‘I do, but what do you think?’ He watched her, his expressionless game face back on.
‘These are your eighteen months,’ she reiterated quietly. ‘You get to call the shots.’
And if he wasn’t going to give much away, she wasn’t sure she wanted to either.
He looked at her. As he slowly shook his head and turned away she knew she’d disappointed him somehow.
Later that afternoon, Emmy watched Javier splash with Luke at the bottom of the stairs at the very back of the boat. The sea was a gorgeous temperature and a stunning blue. The island behind them was a perfect backdrop. Emmy lay on the step just above the water line, her camera strap looped around her neck as she watched the two of them splashing through the viewfinder. Luke giggled as Javier teased him. The baby was at ease now—as was Javier in holding and reaching for him. Emmy played with varying settings to capture every moment because they were so magic.
‘Oh,’ she breathed and smiled. ‘I just took the best photo ever.’
‘Hmm?’ Carrying Luke, Javier splashed back up the stairs and she turned the camera so he could see the display on the back.
‘You had someone photobombing you.’ She laughed.
Luke and Javier were smiling at each other, the droplets of water sparkling on their bronzed skin. But in the background was a Galapagos tortoise in the water, his head up, looking as if he was smiling. And beyond him gleamed a snippet of the golden sand of the uninhabited island behind.
‘You’re right, that’s an amazing shot.’ Javier glanced up at her. ‘Forward it to me?’
‘Of course.’ She sat back.
She more than liked it. She couldn’t stop staring at it. The two most handsome males on the planet—both better looking than any model.
‘Put the camera down and join us,’ Javier said roughly.
Emmy’s heart melted at the invitation and she quickly put the camera away before going to sit on the step beside him. His arm rested across Luke’s little belly as they dangled their feet in the water and gazed at the tortoises on the island, who gazed with equal curiosity right back.
‘They’re just incredible, aren’t they?’ Javier murmured.
‘I never get sick of staring at them. The islands are so remote, so isolated, all the creatures have evolved into something completely unique. So precious, they’re fascinating.’
‘And beautiful.’
‘And undamaged by the rest of the world.’ She pondered the rarity before her. ‘So lucky.’
She felt him turn his head. ‘The rest of the world damaged you?’
‘That’s what people do, isn’t it?’ she asked lightly.
‘And that’s why you avoid them now?’
‘I don’t avoid them.’ She scoffed at the suggestion. ‘I just choose to live in paradise.’
‘This is your definition of paradise?’
‘Yes.’ She nodded.
‘Somewhere remote and isolated and unique?’ He echoed her words. ‘Like the end of the world or something. Somewhere away from everyone, everything else.’ He paused. ‘And a place where people don’t tend to stay. Visitors come and go. There are no connections for long.’
She stilled at the serious edge to his tone. ‘I take it you disagree?’
‘I think it’s somewhere safe.’
‘Maybe.’ She forced a smile. ‘Or maybe you’re overthinking it.’
‘Or maybe you’ve just got a little prickly because I’ve got too close to the truth.’ He cocked his head. ‘Maybe you’re avoiding life, Emmy.’
‘How do you figure that, really?’ She nudged his shoulder and added an eye roll for good measure. ‘I have a child—I’ve been raising him on my own.’
‘But that’s the point. You’ve deliberately isolated yourself. And yes, thank goodness for Lucero and Connie for being there to help you to the extent that you’d allow anyone to help you.’
She stared at him.
‘There’s a compelling difference between you and the Galapagos creatures, though,’ he mused quietly. ‘They’re not afraid of people. They’ve not had the predatory experiences that we’ve had. They’ve not built the defences—’
‘You’re looking at a giant tortoise,’ she interrupted with a pointed wave of her hand. ‘What do you think that shell is for?’
‘It’s his portable house.’ Javier laughed at her. ‘Like a little caravan, he has his own roof over his head. But they’re friendly, Emmy. That’s my point. They’re not afraid of people.’
