by Joanne Rock
Someone turned the music down as she neared the group.
Jean-Pierre rose to greet her while the others called out hellos. For the most part, however, they remained focused on their task. Which seemed to be painting labels.
She turned questioningly toward Jean-Pierre, whose presence reminded her in vivid detail of the dreams she’d had about him the night before. Dreams where he’d peeled off all her clothing with slow, tantalizing touches, kissing each inch as he unveiled her...
“Thank you for coming.” If he noticed that she felt flustered, he didn’t say anything about it. Tucking a hand under her arm, he led her toward the group seated on the floor, the warmth of his hand on her bare skin sending a delicious shiver through her. “Gervais and Erika had a setback with their wedding plans last night and we’re helping them out in here because the media room is the most secure room in the house and there seems to have been a privacy breach from someone on staff here.”
Tatiana stiffened since her father had only recently suggested she betray the family’s privacy. But she knew he would never choose revenge over his own daughter. He might be a self-centered man, but he loved her in his own way.
Erika stopped in midsong to interject. “We’re not sure about the breach.”
Fiona continued to hum along and paint from where she sat, crossed-legged, on Henri’s lap.
Henri reclined against a chair and used Fiona’s back as his painting surface, his tongue tucked into his cheek as he gave the project intense concentration. The couple, she realized, never seemed to stop touching each other, which said a lot for their marriage considering they were far from newlyweds.
“It could have been a coincidence,” Gervais continued, looking up from his work, which involved centering the dried labels on the wine bottles.
They were wedding favors, she realized, with a personalized message on each bottle for their guests.
“Our wedding planner is ill after traveling to Singapore last week for an event.” Erika leaned back from her work, tossing her head so that her thick blond hair almost grazed the floor when she arched her spine to stretch out a kink.
Gervais reached to rub her back for her while Jean-Pierre cleared a spot on the floor for Tatiana to sit. Not an easy task when she’d worn a minidress, but Adelaide seemed to sense her dilemma and handed her a giant pillow.
“For your lap,” she whispered as she leaned over.
Gratefully, Tatiana used the pillow to cover her legs.
“The wedding planner obtained the wine for us, but she had a difficult time of it even though we purposely ordered from Gervais’s Uncle Michael, who has a vineyard on the West Coast.” Erika recounted the tale with her lovely accent that sounded a bit like Swedish; her tiny island country sat off the Finnish coast. “Apparently, there is another family feud that I did not know about.” She raised an eyebrow at Gervais.
“I didn’t know where you sourced the wine, but I regret the stress it has caused.” He spoke to his pregnant bride with a gentleness that made Tatiana’s heart feel hollow by comparison.
She glanced at Jean-Pierre beside her, wondering where he’d spent the night after leaving her alone. He looked even more exhausted than she felt, with shadows under his eyes and his face still sporting yesterday’s growth of beard. She wondered what it would feel like to run her fingers across his darkened jaw, to kiss the strong column of his neck.
“It is all right. I come from a large family myself. I understand the inevitable disputes.” Erika brushed her fingers along Gervais’s face in the way Tatiana had just been daydreaming of touching Jean-Pierre.
Did these women know how fortunate they were to have found love that would sustain their hearts as well as their physical needs? Amid so much romance, Tatiana almost found it difficult to breathe. She, of all of them, should have worked out her relationship before she had a child. She regretted for César’s sake that she’d failed.
“So your wedding planner obtained the bottles but they didn’t come with labels?” Tatiana asked, wanting to help and needing a task before her thoughts drove her mad with wanting and frustration.
“My wedding planner would have helped me with the messages for each bottle. She’s very good at this kind of thing and she set aside the next two days to paint the labels personally since the shipment was late and she knows we cannot trust many outsiders with wedding details.”
“But then she got ill.” Tatiana began to see the problem.
“We have not subcontracted many of the responsibilities for the wedding since the press has been relentless in trying to figure out our plans,” Erika continued. “And I really wanted the date and our names on these, so I could hardly ask a local artist to do this without risking helicopter flyovers during my vows.” She straightened from her brief break and went back to painting a daisy on a label. “This, I will not have.”
Beside her, Jean-Pierre passed her a list of guests’ names.
“The rest of us are just filling in the standard information,” he explained, showing her several templates. “The whole point is to make each one unique, so you can be creative.”
Seeing these men—two of them superstars in the NFL and the other two the power behind the Hurricanes’ success—all giving their undivided attention to the preparation of personalized wedding favors would have tugged at her emotions even if she hadn’t been vulnerable to bouts of sentimentality lately. The idea of these brothers, who had always been so strong-willed and competitive, all pulling together to provide a happy day for a pregnant princess really got to her.
There was no doubt about it, she wished she’d been able to establish herself within a supportive family situation before the birth of her son. He deserved to have come into the world with this kind of love all around him, as opposed to alone on a Caribbean island with only his mother to welcome him.
