Chapter Eleven
Joaquin hadn’t done anything so menial in years, but it was worth it for the bright smile it put on Siobhan’s face. It felt good to do something concrete for her, especially when she kept yawning so hard.
“Go to bed,” he urged. “I’ll join you when I’m done.”
“I love how you assume you’re invited to sleep with me.”
“If you want to go back to my place, I have a guest room,” he said mildly.
“Tsk.” She stood in the opening to her bedroom, a truculent look on her face. She had changed into yoga pants and a tunic and adjusted her glasses before catching another yawn in her cupped hand.
“I would offer to tuck you in, but you’re too tired for sex. Go to sleep. We can argue as much as you want tomorrow. Promise.”
“Generous of you,” she muttered, but a few minutes later she closed the bedroom doors and the lights went out.
Two hours later, he stripped to his briefs and carefully settled beside her. Her bed was only a queen so he was close enough to feel her body heat.
“Joaquin?” she murmured sleepily as she rolled toward him.
“Are you expecting someone else?”
She gave a muted hum of amusement. “Thank you for doing the wrapping. I really appreciate it.” Her warm, silky hand found his upper arm, waking the animal in him.
“De nada.” He rolled to face her, tucking his arm under his pillow while catching her hand and bringing it to his lips. “Are you awake or going back to sleep?”
“I—” She drew her hand out of his. “I’m afraid to move in with you,” she admitted in a whisper.
His heart swerved. “Why?”
“Because then we’ll do that. And I might fall in love with you. I don’t want you to propose one day because I make you feel like you have to and you only do it because we’re comfortable.”
Ouch. He fell onto his back again.
“I’m sorry. That came out harsher than I meant it to.”
“It’s fine.” Fair. “Go to sleep.”
“You’re angry.”
“No.” Not at her. He was angry at himself and his own limitations.
She rolled away and exhaled.
He stared at the ceiling, trying to see his way through this because the irony was, if he ever proposed, it would be in spite of the fact he wasn’t comfortable with her. Siobhan had been disrupting his life and his peace of mind from the beginning. Even before learning about the baby, he’d been unable to forget her. He found her interesting and smart and funny.
Now the baby was upending his entire existence and he ought to be furious, but he couldn’t find it in him to be sorry. That was what he was thinking as he closed his eyes. I’m not sorry.
His subconscious reminded him why he should be, though. As reality folded into the dream world, Lorenzo’s true nature lurched into his psyche.
That’s not for you. Only Fernando may have that.
In the way of muddled dreams, an old memory was rewritten. Siobhan was there. Lorenzo’s arm was swinging, but not toward Joaquin.
“Siobhan!” he shouted, waking with a jolt to an unfamiliar place and movement beside him as she sat up, gasping.
“It’s okay.” He searched out her wrist, keeping her on the bed so she wouldn’t flee into the shadows and trip.
His throat was still rasped by his shout, his chest tight with adrenaline, his skin clammy. The disturbing images of his dream stuck like cobwebs that he mentally had to brush away.
“Did you have a nightmare?” She sank onto the mattress beside him. Her hand arrived on his chest while the rest of her aligned along his side. “Your heart is racing. Are you okay?”
“Fine,” he lied while he fought the urge to loop his arm around her and hug her against his tacky skin.
He was too raw for that. Too involved, if he was reacting with this much terror to his own imagined threats.
“I didn’t mean to wake you.” He pressed her away. “Go back to sleep.”
“But—” She sat up again as he left the bed. “It’s still early. You need to sleep, too.”
“I’ll check email. There will be some from overseas that need answering.” It was a fib, but he needed to regroup. He picked up his trousers and stepped into them.
In the lounge, he looked at his phone, but his mind wouldn’t focus.