‘And I am? Is that what you’re ever so unsubtly trying to suggest?’
‘Maybe, yes. I think you’ve got a bit afraid of the rest of the world. I think you’ve been using your situation with Luke to avoid re-entering a full life.’
‘You don’t think my life is full?’
‘I think it’s lonely,’ he said quietly. ‘I think you’ve been lonely for a while.’
‘And you think that’s why I let you seduce me so easily that night?’ She felt her defensiveness grow. She wanted Luke to be enough. For her to be enough for him. ‘Is your life full?’ she challenged.
‘I’m realising that perhaps it’s not, no. I know I focus on work to the detriment of other aspects of my life.’ He sighed. ‘Certainly recently, I’ve not...’
‘Not what?’
‘Taken time for me.’
‘Is that what this is now?’
‘Partly, perhaps.’ Javier reached for her camera and fiddled with it. ‘Can we get a selfie with this?’
With dexterity he cuddled Luke and leaned close to her and somehow took a shot. With their wet hair, sun-kissed skin and huge smiles, anyone else looking at it would see a perfect family shot. But the image hurt Emmy’s heart—because it wasn’t real. They weren’t a true family and she was sure he’d only taken the photo as a means to end that conversation.
Yet the moment had been real enough. There’d been pure joy in that instant. But it was only an instant. A permanent reminder of a temporary pleasure. An emotion that wasn’t sustainable and that had no real depth behind it.
‘That’s a good one,’ he said.
‘You can see the likeness between you and Luke. The resemblance is strong.’
Javier studied the shots. What she said was true. ‘I’ve never looked much like anyone else in my family.’
‘Not your father?’
He hesitated. He never discussed his parents, but Emerald wasn’t just anyone any more. She was someone he wanted to trust and have trust him. So he answered as briefly as he could. ‘I have few memories of him. No pictures. He walked out when I was a child. I thought he’d come back one day and take me with him. But he didn’t.’ He glanced at her. ‘I don’t want Luke ever to feel that.’
‘That?’
‘Being left behind. Being rejected. All that good stuff that sears the soul of a five-year-old, you know.’ His lips twisted and his tone was dry as he tried to make light of it, but it wasn’t remotely funny.
‘Javier—’
‘My mother remarried,’ he said crisply, finishing the story on his own terms before she could ask him details he didn’t want ever to recall. ‘She wanted a real family with him. They had two sons. Jacob and Joshua.’ He shot her a look and chuckled. ‘I didn’t quite fit with that, did I?’
But Emmy didn’t laugh with him; she looked deeply troubled. ‘What happened to you when she remarried?’
He grimaced, absently fiddling with the clasp of his watch. ’I was sent to very good boarding schools. But despite their often-quoted massive investment in me and the stellar grades I delivered, it turned out my stepfather had no intention of bringing me into the fold of the family business. Because I was never part of his family.’
Emerald looked pensive. ‘What was his business?’
He almost laughed; the question she’d asked wasn’t anyt
hing as intrusive as he’d feared. ‘Car-parking buildings.’
Emmy stared at him fixedly for a second and he could see her trying not to smile.
‘I know, super sexy, right?’ He shook his head. ‘But he made millions. And all I wanted to do was build a business with an even bigger and better bottom line. And one that was a damn sight sexier than car parking.’
‘Financing is sexy?’
‘You don’t think so?’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘I thought you were a surfer.’
‘I can surf and finance,’ he teased, easing into the detail of his work. That was where he’d found his calling. ‘Multi-talented, I am.’ He chuckled. ‘But you realise that first up I needed money. Not going to lie, I needed the capital first and the freedom. So I crashed out of my studies, did the trading and investing and worked around the clock for years. And when I got enough I began investing in other things. Other companies and—’
‘Property.’ She nodded. ‘Some hotels. Sustainable. Well designed. So now you have...’