She peered around at the work of each of the Reynaud men. She noted the neat black lines on Jean-Pierre’s labels, no surprise since he tended to be methodical in football, too, clinically picking apart defenses. Henri chose bold colors and took more chances in his artwork, the same way he did on the field when he chose the long, risky passes that sometimes paid off and sometimes backfired. Dempsey created geometric grid borders, choosing established patterns but filling them in with unexpected colors, which seemed to coincide with an upbringing where he’d had to make up the rules himself since his drug-addicted birth mother had never provided boundaries or safety. And Gervais, the oldest, was probably the most stern and serious of the four, yet his labels were the most unique and fully imagined. One of his starry sky backgrounds suggested he had real artistic talent.
Jean-Pierre dragged over a few pots of watercolors for her while the rest of the family went back to painting and talking, or singing along to the music that someone had turned back up. Adelaide rose from her seat on the other side of Tatiana to grab a bottle of water from a cooler, leaving Jean-Pierre and Tatiana in a bubble of privacy.
“I’m sorry about last night.” He sketched his label letters in pencil, using a ruler to be sure of the spacing. “I wish I’d had the presence of mind to talk things through with you then, but I hope we can correct that later today.”
Surprised, she picked up her first blank label and thought about what she would create. What would her patterns and colors say about her? She knew one thing. She was done coloring in the lines and making safe choices to please the people around her. Now that she was a mother, she understood that she didn’t want her child to have a role model who played it safe all the time. She dipped a brush into a pot of bright orange paint.
“A discussion would probably be wise.” She knew without question that he wanted what was best for César. Jean-Pierre’s love for his child had been evident almost immediately in the tender way he held him. After seeing the way he behaved with his son, she wondered how she could have doubted h
im during her pregnancy. But she’d had her reasons at the time. She could only move forward now. “My father called this morning to alert me to the media’s renewed interest in the Caruthers case. I didn’t realize it had come back to life, but I do want to think about how to deflect interest away from that if at all possible.”
“Good.” Setting aside his pencil, he watched her for a long moment as she painted a starburst border on her first label. “I want to do whatever it takes to find some common ground this week. I am fully committed.”
Something in his tone made her pause. She moved the brush away from the label so as not to spoil her work.
One look into Jean-Pierre’s dark eyes told her he meant it. There was a depth of sincerity there that she would guess he didn’t let many people see. She herself hadn’t seen it in years. But she remembered that expression from long, long ago.
And it had much the same effect on her now that it’d had then. Her heart fluttered. Sped up. Made her breathless.
“That sounds...” Her voice hitched and she cleared her throat, trying to banish runaway thoughts of what it might be like to have this man fully committed to her. Even just for the rest of the week. Even for just one more night. “That is, I agree.”
She licked her lips and went back to the label, blinking away the chemistry that had always hit her so hard with him.
“Need some cold water?” Adelaide asked her, suddenly appearing beside her with an extra bottle from the cooler.
You have no idea, she thought.
“Thank you.” She took it gratefully, hoping that she could turn down the temperature of her heated skin with a drink. But no such luck.
His low chuckle suggested he hadn’t missed her reaction.
Having Jean-Pierre working silently beside her called to her senses, making her wish she could climb into his lap the way Fiona did with Henri. Or that he would steal a kiss when he thought no one was looking, the way she’d seen Dempsey do with Adelaide.
But the most she could hope for—and all that Jean-Pierre really wanted—was to find some kind of mental common ground where they could agree on how to raise César together in a way that would help their son to thrive.
She wanted that, too. And yet...how nice it would have been to have something more. Some sense that he would throw logic and caution to the wind and take a chance on a deeper connection than carefully agreed on terms for parenting.
“Before I forget,” Gervais said suddenly, turning down the music again. “I’ve chartered two flights on Saturday for wedding guests who arrive here thinking the wedding is still taking place in Louisiana. But the family will relocate to the island early to settle in before the ceremony. Leon and his nurse will leave in the morning, so he’ll meet us there. Can everyone else be ready to depart tomorrow evening?”
While the group fine-tuned travel arrangements, Jean-Pierre’s gaze connected with hers. Perhaps he sensed her apprehension at seeing Leon again. The Reynaud family patriarch had been the one to fire her father and turn her life upside down, effectively ending the young romance she’d apparently never gotten over.
“Will your grandfather keep César a secret from the press?” she ventured aloud to Jean-Pierre, unsure how much longer they would be able to keep their son out of the media storm swirling around the Reynauds lately.
“We should probably talk about that.” He slid a hand onto her knee beneath the pillow on her lap. But his expression was serious. He seemed to be touching her to steady her more than anything. “Leon has Alzheimer’s and can’t keep a secret of any kind. He’s been blurting out information from the past and nothing’s sacred with him because he can’t remember what to keep quiet about.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said quickly, genuinely saddened to learn of his health problems. She couldn’t stop herself from touching Jean-Pierre’s hand lightly. “I know this must hurt you. I wish César could have the chance to know him better before...well. It’s just such a tragic disease. I’m not sure what to say or how to handle things. It could complicate the announcement about César.”
