Secrets Made in Paradise

by Natalie Anderson

  ‘You’re saying I’m destroying you?’

  ‘My sleeping with you is. My living with you like a lover is.’ She made herself lift her voice and finish this. ‘I know we need to deal with each other. And I’m sorry because I’m not in a position to be fully independent from you yet—not in Manhattan. Not where you need Luke to be. So you and I both have to compromise. I hate it, but I have to accept your offer of living space, only for as long as it takes to set myself up independently. But I won’t travel with you. I want you to take Luke. I don’t want you to miss out on any more time with him.’

  ‘Wow, that’s so generous of you.’ His eyes flashed like shining black stones. ‘You’re afraid of judgement, but you’re not afraid to dish it out as far as I’m concerned. I made one mistake when I didn’t tell you my full name, and you’ve never wanted to forgive me—’

  ‘No. It isn’t about that. I’m long over that. It’s not about forgiving, but what you can’t—won’t—give me. You offer everything material, but nothing precious. Yes, I might have hidden away in some ways on the islands, but you’re the one keeping safe. You’re the one refusing to open up emotionally. You won’t tell me so much more than your name...you can’t even tell me properly why you even needed to do that. Why did you want a break from being you, Javier? Why didn’t you like your own company that night?’ She flung her head back as he stood there, pale and silent. ‘We’re different people, with different needs. And we had this wonderful night together, but that was supposed to be it. With Luke, we’ve been brought back together and we succumbed to that attraction again. But ultimately we want different things. And that’s okay. I just need some space to work through how this is going to be.’

  ‘So when I get back?’

  ‘I won’t be in your bed waiting for you. I’m not sleeping with you any more. We’re co-parents. And that’s it.’

  ‘You think it can just end between us—just like that? Emmy.’ He shook his head in rampant disbelief. ‘Last night we—’

  ‘It’s over,’ she snapped fiercely. ‘That part has to be over. Please don’t try to change my mind. Please respect my choice. Please don’t make a joke of what I’m trying to tell you. Or I will have to leave.’

  He stared at her.

  ‘We both want what’s best for Luke, but I also need to do what’s best for me in this. And that is not to be with you.’ She gazed at him, so hurt but still unable to let go of the last remnants of hope. ‘And the worst thing is the fact that I’m always going to want more from you. I’m going to want more than you can ever give me,’ she said. ‘I don’t want the things. I don’t want the fancy boat or amazing bling or designer dresses. But you can only give me the things.’ She looked up at him. ‘You can’t give me the love and trust and intimacy I want from you. It’s not there.’

  He said nothing. He didn’t argue with her. Didn’t deny the truth. Didn’t tell her any of the words her foolish heart ached to hear.

  ‘I didn’t want to say any of this,’ she groaned sadly. ‘Why did you push? Why couldn’t you just leave me? Why did you have to be so mean?’ She hated that she’d lost control and revealed everything of herself. It was humiliating. But worse, it was painful because it only proved what she’d already known. He didn’t love her. He didn’t want her the way she wanted him. ‘This is why I need time away from you.’ She was furious with him and herself. ‘Please go now. I promise I’ll be here when you get back. I would never leave my son.’

  ‘But you’d leave me.’

  ‘Yes.’ A million times yes. She could barely see him through the tearful haze in her eyes. Right now she wanted to run away from him faster than she’d ever run from anything in her life.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  JAVIER STALKED OUT of the building, his stomach tight.

  ‘Let’s go.’ He jerked his head at his driver and chose to sit in the front passenger seat and not engage with his son, safely tucked in the back with the nanny. He needed to cool down and process before he could speak to anyone. Right now he was raging inside.

  Emmy’s rejection of their physical relationship was a rejection of him. Her refusal to travel with him on this, the shortest of trips, was a rejection of him. If she had complete freedom of choice—no small son to think of—then she would utterly reject him. She would walk out and not look back and never return. He knew it. He’d seen it before.

  Her words? Her passion? Telling him she was in love with him in one breath and asking him to avoid her altogether in the next? She didn’t want him. She didn’t love him. If she did, why would she instantly do the one thing that would hurt him the most? Why would she shut him out?

  So he didn’t believe her declaration. Not for a second. She had been isolated for too long. She’d been lonely. She’d been inexperienced. She’d hit some sort of high from the companionship and closeness that she’d never really had before and confused that with...what she thought was love. In fact, he raged inwardly, it wasn’t actually him she thought she was in love with. It was the change in circumstances. It was—he hated to realise—a kind of gratitude, or, worse, some sort of sick Stockholm syndrome, because they were bound to each other because of their baby. Trapped together, so her hormones were helping her make the best of it by believing her to be...in love with him, the father of her child.

  He flew to Miami. On the flight he calmed down enough to read to Luke, the same little story over and over, softly murmuring the rhyme for the entire journey. Anything to avoid the thoughts—the echo of her words—circling over and over in his head instead.

