Billionaire's Baby of Redemption

by Michelle Smart

  He sighed. Dante Moncada was a Sicilian technology magnate who’d inherited a one-hundred-acre plot of land in a prime location off Florence that he had no use for and wanted to sell. Javier and Luis had been in talks about buying it from him. Nothing had been signed. It had been very early days in the talks when Javier and Luis had gone their separate ways.

  Javier had held off doing anything about the deal while the lawyers set about severing the Casillas brothers’ business, an issue that almost two months on was dragging interminably. Luis had communicated via their lawyers that he wanted to meet. Javier had refused. He never wanted to set eyes on his brother again.

  His anger at Luis’s treachery had not lessened in the slightest but he wanted a clean break for them.

  He might despise the man he had loved and protected his entire life but he would not do anything to gain an advantage in the severance. The lawyers would ensure everything was split equally. That had been his firm belief until Dante had called him the week before to inform him that Luis had made a private offer for the land and asking if Javier would like to counter it.

  His brother’s latest display of treachery had speared him but he had hardened himself.

  If his brother could be so disloyal as to hitch himself to the bitch who had worked to destroy him then Javier should not be surprised that Luis was going behind his back to steal business by targeting the clients they had cultivated together.

  Two could play that game. And Javier would win.

  ‘Yes,’ he had informed the Sicilian. ‘I would like to counter it. How much has he offered?’

  Dante had given him the figure. Javier had increased it. He’d been waiting for a response ever since.

  ‘Put him through,’ he said now.

  ‘Javier!’ came the thickly accented voice.

  ‘Dante. What can I do for you? Have you called to say you will accept my offer?’

  ‘I’m coming to Madrid tomorrow for a few days of business. I’ve bought an apartment in your city, so I’m going to throw a party to celebrate. Come. We can discuss business then.’

  His heart sank. Dante’s parties were as legendary as his party-loving brother’s.

  He estimated this was Dante’s tenth property purchase. The man would not be happy until he had property in every city in Europe.

  ‘Will Luis be there?’ he asked, stalling while he tried to think of an excuse.

  Javier loathed parties. He despised watching people lose their inhibitions through alcohol, becoming worse versions of themselves. It was why he never drank. His father had been volatile enough without the alcohol he had come to depend on. He would never risk doing the same. He’d attended his brother’s parties only so he could keep an eye on him and stop him doing stupid things, like swimming drunk.

  He would not go to any function his brother attended.

  ‘He’s not answering my calls, so...’

  The unspoken implication did not go over his head. If Luis was incommunicado then the land was Javier’s for the taking.

  ‘What’s the address?’

  Dante gave it to him, then finished by saying, ‘Bring your wife. Everyone’s dying to meet her.’

  He would rather swim with sharks with a gashed knee pouring blood than take Sophie to that Lothario’s party.

  Giving a non-committal grunt, he ended the call and rubbed his temples.

  He had a headache forming.

  He put a call through to his PA for a coffee and painkillers, then turned his attention back to the computer screen.

  Right then he had more important things to think about.

  It had taken him weeks to find the information he’d sought. He could have passed the job on to one of his employees to oversee on his behalf but this was something he’d needed to find himself.

  The reporter he’d paid to trawl through the archives of an English paper from Devon had finally come up trumps.

  Before him was a copy of a report dated over twenty-four years ago, published before the Internet had been the go-to place for news reports.

  Sophie’s story had been front-page news. The news report gave all the details she’d skimmed over and omitted.

  She’d omitted to mention, for example, that she’d been so severely dehydrated the doctors hadn’t thought she would survive the night.

  When she’d been found, she’d been swaddled in a pink blanket and left in an old box that had once contained crisps.

  She hadn’t been left on the church’s steps where she would be easily found, she’d been left in the shrubbery.

  It had been a miracle that she’d been found.

  And she prayed for the woman who’d abandoned her and hoped she was alive and well?

  Javier had no such compassion. He hoped, with every fibre of his being, that the woman who’d abandoned his wife to die had lived a short and painful life.

  But there was no way of knowing. Sophie had been right that her birth mother would never be found.

  That was something else he’d dug into these past few weeks. The police investigation had been extremely thorough, he’d had to admit. They had left no stone unturned.

  Everyone had been of the opinion that it had been a young teenage girl who’d been terrified to discover she was pregnant.

  Why Javier had been so determined to delve into that period of Sophie’s life when, by her own admittance, she had always accepted it as a fact of her life, he did not know, but it had been like a compulsion in him, a need to learn everything about her, to dig deep into her psyche and discover how someone who’d been left to die on her first day of life could contain such a beautiful, pure heart.

  How could she live with him and his cold, vengeful heart without being repulsed?

  How could she bear for him to even touch her?

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘WHAT ARE YOU READING?’

  Sophie, sitting cross-legged on the bed with a pillow and laptop on her lap, looked up and smiled to see Javier in the doorway. She’d been so engrossed she hadn’t heard him get back from work.