Work had always been a productive coping mechanism. As a child, he had used homework and invention to avoid his father’s criticism and attempt to earn his recognition. Later, he had labored to afford food and a place to sleep, but it had kept him from dwelling on how alone he felt. Once he had had more of a financial toehold, he had toiled feverishly to surpass his father’s level of success, so he could no longer be victimized by Lorenzo. When that was achieved, he continued to strive as a point of pride. Out of spite, even, so he could look down on Lorenzo.
I won, was the silent message he had conveyed with the rise of ProFab into worldwide acclaim.
But had he? Lorenzo was still able to invade his dreams and leave the bitter taste of copper on the back of his tongue.
“Joaquin?”
Her voice pierced between his shoulder blades. He turned to see her in a blue robe wearing a worried expression.
“You said you’d start looking after yourself,” he chided.
“I can’t sleep. Not when you’re having nightmares about…” She waved toward the knotted belt on the robe.
“That wasn’t what it was about.”
“What, then?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She came closer and searched his expression in the dim light. “The stress of becoming a father brought it on, though. Are you having second thoughts?”
He wanted to deflect, walk away, close off. Anything to avoid this, but he answered her. “I’m not afraid to be a father,” he blurted. “I’m afraid for you.”
“Why?”
He scrubbed his stubble with his palm. The nightmare had been an icy, subliminal warning of what could happen if Joaquin wasn’t vigilant.
“The dream was about my father.”
“And me?” She closed the robe tighter across her chest with her fist. “But it was just a dream, Joaquin. Wasn’t it? Joaquin, was he…abusive?” she asked in a whisper.
“Yes.”
Her breath hissed in. “Physically? Your ribs?”
“Yes.”
“Where were the authorities?” she asked with anguish. “Why wasn’t he stopped?”
“He told the doctors I’d jumped from the hayloft. Boys will be boys.”
“Your mother?”
“She had already left.”
“And left you with him?” She started toward him.
He put up a hand, holding her off. He couldn’t bear her tenderness right now.
“She didn’t know. Not until later. Don’t blame her. I was questioned, but I was worried I’d be separated from Fernando so I didn’t tell them the truth.”
“I don’t understand how people can be like that. Especially to a child.” She covered her mouth with her hand.
“I asked my mother once if I was the product of an affair, thinking that might explain why he was so petty toward me. I was barely old enough to understand that people could have affairs, but I wanted my father to be someone else. Desperately,” he said on a scuff of a laugh. “She said he was just a mean, small, jealous man. He was,” he said with contempt. “He was horribly jealous of his own brother. LVG was bequeathed to both of them and they fought over it until my uncle died. That’s one of the reasons Lorenzo always made sure I knew Fernando was the heir and I the spare.”
“But when Fernando died…?” Her brow was knotted with incomprehension, her chin crinkled.
“Jealous again. Of me.” He lifted a hand and a defeated breath left him. “I think that’s part of it. He’s always seen me as a threat on some level, stealing attention or questioning him or pushing back on his bad ideas. Fernando and I were close growing up, despite his efforts to divide us. Maybe I just reminded him of his brother. I don’t know, but it came to a head when I was fourteen and designed a relay component. We lived and breathed electronics growing up. In that way, I had a very privileged life.”
“Not if he was abusive.”
He looked away, trying to ignore the slash of pain that went through his chest. The wave of old helplessness that wanted to swallow him.
“In any case, I had the brain of an engineer and handed my father the schematic. I guess I thought if I earned his respect, things would change. It was the logic of a child. Of…” Wanting to be loved. Or at least accepted.
Siobhan was listening closely, searching his expression.
He swallowed. “It allowed LVG to become a leader in that pocket of the market. Two years later, I could see that it was a success. I wanted him to acknowledge that I had done something useful for LVG. That I was an asset. That’s all.” He was still baffled by his father’s reaction. “I wasn’t asking for money, only for him to say I had done a good job. He called me a liar, claimed he had designed it himself and threw me from the house.” He could still feel his father’s fist in his hair. The propulsion out the door. The gravel hitting his knees and palms. He could still hear the door slam behind him and the chill as rain began to penetrate his clothes.
