‘We need to talk—’ she finally began, breaking off when she saw him grimace.
‘We need time,’ he replied after a moment. ‘Eighteen months is a good start. We’ll work out a permanent arrangement eventually, but by then Luke will likely be ready to spend time mixing with other children in a good preschool.’
‘You want to send him to school already?’ She gaped at him.
Javier paused. ‘Part-time play with other children might be good. I don’t want him to be lonely.’
Meaning Javier wasn’t about to have any other children? Given that Emmy wasn’t either, it shouldn’t have mattered, but his pronouncement bothered her all the same. And this wasn’t her idea of a conversation, this was him just deciding. She chewed, swallowed and stabbed another forkful of suddenly tasteless food. Her control wasn’t just slipping, it was being torn from her. No decisions about Luke would be only hers again. That realisation both discomforted her and made her feel guilty all over again because it gave her the smallest insight into how Javier must feel about missing out on everything so far.
‘Okay.’ She nodded.
But the problem was she didn’t want to live with Javier. She could hardly bear to be this close to him. It was unsettling in ways she didn’t want to define, and she definitely didn’t want to take anything from him. At the same time she couldn’t deny him what he needed—that she did owe—time with Luke. And she was too selfish to give up any time with her son herself. So she had to stay.
‘You’ll need more than what you’ve brought on board,’ he murmured.
‘No, I won’t.’ She tried to stay calm.
‘You’re living under my roof, at my insistence. I’ll take care of your expenses while you’re here.’
She shook her head.
‘You’ll definitely need warmer clothes for winter in New York.’
She was hardly going to be out and about in the city. She’d be with Luke. ‘I’ll figure something out.’ She had almost zero savings, but she was going to have to make them stretch. And she definitely needed to think about how she could support herself in the future. She was used to living a roving existence—volunteering on various projects for lodging and food as she explored the world. Even with Luke with her, she’d thought she might be able to make it work when he was a little older. But no more. She’d be bound to wherever Javier wanted Luke—and by extension her—to be. ‘I don’t need anything from you.’
Javier was watching her closely. ‘It doesn’t bother me.’
Was that a flicker of amusement in his eyes?
‘It bothers me.’ She still heard the echo of the insults and insinuations through her pregnancy when a couple of people had whispered about her relationship with the elderly Lucero.
Not to mention Javier’s own implied insults when he’d ‘explained’ why he’d not given her his real name and his arrogant assumption that women wanted a wedding band when they knew who he really was.
While other people might’ve been able to laugh those things off, she couldn’t, because she’d come from a family with no moral boundaries, who wanted nothing more than a free ride at someone else’s expense. She never wanted to be anything like them and she’d spent most of her life trying to prove she wasn’t.
‘I get that you want to provide for our son, that’s wonderful,’ she said in a low voice. ‘But I will not touch a cent of your money. I don’t want it and I don’t need it.’
Javier leaned back in the seat and actually grinned at her. ‘Fine. I’ll pay you as his carer, then.’
‘That’s not acceptable to me.’ She couldn’t even look at him now he was smiling. ‘I don’t want your money.’
‘Well it’ll be there,’ he replied carelessly. ‘It’s up to you whether you use it or not.’
That glimpse of good humour recharged the cells of attraction she’d been trying to suppress. He was far too gorgeous and far too close for comfort and this sudden return to affable and easy-going was alarming. Maybe it was wrong of her, but she still couldn’t trust him. She couldn’t trust anyone. But most of all, she suddenly realised, she couldn’t trust herself. Because when he smiled at her like that? She was so tempted to lean in and smile back.
Suddenly she actually appreciated the size of the superyacht. It was big enough for them to avoid each other. She could have her time with Luke and he could have his.
And that, she realised, was the only way she was going to survive this.
* * *
Almost two hours later Javier watched Emmy needlessly adjust the light blanket covering their small son. Luke was fast asleep now, having listened to a story cradled in her arms before she put him into the cot.
‘Come on,’ he commanded her softly. ‘We need to talk.’
It was the last thing he wanted to do. The tension he’d been containing for hours bubbled, seeping out of the lid he’d had shoved on it all day. He knew she’d been scraping an existence as a volunteer for a long time, living above that store, effectively working for free. And now, despite that dinner, she still looked pale and exhausted and terrified. It annoyed him immensely. What was it about him that scared her so? He wanted that fiery woman he’d met on the beach back. Memory surged—she’d looked so liberated and confident and they’d had fun together. More than fun. He remembered the look in her eyes, the sighs she’d released. He knew she’d had pleasure with him. And yes, his body tensed, any desire for conversation evaporated completely.