  But then his little son slept and he decided to work late in the hotel, only it was impossible to concentrate. So, late at night, he abandoned the effort and tried to sleep. But then, in his dreams he was transfixed by the vision of Emerald Jones, fire-breathing beauty—promising everything in one instant and stealing it back the next.

  And her words kept echoing. Her accusations. Her truths.

  Because what she’d said was right, was it not? He didn’t want a relationship. And maybe they’d been overcomplicating things by continuing to sleep together even though they’d left the islands. Maybe this was the right time to end that side of things. It was only sex, after all. And getting clarification, boundaries, back would be good. That was what he’d wanted all along, wasn’t it? But more phrases she’d thrown at him kept echoing in his mind.

  You don’t get to monopolise the best of me. Not all of my time...

  Did that mean she wanted to be free to meet someone else? Rationally he knew that she should. Of course. And she would. She was a stunningly vibrant woman who ought to be scooped up by some guy and adored for all eternity.

  He flinched and had to shift position in his suddenly uncomfortable bed. He couldn’t stand the idea of some other jerk adoring her. He winced at his dog-in-the-manger attitude. He didn’t want her but didn’t want anyone else to have her either?

  Things—okay, yes, relationships—didn’t last. He’d seen it time and time again. He’d borne the brunt of the fallout. And it was his own fault for reigniting that passion with her. Except there was no way he could have resisted at the time. And nor had she been able to. He’d been right about that ‘chemistry’ at least. It was uncontainable.

  But he also knew that now she’d made her decision, she would stick to it. Emmy had determination and strength and this choice of hers would last. She was one person who could remain constant and true.

  And that sudden realisation? That made his whole chest ache all over again.

  He doggedly forced focus in the meetings the next day. He refused to let his staff down or his business slide because of his personal life. But he concluded the schedule as quickly as he could, returning to Luke. To hold and quietly vow to his son that he would never, ever leave him. Because being left—being rejected—sucked. And it hurt. And it damaged.

  And it had happened to Javier before. More than onc
e.

  Only he’d never really told her that, had he? And he’d certainly never really stopped to consider just how it had damaged him.

  He paused, making himself reflect on those moments in his past that he’d chosen to forget for so long. Those most painful ones—what kinds of warped lessons had they taught him?

  Was what she’d said fair? Had he held back from her?

  He couldn’t sit still to consider the answer; he knew it already. But at the time she’d said it, he’d been too busy being hurt—too busy feeling that horror of rejection again—to be able to think clearly enough to respond.

  Only now he had the time to think. And it wasn’t pleasant.

  Was he going to let the scars from the past stop him from seeing the future that might be possible? The chance that was right in front of him?

  On the flight back to New York Luke slept again and Javier closed his eyes too—trying to figure out what to say to her when he saw her next. But he didn’t see her. She’d moved her few clothes from his room to that last spare bedroom on the far side of Luke’s. So Javier did the decent thing and went to work again late at night—giving her time to reunite with their baby without him watching.

  An hour later he stared at the list she’d messaged through, barely biting back the urge to sprint back to the apartment and storm into her new room and tell her exactly what he thought of her ‘timetable’—an appalling co-parenting arrangement in which they completely avoided each other. He pushed away that instinctive wound—his own petulant assumption that it was a rejection of him. That he wasn’t enough. He was overreacting. But she’d struck a nerve. And how was it her hit could hurt this hard?

  He got home late and the apartment was too quiet. He stole into Luke’s room and watched him sleep a while. Inexorably his attention was drawn to the photo he’d ordered hung on Luke’s nursery wall. The portrait of Emmy and Luke, moments after Luke’s arrival, had struck him the second he’d seen it. All the emotions rose every time he looked at it—protectiveness, possessiveness. They overwhelmed him. He lifted the picture from Luke’s wall and put it in his own room. He went to sleep looking at them and they were the first things he saw when he woke. But the misery rose, the rage blurred and slowly the truth settled. He needed that picture—it was his own aide-memoire—because they were the two most precious things in his life.

  But now he knew the picture alone wasn’t enough. He wanted the real things—both of them with him, all of the time. And it was only now that she’d pushed him away that he realised that he, too, struggled with secrets, and struggled without certainty. He’d thought he had it all sorted—had offered her ‘everything’ he could in a half-assed, cowardly way. He’d suggested she stay with him, offering her no security. He was a jerk. But he’d not realised it himself—not until now. So his ineptitude, his silence of the other day when she’d opened up and hurled all her thoughts and feelings at his head, appealing to his heart...that had hurt her. It had hurt him too. Because he’d kept his heart buried away for so very long he’d just about forgotten it was there.

  He’d never had emotional security. But he wanted his son to have it—to give it to him. He wanted to do that for Emmy too—so very differently and so very much. And she, more than anyone except perhaps himself, needed that certainty. She needed to hear the truth. She needed absolute honesty before she would believe. And he needed her to forgive him and to believe in him. This separation—he realised far too late—was the antithesis of what he wanted. He wanted everything with her.

  He’d been so self-defensive, so focused on building his walls, he’d become blind to his own emotions. All the things he’d done—not just providing for her, but listening to her, laughing with her, wanting to bring her out, making love to her—they’d all been the actions of a man falling deeply in love.