“You were sixteen?” she asked in an appalled voice. “What did you do? Where did you go? Your mother?”
“She was in South America, losing her battle with breast cancer.” Not that she’d told her sons of her ill health. “We rarely saw her. Fernando was away with friends. The staff was forbidden to open a door to me. I didn’t have shoes or a phone. I started walking and, honestly, the farther I got from him, the better I felt.”
“Where did you sleep? How did you survive?”
He almost smiled at how maternal she already sounded.
“Someone picked me up, took me to a shelter for teens. A few weeks later, Fernando brought me some things—my clothes and my ID. He gave me money. By then, I had a job selling souvenirs from a kiosk at festivals and cleaning up the site after the concerts were over. I was living in a house with ten other people, all of us down on our luck. Half of them were doing hard drugs. Others were hiding from immigration authorities or the law. The place was full of mold and infested with fleas, but I was so damned happy.”
“Joaquin.”
“Don’t pity me,” he said sharply. “It was the most agency I’d ever had. The most peace. I already knew what hell looked like. That was merely inconvenience.”
“You didn’t go to the police?”
“And say what? We’d had an argument and he told Fernando that I ran away. What if they sent me back to him?”
“Was Fernando safe with him?”
“He was old enough that Lorenzo thought twice about raising his hand to him.”
“Is that why you were estranged from Fernando? Because he stayed with your father?”
“I don’t blame him for that.” He blamed himself for failing to spend more time with his brother when he had the chance. “I wanted him to join me on the outside, but he had put in the time and suffered in his own way. He felt he had earned his place at LVG.”
“Even though it cost him you?” she choked.
“In his mind, he was claiming it for both of us. When Lorenzo had his heart attack, Fernando took charge and asked me to come aboard there. I was firmly estranged from Lorenzo by then. I didn’t want anything of his. I was in Barcelona, scraping up financing for that gaming headset I told you about. Fernando persuaded Zurina’s father to invest in me, giving me my start.”
“That’s another reason you left at the drop of a hat to help her,” Siobhan said in a tone of hollow discovery.
“Sí. I would have kept my father out of my life forever, but when Fernando died, I had to come back into all of this.” He waved abstractedly. “Fernando put up with his abuse for a legacy that means nothing, then died because he thought he could change out an electrical switch in a barn that should have been burned to the ground long ago. Estúpida!” He sliced his hand through the air. “But I won’t let his suffering be in vain. He wanted his children to inherit LVG. So be it. I’ll keep our father from destroying it with his pride and negligence. He’s angrier than ever that I’ve usurped him, though. He’ll come after me in whatever way he can. That’s what my nightmare was about. He was coming for you.”
“You think he’ll be violent toward me?” She touched her chest, then her hand drifted lower, as though she wasn’t aware of letting it settle on her abdomen. Her eyes widened in horror.
“I don’t know.” His stomach knotted. “But I can’t afford to let down my guard. I won’t. That’s why I’m so adamant that you live with me.”
She absorbed all of that with a frown of grave consternation.
“But I could…” Her brow flexed with anguish. “If you’re that worried about my safety, I could stay with my sister after Christmas. And not tell anyone you’re the baby’s father.”
Frost spread through his chest as he saw that, once again, his father was about to take something from him. Two people he wanted in his life very, very badly.
The harp strings of his phone’s wake alarm began to play.
He hit Stop.
“I need to shower. My driver will be here soon.”
Siobhan had wanted to know why he was so aloof. Now she did. Joaquin had been denied the security he was meant to feel within his family so he played his cards close to his chest. In fact, he’d been actively harmed by someone he ought to have been able to trust. Even his relatively good relationship with his brother had been twisted and cut short before it had had a chance to heal.
She couldn’t be someone who hurt him, too. She couldn’t isolate him from his baby, not when she knew what wellsprings of love they were. She had to give him an opportunity to be a father. For his sake and their child’s.
Even if it tipped her equilibrium toward falling for him.
