by Leanne Banks
“Four?” she said. “I thought I was just going to read two tonight.”
“But I like all of these,” he said, looking at the books. The job of narrowing down his choices clearly put him at a loss.
She sighed. “Okay, but just this once,” she said, knowing she wouldn’t be able to hold the line when he asked her tomorrow night. She suspected she enjoyed these precious moments with him even more than he did.
He plopped into her lap and opened the first book about a giant strawberry and the mouse who wanted to eat it.
In the back of her mind, she wondered whether she would hear anything else from Rafe Medici. Encouraged that he hadn’t contacted her last night or today, she relaxed just a smidgeon. His intensity had frightened her so much that she’d almost given in to her fear and taken Joel out of the country.
Since Tabitha had died when he was just six months old, Joel viewed Nicole as his mother. He turned to her when he was sick or hurt. He chattered with her, smiled and laughed, and lifted his arms for hugs.
The strong attachment claimed Nicole the day he was born. The delivery had been difficult and Tabitha had wanted her sister by her side. Tabitha developed an infection in the hospital and the next six months had been a roller-coaster ride for everyone involved. Nicole had taken extra time off from work to care for both Tabitha and Joel.
Tabitha had grown impatient with her doctor’s warnings and often hadn’t taken her medicine properly. She’d insisted on going out partying at night while Nicole cared for Joel.
One night she’d collapsed and was rushed to the hospital. The infection had taken over her body and she’d died within a week.
Devastated and in shock, Nicole had secured legal custody of Joel per Tabitha’s instructions. Although her father had invited her and Joel to live with him, she’d turned him down. Nicole refused to subject Joel to her father’s unpredictable temper.
The threat of Rafe Medici continued to buzz in the back of her mind like a fly bouncing against a window, but Nicole cuddled Joel against her and read the second book, and the third. Halfway through the fourth story, Joel’s little body sagged against her, his chest rising and falling in slow even breaths.
Nicole smiled. He’d fallen asleep. She gently shifted him off of her, and he burrowed into his covers, but his eyes remained closed. She kissed his forehead and turned out the dinosaur lamp beside his bed and left his room.
Returning to her den, silence settled around her like a cloak. In the beginning, after Tabitha had just died, she’d had to talk herself down from panic at the enormous job she faced of raising her sister’s child. Was she up for it? There was no choice, she’d realized. She would have to muddle through.
After teething, chicken pox and potty training, she didn’t question herself as much. Joel was a happy, healthy little boy.
Now the silence just underlined the fact that she was alone. She used her remote to turn her sound system on low volume and skipped through the selections until she landed on a collection of mindless, but cheerful pop music. As she sipped the glass of water she’d left by the couch, habit made her reach for unfinished paperwork for her job.
After Joel went to bed at night, Nicole was aware of how alone she truly was. Her mother lived on the other side of the world. She couldn’t trust her father.
Thank goodness for her cousin Julia. Julia frequently scolded her to go out more often, but Nicole found it difficult to leave Joel in the evenings. As for a man, well, Tabitha had been the natural man magnet. The man Nicole had been seeing just before Tabitha died hadn’t been interested in taking on a ready-made family. When the time was right, maybe a man would come into her life. An average man who wasn’t an egomaniac or obsessed with success. Someday perhaps, but not today.
She forced her attention to her work to distract herself. A half hour passed, and a knock sounded at her front door. She noticed the time, 8:30 p.m. and cautiously rose. Glancing through the peephole, Nicole felt her stomach clench. Her worst nightmare was standing on her front porch.
Two
Nicole considered not opening the door, but she didn’t want Rafe Medici to continue ringing her doorbell, perhaps awakening Joel. Taking a quick shallow breath, she whisked the door open and met his gaze in silence, mentally girding herself for the battle she knew she faced.
“Joel is my son,” he said in a rock-hard voice.
“Joel is mine, legally and in every other way that counts,” she immediately responded. Keeping her voice cool wasn’t difficult since her blood felt like ice.