‘Sit down before you fall down, Emmy,’ he growled, mad with himself for remembering the heat of her response. ‘And relax.’
‘Relax?’ She threw him a stunned look as she sank onto the cushions. ‘How can I when everything is happening so fast?’ She buried her face in her hands. He saw her short-bitten nails, the blister on her knuckle and the tiredness in her slumped shoulders.
Inwardly he cursed again that she’d not contacted him. It was beyond insulting, but it had also hurt her. She’d clearly almost been broken trying to survive, despite the little help she’d accepted from those few people. And why had she needed the help of them? Where was her family? She’d said she’d travelled a lot, before stopping here because of Luke, so why had she named her son for an elderly man she’d only known a couple of years?
‘Look, just breathe,’ he muttered. ‘We’ll take this one day at a time.’
Her determined independence infuriated him, but he’d overcome it. Oddly he wanted her to feel safe enough to let him take some of the load she’d denied him all these months. And he wanted—
‘Why did you lie?’ She lifted her head and challenged him again. ‘I’ve tried to explain my actions but you’ve said almost nothing about yours—offered no real reason for why you didn’t even tell me your name. Did you want anonymity? To escape the pressure of being a billionaire? Did you just want an ordinary moment with no one watching so you could seduce some stranger without any repercussions?’ She shook her head. ‘Sorry about that, Javier. But maybe you should try some time on Struggle Street or what it’s like to be judged the second someone learns your name.’
He blinked, taken aback by her sudden ferocity. His defences instinctively rose because these kinds of questions were not ones he ever answered. ‘You’ve no idea what I’ve been through, Emmy,’ he muttered in an instinctive unthinking response. ‘None of the struggles I’ve faced.’
‘Enlighten me, then,’ she dared with a mutinous lift to her chin. ‘Tell me something meaningful. Because we have to work through this. We have a child together and we’re going to need to get to know each other.’
No, they didn’t. He glared at her, rejecting that idea completely. He and Emerald were Luke’s parents, yes. They didn’t need to be anything more to each other. They didn’t need to ‘open up’ and reveal all. They only needed to be able to work together.
He saw the blaze in her eyes ignite and struggled to hold back his urge to respond in a far too physical fashion. Yes, the real problem here was he was only interested in getting to know her in that one, most carnal way all over again. ‘Not tonight.’ He gritted his teeth and shut her down, holding back everything else he wanted to do.
She was clearly exhausted and beyond the fire, in the shining depths of her blue eyes, he could see a soft entreaty—the desire for something he couldn’t offer anyone. She sought emotional intimacy—as if he could build a relationship? No, thank you, and never.
‘Javier?’ she prompted, her temper sparking.
He didn’t blame her for getting angry. But he could hardly admit that now he had her alone, and with time on his side, the last thing he wanted to do was talk. He strove to resist the urge to pull her against him, to remind her that they already knew all they needed to make each other feel physically fantastic. ‘We have eighteen months to discover whatever we actually need to know,’ he growled dismissively. ‘Right now I think it’s best if you get some rest.’
Her jaw dropped. ‘Are you sending me to bed?’
He couldn’t tell if the provocation in her eyes and luscious pout was deliberate or not. But it was too powerful for him to stand. He stared at her for a long moment, his inner tension stringing him out.
‘No, that’s up to you,’ he growled, mentally pleading with his hormones for mercy before rising and walking away. ‘But I need some time out.’
CHAPTER THREE
‘HEY.’
‘Hey, yourself.’
Cool waves washed over Emmy’s feet as she watched the tall hunk of stranger stroll across the white sands towards her as if he’d just walked off the set of an old-school Hepburn movie. He had sandals on and faded red swim shorts finished halfway down muscled thighs—but other than that, he was bare. The waistband of his shorts rode low and a little askew, revealing acres of bronzed skin, smoothly stretched over ridged abs and a wide, well-defined masculine chest. His shoulders were broad and strong. After a couple of moments she had to consciously close her mouth so she wasn’t just standing there gaping at him, but it was almost impossible to believe he was real.