She was trying to be so careful with her feelings! But they were sliding like quicksilver, leaking and seeping out of her toward him, refusing to be caught back.
What would happen when he realized that?
That’s another reason I didn’t fight her leaving. I didn’t want to lead her on.
He came into the bedroom a few minutes later. He was in his trousers again, but his hair was damp and his chest gleaming. He picked up his shirt from the chair and shook it out.
“I will keep you safe, Siobhan. I swear it,” he said in a voice so vehement, her pulse skipped hard in her veins. “I wasn’t trying to frighten you. I only want you to recognize the danger is real. But this situation won’t go on forever. I won’t allow it to.”
“I believe you.” She took another pair of slacks from the wardrobe and folded them into her suitcase. “But if I learned nothing else from the Sauveterres, it’s that you can’t live your life in fear. Take sensible precautions and go about your business, which is what I’ll do. I’ll move in with you if it makes you feel better, but I intend to keep working. At LVG.”
The tension eased from his expression as he smoothly buttoned his shirt. “Those are your terms?”
“Yes.”
“Provided your doctor agrees, I accept. But I live in Barcelona,” he reminded.
“I know. I’ll talk to Oladele about working remotely.” She took the small win and continued packing, but paused when her phone vibrated on the night table.
She turned it over to see Cinnia was calling. A pained noise escaped her.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said heavily. “Just my sister. She tried me twice yesterday and I ignored her because…” The pregnancy news had consumed her. “She wants my ETA, but…” She looked to the gifts he’d wrapped and stacked so neatly. “What do I do about Christmas?”
“Spend it with your family.” His face smoothed into those unreadable lines that she found so frustrating. “I know you’ll be safe there. I plan to work anyway.”
“But…” She couldn’t leave the father of her baby alone on Christmas mere days after they learned she was pregnant. What if something happened and she went into hospital? She would want him with her.
If she was only going to visit Cinnia, she might have confided her happy news, but everyone would be there and it was too soon to tell the world. The magnitude of holding on to her secret while fighting her anxiety over the holiday began to balloon in her mind. Tears welled in her eyes.
“Would you come?” she asked over the insistent buzz of her phone. “If I ask her…?”
Cortisol poured through her bloodstream as she recalled what had happened the last time she brought someone home for Christmas. Why was this so messy and hard?
Joaquin wouldn’t betray her the way Gilbert had. Would he?
“If you want me to be there, yes.” His dark eyes were fathomless. Some emotion flickered across his expression too quickly for her to interpret it. Wariness? Something warmer?
Relief eased the pressure in her chest. She pressed the quivering sensation from her lips and answered the video call, propping the phone against the bottom of her lamp so she was in the frame and Joaquin remained off camera.
“Hi, what’s up?” she asked.
“Ramon said he offered to fly you down with him and you said no.” Cinnia had her blond hair pulled back with a headband and was working moisturizer into her clean face. She was fourteen years older than Siobhan, but looked closer to thirty than forty. “Do not tell me you’re backing out.”
“No. Work’s been busy. They can’t spare me.” That wasn’t entirely true if she was taking a few days of medical leave, but Cinnia didn’t need to know about that. “I was planning to take the train Saturday—”
Joaquin shook his head.
“Sunday?” she asked.
“Is someone there with you?” Her sister’s tone grew pointed and she stared hard through the screen. “On a workday? This early in the morning?”
“I was about to tell you,” Siobhan grumbled. “I’m seeing someone. Ramon didn’t say anything?”
“Should he have? Is it serious? Do you want to bring him to Christmas?”
“Just like that?” Despite her history? “You don’t even know who he is.”
“Of course, I do.” Cinnia began brushing out her hair. “Ramon told Henri he thought something was going on between you. Henri told me. Why do you think I’m calling? Henri said he doesn’t see any issue in having Joaquin join us so why don’t you put me on to him and I’ll invite him.”
With a roll of her eyes, Siobhan handed the phone to Joaquin.
