Claiming His Secret Son (The Billionaires of Blackcastle 4)

Crashing to a kneeling position at his feet, Mauricio anchored both hands on his knees and looked up at him with barely contained eagerness. “Tell me your opinion of my work. And teach me to draw something.”

“You can draw?”

That was Isabella. She would have asked if he could turn invisible with the same incredulity.

Richard slid her a glance. “I have many hidden talents.”

“I’m sure.”

She impaled him on one of those glances that made it an achievement he hadn’t dragged her out of that kitchen and buried himself inside her.

Mauricio dragged his focus back, and his angelic face, overflowing with inquisitiveness and determination, sent a different avalanche of emotions raging through him.

His throat closed, his voice thickened. “Why don’t you show me your best work?”

Mauricio rummaged through the mess on his lap, then pulled out one sketchbook and thrust it at him. “This.”

With hands he could barely keep from trembling, Richard leafed through the pages, his heart squeezing as he perused each effort, remarkable for a boy of his age, testimony to great talent...and turmoil.

Had the latter manifested itself in response to their lifestyle, as Isabella kept relocating them to keep them safe? He was sure she’d shielded her son and family from the reality of their situation. But he believed Mauricio was sensitive enough he’d felt his mother’s disturbance, and felt the dangers she’d paid so much of her life to protect him and their family from.

There was also a searing sense of confusion in the drawings, an overwhelming inquisitiveness and the need to know, what he’d experienced firsthand. Was that a manifestation of his growing up fatherless? Was he constantly wondering about the father he’d never known, or even known about? Did a boy of such energy and intelligence miss a stabilizing male influence, no matter how loving and efficient the females in his life were?

He pretended to examine each drawing at length, trying to bring his own chaos under control.

At last he murmured, “Your imagination is quite original and your work is extremely good for your age.”

Mauricio whooped. “You really think I’m good?”

Though the boy’s unrestrained delight made him wish to give him more praise, he had to give him the qualification of reality. “Being good doesn’t mean much without hard work.”

“I work hard.” Mauricio tugged at Isabella. “Don’t I?”

Her eyes moved between them, as if she was seeing both for the first time. “You do, when you love something.”

Richard retuned his gaze to Mauricio before he plunged into her eyes. “When you don’t love something, you must work even harder. When you’re lucky to love something, it only makes the work feel easier because you enjoy it more. But you must always do anything, whether you enjoy it or not, to the very best of your ability, strive to become better all the time. That’s what I call ‘got what it takes.’”

Mauricio hung on his every word as if he was memorizing them before he nodded his head vigorously.

Isabella’s gaze singed every exposed inch of his skin.

The burning behind Richard’s sternum intensified as he turned a blank page. “What do you want me to teach you?”

Mauricio foisted the colors at him. “Anything you think I should learn.”

Richard gave him a considering look. “I think you need a lesson in perspective.” As soon as the words left his lips, Richard almost scoffed. No one needed that more than him right now.

“What’s that?” Mauricio asked, eyes huge.

“I’d rather show you than explain in words. We’ll only need a pencil, a sharpener and an eraser.”

Richard blinked at the speed with which Mauricio shoved the items in his hand then bounced beside him on the couch, bubbling over with readiness for his first drawing lesson.

Gripping the pencil hard so the tremor that traversed him didn’t transfer onto the paper, Richard started to sketch. Mauricio and Isabella hung on his every stroke.

Before long Mauricio blew out a breath in awe. “Wow, you just drew some lines and made it look like a boy!”

Richard added more details. “It’s you.”