  ‘I’m looking at veterinary nurse courses for after the baby’s born,’ she said, turning the laptop around to show him. ‘I’m trying to work out if it’s feasible.’

  He strolled over to perch next to her. ‘To train as a vet nurse?’

  She nodded. The days she spent with Frodo had reignited her love of animals and her old dream of working with them.

  His brow furrowed. ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘I thought you were supportive of me working. All that talk about nannies—’

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ he cut in. ‘I meant why would you want to be a vet nurse?’

  ‘Do you think it would be too much?’ she asked anxiously. ‘From what I’ve read, I’ll be able to do most of the studying from home—’

  ‘No,’ he interrupted again with rising exasperation. ‘Why train to be a vet nurse when you’ve always wanted to be a vet?’

  ‘It takes years to train to be a vet. Besides, I haven’t got the qualifications.’

  ‘Then get them.’

  She blinked a number of times. The educational options that had been available at her ballet school had not included those that gave an entry into veterinary school. She would have to go back to basics. ‘Just like that?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Javier, it will take me years to get the necessary qualifications if I can get them...’

  ‘Why would you not get them? You’re not stupid. If you can be a professional ballerina when your heart wasn’t in it then there is no reason whatsoever that you can’t achieve the qualifications needed to train as a vet.’

  ‘But then I’ll have to spend years studying at university. I have to think of our child and—’

  ‘Stop making excuses,’ he snapped. He pulled the laptop o
ff her and deleted the link she’d been reading before closing the lid. ‘You’ve always wanted to be a vet, so stop making excuses and for once in your life start putting yourself first. If it takes ten years for you to do it then so what? It took Luis and me almost that long to start earning serious money from Casillas Ventures but we never entertained the idea of giving up and you shouldn’t either. This is your dream, carina, so grab it.’

  She stared at him, her heart blooming at his logic and defence of her dreams.

  ‘Wouldn’t it bother you?’ she asked eventually.

  ‘Should it matter if it did?’ he countered.

  ‘You’re my husband. Of course your opinion and feelings matter.’

  ‘More than your own? Is that not what you did before? Put your dreams to one side because you thought more of your parents’ feelings than your own?’

  ‘It wasn’t exactly like that,’ she murmured, embarrassed.

  He raised a disbelieving brow.

  ‘Okay, maybe it was a little,’ she conceded. ‘They loved watching me dance. It meant so much to them, so what else could I have done? They gave me so much. They gave me a home and a family. They gave me love.’

  ‘Did you think if you went against their wishes they would withdraw that love?’ he asked with an astuteness that stunned her.

  Javier displayed such indifference to her that it was a shock to realise he actually paid attention to everything she said. And everything she didn’t.

  She sighed and pulled at her hair. ‘I don’t know. I remember worrying about that when I was little and fully comprehended what being adopted meant. They chose to bring me into their lives, so there was always that dread that they could then choose to give me back.’ She’d forgotten that long-ago irrational fear, an unintended consequence of her parents’ complete honesty about her beginnings. ‘I think...it was this pregnancy that showed me their love for me was truly unconditional.’

  ‘How?’

  She shrugged ruefully. ‘I was afraid to tell them. They’re very spiritual. They believe greatly in marriage coming before children and I was afraid they would think less of me.’

  ‘Did you think they would reject you?’

  ‘Not on a rational level but it was there in the back of my mind, yes. I hadn’t even realised how scared I was to tell them until they practically squashed me with their hugs.’

  ‘Are they the reason you were a virgin when we conceived our baby?’

  It was the first time this had been acknowledged out loud between them.

  Sophie met his steady gaze and gave a tiny nod.

  He extended a hand as if to reach for her belly, then changed his mind before he could touch it and got to his feet. He rolled his neck. ‘It is time you thought of your own needs rather than always thinking of others. Our child will be much happier for having a fulfilled mother than one who settled for second best. If you want to be a vet then be a vet. Better to try and fail than never have the guts to try in the—’ He cut himself off, now looking at the floor-length navy-blue dress hanging on the dressing-room door. ‘Have you been shopping?’

  Disconcerted by the sudden change of subject, she took a moment to remember.

  ‘I popped out this afternoon. I meant to put it away but got distracted with all the vet nurse stuff.’

  She moved the pillow off her lap and scrambled off the bed to get the dress.

  Frodo, who had taken to following her like a shadow and been dozing by the bed, woke and jumped up in an attempt to grab hold of it but she whipped it out of his way and took it into the dressing room.

  Javier followed her and rested his hand on the doorway.

  She waited for him to make a comment on the puppy being in their bedroom, which he had effectively banned and she had effectively ignored if he wasn’t in, but instead he asked, ‘What’s the dress for?’

  ‘The party.’

  ‘What party?’

  ‘Dante Moncado’s party tomorrow night.’

  He was silent for a beat before asking, ‘How do you know about that?’

  ‘The invitation was hand-delivered this morning. It was addressed to both of us, so I opened it. I’ve put it on your dressing table.’