  He just hadn’t seen it in himself. And she’d not seen it either and that was on him. Because he’d been so damn defensive he’d hidden it too well from her. She’d opened up to him—she’d been so brave, so vulnerable, so trusting in him. But he’d hurt her.

  So while he’d long been decisive, he knew whatever action he took now, whatever gesture he tried to think of, it wasn’t going to be enough. Because it was the words that were required. Words—or lack of—could hurt, but words could also heal. Sometimes stupid words could be forgiven. And honest words would be believed. He hoped so, anyway. He had to think that it might be possible in this case.

  Because Emerald Jones, he finally realised, was his gorgeous dragon—she’d made him believe in something he’d thought was mere myth or fairy tale. But it was magic and real—it was hot and wonderful and scary as hell. She’d made him believe in the existence of love.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ‘THOMAS?’ EMMY WALKED into the apartment. ‘Luke?’

  She listened but heard no reply. It was four days since her blow-up with Javier. He’d taken Luke and gone for the night. She’d indulged in a horrendous crying jag. Then she’d wiped a cold flannel over her face and moved her stuff into the spare bedroom farthest from Javier’s. She’d spent the night alternately wiping her eyes with that cold flannel and giving herself a pep talk and desperately trying to find a distraction for herself. Find work. Study. Survive.

  She’d managed to avoid him mostly since their return. He’d been gracious enough to stay away for her reunion with Luke.

  He’d apparently agreed to her suggestion of him leaving for work later, so he had time with Luke in the mornings. She lay on her bed and pretended to read or sleep or do something—anything—until she heard the front door close and was certain he’d left for the day.

  She had dinner early, with Luke, and retreated to her room again when Javier returned home for the night. She’d booked onto an online course to improve her photography skills and researched some courses on management for charitable entities. She had a strong idea of what she wanted.

  Thomas was the epitome of discretion and kindly courteous, leaving her with Luke as she needed the time to hold her baby and express love to him. But right now her baby wasn’t here. There was nothing to distract her again from the heartache and hopelessness of loving Javier or the anger within that she’d missed out.

  Why couldn’t she have more? Why couldn’t she have it all?

  She walked towards the lounge, absorbing the emptiness of the apartment like a hit to the side of the head. But an achingly familiar, tall figure turned at the window. Her heart leapt into her throat. Not from fear, but worse—joy. The bubble of rapture burst a split second later as she remembered.

  ‘Javier.’ She stopped on the threshold. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise you were home early.’

  He looked cold and tired. His powerful form was half hidden by a loose black turtleneck and jeans. He hadn’t shaved, and his hair stood in tufts as if he’d been tugging on it or had just not bothered with it for the day because he had other things on his mind.

  ‘Don’t apologise.’ He watched her steadily but didn’t step closer. ‘Thomas’s taken Luke to the park for an hour or so. I cancelled my meetings.’

  Warily she waited in the doorway. It was obvious he had something to say and she could hardly walk away before he’d had the chance. But it was too soon for her—that aching wish inside her threatened to leak out all over again.

  ‘We can’t go on like this, Emmy. We can’t keep avoiding each other.’

  Her heart pounded. ‘Actually, I think it’s working well,’ she argued stiffly, striving to retain self-control. Seeing him as little as possible was absolutely for the best. Because just seeing him like this, now, made parts of her ache in ways she wanted to avoid for ever.

  His jaw tightened and his teeth clamped. ‘I’m not well and I don’t believe for a second you are either.’

  She flinched.

  ‘I was a jerk to you.’ His voice was low and didn’t sound like him at all.

 
She shook her head. She didn’t want him to apologise, to be nice to her. She didn’t want any sort of sympathy or pretence of caring because they’d happened to create a child together. She wanted to forget what she’d said, forget their physical intimacy and just move forward with new distance between them. It was the only way she could survive it.

  ‘I shouldn’t have said what I said,’ she said hurriedly. ‘It wasn’t fair. Please forget it. We’ve just...we need to move on.’

  ‘I’m never going to forget what you said, Emmy. Not ever.’ He stepped closer but stopped as he saw her reaction to his words. ‘And I don’t want to move on.’

  Emmy put her hand on the doorjamb for support. Caught in that doorway, she couldn’t step either forward or back. It was as if she were trapped in a kind of purgatory.

  ‘You told me you’re in love with me,’ he said quietly.

  Her heart ruptured. This wasn’t purgatory. This was pure hell.

  She didn’t need him to remind her. Didn’t need her secrets ripped open for scrutiny again. The exposure burned.

  ‘I keep replaying it in my mind—keep trying to recapture that moment. I want to keep it for ever.’

  She shook her head and tried to step back but he lunged forward and caught her hands. Just the very tips of her fingers. She could’ve easily slipped free, except the look in his eyes fixed her to the spot. He’d always floored her with that infinite deep brown gaze, but the emotions swirling made that cocoa mix more magnetic than ever.