy and that Niko’s money wasn’t even close to being worth what she was going through so how dare he accuse her of wanting a penny of it.
Javiero patiently endured her vitriol, repeating stupid platitudes the nurse had given him to say like, “You’re doing so good. I’m so proud of you. I’m here for you.”
“That’s a lie,” she said at one point, elbows on the edge of her bed, his palm making circles on her lower back. “No one has ever been here for me. Not when it counted. No one.”
Even Kiara had abandoned her—which wasn’t fair since she had told her to stay away. Maybe she had pushed Kiara away so she wouldn’t risk being disappointed by the one friend she truly cherished. She could test that friendship—pick up her phone right now and beg Kiara to come—but Kiara couldn’t do anything to help her. Not really.
No one could.
Which was pretty much the way her entire life had gone. Her parents and her schoolteachers and social services had all let her down. She had always had to save herself along with everyone else. Maybe that had meant pledging undying allegiance to Niko, who had, at least, kept his promises. And if she hadn’t worked for him, she wouldn’t have met Javiero. Did he realize that?
Maybe he did and it was one more reason he reviled Niko.
And her.
Because he might be here now, but he wasn’t here for her. He was here for the child she carried. When it came down to it, she was utterly alone in this world. People surrounded her and acted like they cared, but she was the one who suffered and labored and pushed and cried.
Finally, even her baby left her.
For one long moment, she was weightless and numb and wondered if she even existed.
Then a warm, damp weight settled on her chest. He was tiny and flushed and so helpless she was flooded with the need to shelter and comfort and nurture him. His eyes squinted open once before he clenched them shut and made an unhappy squawk. It was laughable the way his own noise seemed to surprise him.
She didn’t care that he was one more person who would rely on her instead of the other way around. She was enraptured. Instantly, utterly, completely in love.
She lifted her gaze to Javiero’s gleaming eye and breathed, “Thank you.”
CHAPTER THREE
JAVIERO HAD WRESTLED an overgrown house cat for less than five minutes until it had been lured away by a fresh cut of meat. His two weeks and four surgeries in the hospital had been acutely painful, but the morphine drip had ensured he slept through most of it.
Scarlett had struggled in agony, her final hour of pushing intense and fearsome to witness. He’d never felt so helpless in his life or so humbled. Reverence gripped him as he took in the dazzlingly tender light in her eyes and her smile of serene joy.
“You were incredible,” he told her as a nurse took their son to measure and swaddle him. Javiero carefully brushed away the tendrils of hair stuck to her temples. Nothing in his life had prepared him for such an internal upheaval.
Shadows came into the dreamy blue of her eyes. Her mouth trembled. “I know you’re still angry.”
“I am.” He wouldn’t lie to her. “But all that matters right now is that you and our son have come through this alive and well. I didn’t expect to be a father when I woke up this morning, but I’m grateful, Scarlett.” The word wasn’t big enough for the swell of thankfulness in him. He was incredulous and dumbfounded and