“Tabitha was his mother,” he said, his lips moving in a bitter smile. “I’m not surprised she didn’t want me to know since she felt I was good enough for playing, but not for staying.”
“Tabitha made her wishes clear in her will,” Nicole said. “She knew Joel needed a loving, nurturing and stable home environment.”
“Joel deserves to know his father,” Rafe said, anger glinting in his gaze. “He’s been deprived of that for almost four years.”
“I can assure you that Joel hasn’t suffered under my care. He is my top priority.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that he needs a father, too.” Rafe looked past her. “Are we going to continue to discuss this on the front porch, or are you going to let me in?”
Reluctantly, she stepped aside. She couldn’t help noticing how his tall, muscular body filled the small foyer. “If you wake up my son,” she said, “I won’t hesitate to call the authorities to have you removed from my home.”
He gave her an odd look. “I rarely find it necessary to raise my voice,” he said in a tone that oozed solid, quiet power.
Her thoughts immediately went in two different directions. With that kind of confidence, he wouldn’t need to rant and rave like her father had. Perhaps he accomplished whatever he wanted through a single quelling glance. She looked at his powerful hands and her stomach dipped in fear. Unless he used his fists.
Tabitha had never said he’d actually hit her, but she’d called him the brawny, bully type. An unsophisticated, but initially charming man she’d apparently underestimated.
“It’s time for me to meet my son,” he said.
Her heart jumped in apprehension. “I don’t want Joel’s life disrupted. He’s happy and secure. Meeting you would confuse him. Besides, it’s clear you don’t know anything about kids. He’s been in bed for an hour.”
“At some point, he’ll realize he has a father. The later I wait, the more he and I will regret the loss of time. I have legal rights. If I need to pursue things that way, I will.”
Nicole jerked her head around to meet his gaze. “Don’t you dare threaten me. What do you have to offer him? Where do you live? On some kind of playboy yacht? What kind of life is that for a child?”
Rafe’s mouth tightened. “I’m willing to make adjustments for my son. He should be living with me. I can hire help.”
Her blood boiled at the very thought. “Hire help? Why, how fatherly! I can’t believe you want a real relationship with Joel. You just want control, just like Tabitha said.”
Rafe stared at her and she realized she’d revealed too much. He rested his hands over his slim hips, his gaze taking her in, assessing her from head to toe. “What did Tabitha tell you about me?”
Her nerves jumping, she shrugged and stepped backward. “She said you frightened her. The two of you met at a club in Miami and had an affair that lasted a few months. She initially found you handsome and charming, although you seemed rougher around the edges than her usual boyfriends. Toward the end of the relationship, you became someone who wanted control of her.” She stopped short of telling him that Rafe had reminded her too much of their father.
Rafe inhaled, his nostrils flaring slightly. His demeanor appeared calm, but his eyes glinted with emotion. “So you took her impression of me as gospel,” he said. “Without ever meeting me.”
Nicole blinked. “Why shouldn’t I believe her? She was my sister.”
“Then you a
lso know she wasn’t perfect,” he pointed out.
“No one is perfect.”
“Some people are more capable of fabricating lies than others,” he said.
“If you’re insinuating that Tabitha would lie about something this important-”
“Are you saying she never lied about other important things?” he asked.
She opened her mouth to protest, but faltered a half beat. “Nothing this important.”
“You don’t know me,” he said. “You’ve made judgments about me based on one flighty woman’s opinion. Are you as flighty as she was?”
“No,” she impulsively responded, and wished she could take back the words. Sentence by sentence, he seemed to be defeating her stance. She had to protect Joel. “I won’t let you make a mockery of my sister-the mother of Joel. Tabitha had her flaws, but everyone does. She loved life and she ended up practically giving her life when she gave birth to Joel. You need to leave.”
She saw him tamp down a flicker of impatience that seemed to ooze from every pore. “I have rights, Nicole. I’m Joel’s father. What if I’m not the man Tabitha said I am? How are you going to explain that to him when he starts asking where his father is?”