“I know.” Jean-Pierre’s thumb shifted on the inside of her knee, a tiny movement that sent a bolt of awareness through her whole body. “All the more reason we need a plan for how to reveal him to the press so we control the story.”
“Right.” She agreed wholeheartedly.
The problem was, neither of them seemed to have any idea what that story might be. Because the only thing she understood for certain about her relationship with Jean-Pierre right now was that she couldn’t go on denying the chemistry that all but set her on fire every time he was near.
Besides, she’d been to see a local doctor this morning and obtained her official six-week clearance for intimacy. Just thinking about it made her stomach flutter with nerves—and excitement. She couldn’t deny she still wanted Jean-Pierre.
Even thinking about his grandfather’s illness made her realize what a short window of time she had here to make some life-altering decisions. This could well be her last chance to indulge in this tenacious attraction.
Maybe, in this frustrating search for common ground, they needed to revisit the one place they’d always found it—in each other’s arms.
Nine
Jean-Pierre checked his watch at seven o’clock the next evening as the limo dropped him and Tatiana, as well as César and his nanny, off at the private airport close to the family compound. The party of four had arrived early to give Tatiana a little extra time to settle the baby. She had delayed the morning feeding so he could nurse during takeoff. She hoped to ease César’s transition into the air since small children often felt the effects of the change in air pressure as pain in the ears. Apparently, the act of suckling relieved that pressure. That she’d researched this before the flight impressed Jean-Pierre, giving him yet another reason to admire her parenting.
He’d begun to think that the best way to convince her to say yes to his marriage proposal was to demonstrate his value to her as a father. But beyond naming the child heir to a fortune, he was still looking for ways to make his potential contributions more apparent.
Now, he passed a fussing César into Lucinda’s arms while he helped Tatiana from the vehicle. Their driver had already taken charge of the luggage, so they were able to board after an exchange of pleasantries with the pilot, a man who’d flown Jean-Pierre back and forth to New York on numerous occasions.
He hoped the man proved as trustworthy as he’d always thought him to be because allowing him to observe Tatiana and César in Jean-Pierre’s company amounted to giving him one hell of a valuable headline. But after considerable discussion the day before, he and Tatiana had agreed it would be best to bring César to Texas with them. She was breast-feeding almost exclusively, for one thing. And for another, Jean-Pierre found he didn’t want to lose any time with his son after missing those early weeks of the child’s life. Besides, if he was going to prove his value to Tatiana as a father, it would help to keep his son close at hand and learn more about this little life they’d made together.
Even if the boy’s presence made it a challenge to get time with her alone.
“Where should we sit?” she asked as they boarded the empty plane.
The Gulfstream had been designed for business more than pleasure, but there were a few different seat configurations to choose from. Jean-Pierre pointed to seats in the back.
“It will be most private back here.” He escorted her to two seats positioned side by side. “There’s a privacy screen that’s meant for sleeping, but I can lower that for you, too.”
Lucinda passed César back to him before taking another chair on the opposite side of the plane and withdrawing a book from her bag.
Peering down at his son’s wriggling form, his tiny mouth seeking food as his head turned this way and that, Jean-Pierre experienced a rush of protect
iveness so fierce it damn near floored him.
“I’m ready,” he heard Tatiana say behind him, reminding him he had a role to play, too. “I don’t want the baby to have to wait much longer. And we should be taking off soon.”
Would he be able to continue playing football at the level he maintained now? Somehow he didn’t think his focus would ever be the same again. Traveling across the country with Tatiana and César in tow wouldn’t allow him to spend the same amount of time on his game preparation, which some sportswriters suggested was actually his strongest asset as an athlete. His mental game. What Henri had always managed through God-given talent and instinct, Jean-Pierre manufactured through sheer will and study.
“Jean-Pierre?” Tatiana called to him. “I can take him.”
Turning to see her with her simple sundress already sliding off one creamy shoulder, his thoughts shifted from his son to the boy’s mother so fast he felt dizzy.
She’d brought a soft purple cashmere sweater to rest on her shoulders. The line of pearl buttons followed her curves in a way that made his mouth go dry.
Lowering himself to sit beside her, he tugged down the privacy screen beside his seat, shrouding them in relative intimacy. His eyes never left her body—so beautiful, but so much more than that—as she reached to take César and cradle him to her breast.
Speechless at the sight of her, Jean-Pierre couldn’t wait to get to Texas so they could be alone. To lay claim to her as his in a way he hadn’t been able to the only time they’d shared a bed. Being with her now would be so much different than it had been ten months ago.
“We’re sharing a room on the island,” he announced in the hands-down worse segue of his life.