  He took hold of it and read it silently. Then he put it back down and rubbed his face. ‘We’ve been invited for business purposes. You won’t enjoy it, carina.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘You’re pregnant.’

  ‘Yes, pregnant. Not dead.’

  ‘It will be full of rich, posturing idiots. I’ll go on my own, conduct our business and come back.’

  Her heart thumped, the warm fuzzy feelings generated by Javier’s brusque insistence that she should follow her dreams squashed back to nothing. ‘Do you know, you haven’t taken me anywhere since we married. Are you ashamed of me?’

  ‘What a ridiculous thing to say. And I have taken you out.’ He’d taken her to a business dinner where partners had been invited.

  ‘A business dinner doesn’t count. You haven’t taken me out—out socially.’

  ‘This is a party I’ve been invited to for the sole purpose of business, not for social reasons.’

  ‘But it’s an actual party. It says so on the invite. And my name’s on the invite too. I want to go.’

  ‘I didn’t realise you were a party person,’ he said stiffly.

  ‘You never asked and we haven’t been invited to any...’ She narrowed her eyes, suspicions rising. ‘Unless you didn’t tell me about them.’

  He stared back.

  It took such a long time for him to answer that her suspicions became a certainty.

  He had turned invitations down without mentioning anything about them to her.

  ‘I never go to parties,’ he eventually said in the same stiff voice. ‘I don’t drink. Who wants to watch people get drunk and make fools of themselves?’

  ‘I do.’ She hated that her voice sounded so forlorn and made an effort to strengthen it. ‘If you won’t take me then I really will think you’re ashamed of me.’

  Would he have these qualms about taking Freya with him? Sophie wondered.

  He’d probably only said all that stuff about her becoming a vet so she would be occupied and out of his hair for the next ten years, she thought bitterly.

  It hadn’t crossed her mind that he wouldn’t want to go to the party. She was well aware that her husband was not one of life’s great socialisers but had assumed he would be willing to attend a party being hosted only twenty minutes from their home. Since his return from Cape Town he’d taken to giving her prior warning of meetings and functions he had planned that would take place outside normal office hours. It was a gesture that had given her hope. Slowly their marriage had been starting to feel like a real one. His attitude now put her right back to square one.

  He had nothing booked in for tomorrow night.

  All she could think was that he didn’t want to show his second-choice wife to his peers.

  So proud had he been of having Freya tied to him that he’d thrown a huge party to celebrate their engagement.

  He hadn’t invited a single guest to their wedding. They hadn’t had a single guest to their home since they’d married.

  ‘I am not ashamed of you.’ He groped at his hair.

  ‘Then prove it and take me,’ she challenged. ‘We don’t have to stay for long. You can conduct your business and I can meet some new people and then we can come back.’

  Even Frodo, sitting at her feet, looked at Javier expectantly.

  Javier noticed. ‘What about the dog? We can’t take him to a party or give him free rein alone in the house, and you won’t put him in a crate.’

  Sensing victory, Sophie smiled and opened the bedroom door. Marsela, the youngest of the household staff and a live-in one to boot, had been cleaning the spare bedrooms a sho
rt while earlier. She called for her.

  A moment later, Marsela appeared.

  Frodo spotted her and bounded over, his tail wagging happily.

  ‘Have you got any plans tomorrow night?’ Sophie asked.

  ‘No. I have a date with a box set.’

  ‘Any chance you could dog-sit Frodo while you watch it?’

  Marsela’s eyes lit up. ‘I would love to.’

  ‘Thank you!’ Turning back to Javier, Sophie fixed him with a stare. ‘So, are we going?’

  His face like thunder, he gave a sharp nod, turned on his heel and stormed from the room.

  She let him go, her heart battering manically against her ribs.

  She could take no joy in her victory, however widely she pasted her smile.

  Forcing his hand into taking her made it a hollow one.

  * * *

  Javier stepped out of the door his driver held open for him, then extended a hand to Sophie.

  She took hold of it with a smile of thanks and, careful of her dress, climbed out.

  Then she straightened, carefully smoothed her hair, which she’d styled into loose curls, and said, ‘I think this is the part where we go in.’

  He breathed deeply and gave a nod. ‘Prepare yourself. Everyone will be watching you.’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said with a brittleness to her tone he’d never heard before.

  He would learn soon enough if she was right.

  She certainly looked the part.

  When she’d appeared from the dressing room, it had taken everything he had to stop his mouth gaping open like a simpleton.

  The light had shone behind her, making her glow like an angel.

  Her floor-length dress, navy-blue mesh lace, low cut at the top to skim her ever-growing cleavage and puffing out at the hips, fitted her as well as if it had been made bespoke for her.

  A more perfect vision of glowing beauty he had never seen.

  The thought of lecherous eyes soaking in her beauty for their own delectation had made him feel like a thousand bugs were crawling over his skin.

  He’d wanted to pull that dress off and make love to her so thoroughly that his scent would be marked in her, a warning to all others to not even look let alone touch.