She felt the deepest, smallest sliver of doubt and tried to brush it aside, but it was like a small rock in her shoe. “I have to protect him.”
“I’ll give you one night to explain who I am. Day after tomorrow, I’m coming back to meet my son.”
Panic rushed through her. “It’s too soon.”
“It’s reasonable,” he said, his tone final.
The next day, Nicole visited her cousin, Julia. She told her cousin about Rafe after Julia put her two-month-old daughter down for a post-feeding nap.
“Your best bet is to cooperate,” Julia said, as she sank on to the leather couch and patted Nicole on the arm.
Nicole bit her lip. “There must be something I can do.”
Julia, dressed in a sweatshirt and yoga pants, was practical in nearly every area of her life. It was why law was such a good fit. “There are lots of things you can do, sweetie, but they’ll cost a ton of money and set up a huge amount of resentment between Joel’s father and you. Are you sure you want to go down that road?”
Nicole sighed. “But what if he’s a horrible father? What if he’s-” She almost couldn’t bring herself to say the word aloud. “Abusive,” she whispered.
Julia sighed. “Then that’s a different story.” She lifted her mug of herbal tea and took a sip. “Do you have reason to believe he’s abusive? What did Tabitha tell you?”
“She said he was a bully and that he reminded her of our father.”
Julia gave a slow nod. She knew the dark, inner workings of Nicole’s family. “I can see why that would alarm you.”
“Alarm is a mild term.”
Her cousin paused for a thoughtful moment. “I know you and Tabitha were close, but even you knew that she was prone to exaggeration.”
“Yes, but about something this important?”
“I’m not taking this man’s side, but I could see Tabitha calling someone a bully if they didn’t let her have her way.”
“I suppose so,” Nicole said reluctantly.
“Look, I’m not suggesting you hand over Joel without finding out more about this man-”
“I would never give Joel up,” Nicole said, her voice cracking with emotion.
Julia put her arm around Nicole’s shoulders. “One thing you may want to consider is what does this man have to gain by claiming his rights to Joel? You’ve described him as a wealthy, successful playboy. He doesn’t need any money that Tabitha may have left for Joel. Plenty of men would run screaming in the opposite direction. Particularly the kind of man you describe.”
Nicole bit her lip again, remembering what Rafe had said about losing his father at a young age. A burst of sympathy squeezed past her defenses. What if the man wasn’t the ogre Tabitha had described?
“As hard as it seems, my best advice is for you to get to know this man as much as you can. He is Joel’s father. In this situation, he’s holding all the cards. If he wanted to, he could take Joel away from you tomorrow and at best, the only thing you could do would be to delay it.”
At 5:30 p.m., Rafe strode up the sidewalk to the well-kept two-story home belonging to Nicole Livingstone. He carried pizza and some cupcakes he’d picked up from a grocery store. Armed with information he’d gleaned from his attorney and his private investigator, he knocked on the front door.
In the last three days, Rafe had covered the gamut of emotions ranging from fury at Tabitha for concealing his son’s existence from him to an aching sense of loss. Now, his focus was pure and simple. He would be a father to his son, and nothing would get in his way.
The door opened, and Nicole looked at him, her gaze filled with wariness. She took a breath, an audible breath, as if she were preparing herself for battle, and glanced at the pizza. A hint of a wry smile played over her lush mouth. “Excellent guess,” she said. “Joel loves pizza.”
“Pepperoni okay?” he asked, curious what had made her soften.
“Depends on his mood. He’ll either pull them off and eat them or leave them on his plate.”
“I also brought a few cupcakes,” he said, referring to the contents in the plastic bag.
A doubtful expression crossed her face. “That much sugar at bedtime can be deadly.”
“Just one. If you think about it, I’ve missed four birthdays.”