‘Several property investments in various places and I travel between them all.’
‘And that includes here.’ She frowned. ‘When it’s almost impossible to invest here.’
‘I’m able to do that through my father.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s the one thing he gave me, I guess. Even if he hadn’t intended to leave me with anything.’
At the look she shot him, he regretted mentioning him again.
‘You don’t know why he left?’ she asked quietly.
He braced, not at the question, but the gaping void of his own answer, and just shook his head. Javier couldn’t either forget or forgive his father, even though he’d tried to do both.
Emmy frowned. ‘Had they been unhappy for a while?’ she asked.
‘She’d met someone else,’ he said briefly.
‘The man she later married?’ Emmy watched as he grimaced, nodded, and the blue in her eyes deepened with concern. ‘Maybe he thought you’d have more security with her if he wasn’t around? Maybe he did what he thought was best for you both?’
And maybe Javier couldn’t bear to think about it because it wasn’t something he could ever know. His mother had avoided any discussion of his father from the moment he’d vanished. Javier had only learned where his father had gone and what had happened to him a few years ago. But the reason why he’d left—so abruptly and so finally? That he could never truly know.
‘Anyway, I wanted a foothold here and now I’ve got it.’ He sighed. ‘Somewhere where I might belong.’ He instantly regretted that last slipping out because he saw her expression turn even more caring.
‘You don’t feel as if you belong anywhere?’ she asked.
He couldn’t answer honestly—only flip it back on her and try to lighten it. ‘Do you?’
‘I feel at home in the water,’ she said softly. ‘I always have.’
He smiled at that. ‘Like a redheaded siren.’
‘Dragon, a sea dragon,’ she corrected with a tilt of her head. ‘Have things improved with your mother and stepfather since you’ve become more successful than the car-parking empire?’
Yeah, he was so done with this conversation. ‘There’s honestly little but the remnants of festering resentment on both sides,’ he drawled through the painful truth. ‘I don’t bother with family occasions. It’s not worth the awkwardness.’
‘Perhaps it’s not too late for a reconciliation?’ She looked so hopeful it almost hurt to answer her honestly.
‘No.’ He shook his head and half smiled at her naiveté. ‘There aren’t neatly tied threads and happy endings in life, Emmy. There’s just the next phase. It’ll have good things and bad, the one true constant is that it will change.’
‘So, in your world nothing lasts?’
‘In any world, nothing ever does.’
‘And yet you like to build your beautiful hotels and take care of the environment around them.’
Emmy’s eyes were very blue and very steady and as he looked into them Javier’s chest tightened painfully.
‘Things can last a good while though, right?’ she said quietly. ‘Like the stars and the moon and the sun. Some things can last long enough.’
He laughed, somehow soothed by her words and the sweet promise of a child’s nursery rhyme.
‘Some things can last a lifetime.’ She seemed to gaze right into his soul. ‘Couldn’t that be long enough?’
CHAPTER NINE
EMMY WAITED BUT Javier didn’t reply. That he’d ever felt unwanted stunned her. ‘I’m sorry your parents didn’t love you the way they should have.’ He should have been utterly adored and she couldn’t believe he hadn’t been. So no wonder he was protective of Luke.
‘It’s okay, Emmy,’ he said dismissively even as he gazed at her intently. ‘I know my worth.’
Did he? Or did he think it was only because of his bank balance? Was that why he was so driven in his business? Why he was so guarded? Because even now he’d barely told her anything and she just knew there was more to it. That there was so much more he’d avoided telling her by his swift segue into his work story. She suspected he used work to avoid a lot of things.
As she breathed in, trying to frame her thoughts, he leaned close and pressed a kiss to her mouth. ‘But I’m not sure you know yours.’
She shook her head, trying to remain clear-headed and not let him distract her with his seduction. But everything inside her seemed to have softened and she wanted not just to understand him, but for him to understand her. And suddenly she realised the longer she remained reticent, the worse it would be when he learned the truth. And he would find out eventually, somehow. He’d probably make it his business in the end. Shame crawled over her in a prickling heat with embarrassment and resentment at the thought of some stranger picking over the pitiful facts of her life and telling him behind her back. The fewer people who knew, the better—for Luke’s sake as much as anything. So she needed to explain it to Javier herself.
‘I know my worth,’ she muttered sadly. ‘And it’s not what it should be.’
He leaned back and studied her sombrely. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘I don’t come from a good family,’ she confessed.
‘No? What do you mean by good?’ He offered an encouraging smile. ‘There’s no such thing as a perfect family.’
‘A law-abiding, honest one would be a start.’
His eyebrows lifted.
‘It was petty crime...theft, cars, tech gear, drugs. They’re small time but persistent and unhappily married and I have an older brother, Sterling.’ She swallowed and gave into the desperate temptation to confide in him completely. ‘We were at different schools.’ She smiled sadly. ‘I’d got a scholarship. You’re looking at a former state champion water-polo player.’
‘Wow.’ He slung his arm across her shoulder and squeezed. ‘Go you.’
For just a moment she rested her head on his shoulder. ‘My family disagreed. They said school was a waste of time. That I should be less uppity and do the work they needed me to do.’
‘And what work was that?’
She pulled away from him and he dropped his arm. ‘Sterling had been selling drugs at the school gate.’ She stared down at the camera, absently holding it closer. ‘I took the fall for him.’
He watched her carefully. ‘Why was that?’
‘I had to.’ She licked her lips, but her mouth remained dry and her throat almost painfully tight. ‘He was on his final strike...if he was caught again he was going to prison. My parents said I had to...’ She trailed off, hating the horror from that time.
The emotional manipulation had been severe.
‘So you said it was you.’ He finished it for her with a nod. ‘Then what happened?’
‘I’d hoped my teachers would see through me. That they’d know I wa
s lying, trying to protect my brother.’ She licked her lips again. ‘I know it was wrong to lie. It’s always wrong to lie.’
‘It must’ve been damn hard to make those choices when you’re wanting to protect someone you love.’
She nodded, swallowing awkwardly.
‘And please your parents.’
She chewed the inside of her cheek, unable to answer.
‘I’m guessing your teachers didn’t pick up on the truth,’ he said softly.
‘I guess I convinced them.’ But it had hurt. They’d known her for a couple of years. She’d always turned up, she’d always done her best, she’d never let them down. Yet all her past actions had counted for nothing in the face of a few words. Her family history—that assumption—had been used against her. It was as if they’d been waiting for her family blood to seep out. Waiting for her to mess up. Nothing she’d done prior had mattered, in their eyes her downfall was simply inevitable. Just a matter of time. They were so quick to believe the worst, not bothering to try to pick holes in her stupidly flimsy story.
‘It was a good school.’ She drew a breath. ‘I’d worked so hard to get there. I had a part-time job at a fast-food place so I could buy my uniform and supplies and scrape together the travel money for the tournaments...’ She swallowed. ‘It was my first offence so the police let me off with a warning and some community service. But the principal kicked me off the water-polo team and expelled me from school.’
He waited quietly.
‘My brother went to prison less than a month later. He was caught on a breaking and entering job.’ She drew breath. ‘So my “sacrifice” was all for nothing.’
Javier was very serious. ‘And your parents?’
‘Didn’t care. They were never bothered about my schooling. They wanted me to take on the deliveries he could no longer do. They thought it was good timing that I’d been kicked out.’ She lifted her head and stared across the clear water, unable to look at his reaction. ‘I knew the only thing to do was leave. I needed a fresh start. I travelled around Australia, working in various cafés, then I went to hotels because often I’d get accommodation thrown in. I’d spend a few months and then move on until I’d saved enough for my passport and a one-way ticket abroad. I’ve been working or volunteering and travelling ever since.’
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