Her gaze met his and clung for a surprising second. He saw a flash of empathy and the slightest drop of regret. He drank it in like water for a man dying of thirst. His private investigator had filled in a lot of gaps about Nicole. Her education-double master’s degrees in medical administration and sociology; her job-health services coordinator for disabled veterans; her financial rating-superb; her love life-limited; her devotion to Joel-infinite. Despite the fact that Nicole was clearly the more reserved twin, the woman had a heart. That would work in his favor.
“You can forget about him eating four cupcakes in one evening,” she said with defiance in her eyes.
“That’s good. I planned to eat at least one myself.”
Her lips twitched again then her face turned serious. “Come inside. Take it slow and don’t talk about the future.”
“Why not?”
“Because we haven’t figured that out yet. Just knowing he has a father is enough for Joel to handle right now.”
“Are you speaking for Joel or yourself?” Rafe challenged.
Irritation prickled through her. “You can’t believe that you know more about what’s best for Joel than I do.”
“I know I’m his father. That’s enough.”
She clenched her jaw. “I am asking you not to discuss future plans with him.”
“I intend to make it clear to Joel that he can count on me being in his present and future,” Rafe conceded. “That’s all I can promise you for tonight.”
She took a quick breath. “It’s enough that you exist and you’re here. Trust me, you’re overwhelming enough,” she said and turned away. “I’ll get him.”
Rafe suddenly felt a rush of excitement. Joel. His son would be walking into his life within seconds.
A little boy with short, curly brown hair and blazing blue eyes came toward him and studied him. “Mom says you’re my father.”
“Yes, I am,” Rafe said.
Joel glanced at the box in Rafe’s hands. “You have pizza,” he said.
Rafe chuckled. “Yes, I do.”
“I’m hungry.”
“Then we should eat.”
It was that simple. Within minutes, Nicole, Joel and Rafe were eating pizza. Tonight Joel was good with pepperoni and ate the slices after he plucked them from the pizza.
“What are your top three favorite things to do?” Rafe asked his son, fascinated by the young child that bore such a striking resemblance to him.
“Wii, reading stories and animals,” Joel said
before he took a big bite of pizza.
“What kind of stories?” Rafe asked, hungry for more information about his son.
“I like the strawberry story,” Joel said, taking another big bite of pizza. “It has a mouse and a bear in it.”
Rafe nodded. “I haven’t read that one. I’ll have to check it out.”
“You can read mine,” Joel said. “But you have to give it back cuz it’s my favorite.”
“Okay,” Rafe said and smiled. “Thank you.”
After dinner and a cupcake, Rafe played Wii with Joel. Throughout the evening, he felt Nicole studying him. He suspected he was being graded. He didn’t really care what her opinion was, but he also knew that she could make it easier for Joel to adjust to having him as a father. If she fought him, he would still win, but it would be messy.
She was far different from the Tabitha he remembered. Tabitha had chattered a mile a minute and flaunted her body. Nicole appeared to think before she spoke. She wore a pair of jeans that weren’t too tight, but still faithfully followed the curves of her hips and her long legs. Her pink cashmere sweater gave more of an impression of quiet femininity than va-va-voom.
He wondered if she ever cut loose. He wondered what it would take to arouse passion in that cautious gaze.
“Time for bath and bed,” Nicole said.
“Oh, Mom,” Joel protested. “I want to play some more Wii. He’s a lot better than you are.”
Rafe chuckled then coughed to cover it.
Nicole threw him a sideways glance of amusement.
“I’ll come back and we can play again,” Rafe said to his son.
Joel studied him. “You promise?”
Rafe’s chest tightened with some emotion he couldn’t name. “I promise.”
“Okay,” he said and Nicole sent him upstairs to his bedroom.
She led Rafe to the door. “Thank you for not pushing.”
“That was just for tonight,” he said and turned to look at her. “I’d like to get together with you sometime tomorrow. There are things we need to discuss without Joel.”
To his surprise, she nodded. “I agree. I have several appointments in the morning, but I should be free by twelve-thirty.”
