by Olivia Gates
Isabella stumbled away, ran into the study. Listening to him practically run out of the house, she sagged down.
She’d thought Richard would finally tell Rico the truth and she’d start dealing with the new reality, for worse, or worst, and be done with it.
Now she had to wait. For his return.
To start a new chapter with his son.
And to close hers forever.
Ten
Richard didn’t know whether to feel thankful or enraged at Numair’s summons. He’d interrupted one of his life’s most crucial moments.
But there was one rule they lived by in Black Castle. If one partner called, everyone dropped everything at once to answer.
But what would he have done if Numair’s call hadn’t taken precedence over even Mauricio’s...Ricardo’s...Rico’s question?
He’d wanted to snatch him in his arms and tell him, “Yes. I’m your father. And I’m never leaving your side ever again.”
Now he’d never know if he would have.
Those past weeks with him, with Isabella, had turned him inside out. He felt raw, giddy, ecstatic, off balance. And terrified. As much as he’d once been for his family’s safety.
He’d been scared of making one wrong move and shattering that unexpected perfection that had sprung between them all. He’d battered his way through every personal situation in his life, because he’d been dealing with men who thrived on adversity, equals who only got stronger with conflict. But mainly because he’d known when all was said and done, he’d mattered to no one. So nothing had really mattered.
But although he’d been in constant agony needing Isabella, he’d been unable to reach out and take her. Even if she still wanted him, he’d feared reintroducing such tempestuous passion would destroy their delicate new status quo, messing up this harmony he hadn’t dreamed they could ever have.
That had only been his initial fear. He’d progressed to worse possibilities soon after. That if he pursued her, she’d let him have her again, but that intimacies would never let her see him beyond sex. Knowing the real her now, that would have never been enough. He feared she would have pushed him away sooner or later, but remained always near for Rico’s sake. He had no doubt someone as magnificent as her would have eventually found someone worthy to worship her.
He didn’t want to imagine what he was capable of doing if he saw her in another man’s arms.
Everything inside him roiled until he reached Numair’s penthouse.
The door opened before he rang the bell and, without a glance, Numair turned and left Richard to follow him inside.
A melodious voice heralded the approach of what he’d once thought an impossibility. Numair’s bride.
Before she noticed his presence, Jenan clung to her husband’s neck and they shared a kiss like the one he’d seen them exchange at their wedding. A confession of ever-present hunger, a pledge of ever-growing adoration.
The sight of his former friend so deliriously in love with his princess bride had been a source of contentment before. Now it tore the chasm of desolation inside him wider.
He longed to have anything even approaching this bond with Isabella. But there was no chance for that. He’d done her so many wrongs, he couldn’t dare hope she’d ever forgive him, let alone love him as he loved her.
Yes, he’d long admitted the overpowering emotions he felt for her were love. Far more. Worship and dependence that staggered him with their power. He believed he’d always felt all that for her, with the events of the past weeks turning their intensity up to a maximum. He’d only spent years telling himself she was nothing to him so he could live on without her. But while he’d destroyed Burton, he’d also damaged something infinitely more vital. Isabella’s budding love. Which had only been possible when she’d been oblivious of his true nature. He’d made reclaiming it far more impossible since he’d barged into her life...
“Richard, what a great surprise!”
He blinked out of his oppressive musings as Jenan strode toward him, still spry in her third trimester of pregnancy. Her hand embraced her husband’s, as if they couldn’t bear not connecting. She glowed with Numair’s love, her body ripe with its evidence. It was literally painful to look at her.
He’d missed it all with Isabella. He hadn’t been there to cherish and protect her while she’d carried their child. Instead, his actions had put her in distress and danger. If not for her strength and resourcefulness, the outcome could have been catastrophic. As it was, he’d caused her years of strife and misery, had caused Rico’s premature birth. He could have caused his death, and Isabella’s.
“If my presence is a surprise—” he growled his pain “—then your beloved husband neglected to tell you that he made me drop a crucial matter to answer his clearly fraudulent red alert.”
Jenan pulled a leave-me-out-of-it face. “And that’s my cue to leave you colossal predators to your favorite pastime of snapping and swiping at each other.” Planting a hot kiss on her husband’s neck, she murmured, “No claws or fangs, hear?”
Numair’s love-filled gaze turned lethal the instant he directed it at Richard. “No promises, ya habibati.”
Chuckling, supremely confident in her husband’s ultimate benevolence, Jenan passed Richard, dragging him down for an affectionate peck before striding out of the penthouse.
The moment she closed the door, Numair growled, “What the hell is the matter with you?”
“With me?” Richard’s incredulity immediately turned to anger. “Numair, you’ve never caught me at a worse time—”
“Tell me about it,” Numair interrupted.
“And it’s not in your best interest to provoke me after—”
Numair talked over him again. “After I almost took a bullet for you.”
Everything went still inside Richard. “What?”
“I trust you remember Milton Brockovich?”
Richard frowned, unable to even guess at the relevance of Numair’s question. He had no idea how he knew of Brockovich.
Four years ago Brockovich’s older brother had raped and almost killed a client’s daughter. Richard had saved the girl, would have preferred to take the scum in, but he’d pulled a gun on him. So Richard had put a bullet between his eyes. He’d seen the younger unstable Brockovich in the precinct, and he’d ranted that he’d get even with him.
Richard had considered liquidating him as a preemptive measure, before dismissing him. He’d decided the airtight security measures he constantly varied would take care of Brockovich if he ever developed into an actual threat.
“And do you remember forcing me to pledge to fulfill any one demand in return for information leading to Jenan’s whereabouts when she disappeared?”
“You mean when she discovered you were using her?”
Numair sneered. “I hated being indebted to you. So when Rafael told me of your domestic adventures with those suburban doctors, I knew something was wrong. I watched you, looking for an opening to do something big enough, preemptively, to fulfill my obligation to you. And I discovered you’ve converged massive security on those people, for no apparent reason...and neglected your own.”
Richard frowned. Numair was right. His personal team did nothing without constantly updated orders. The ones he’d forgotten to give them...for weeks now. Not that this should matter. His personal security was a matter of paranoia on his side, not an actual necessity.
Numair went on. “I know you’re probably one of the most unassailable men on earth, but I had a bad feeling about this. Knowing you’re at your headquarters early on Saturdays, I decided to confront you. I caught up with you as you left the building—just in time to see Brockovich pull a gun on you. The Cobra I know would have sensed him a mile away. Wouldn’t have let him breach that mile in the first place. You didn’t even notice him as he passed you. He turned to shoot you and I was on top of him, diverting the bullet and knocking him out. You were gone by then without noticing a thing. I put him someplace where he won
’t cause anyone trouble again, but I got this—” he held up a bandaged forearm “—from a ricocheting piece of pavement. And I had to lie to Jenan about it.”
Richard could only stare at him.
“You didn’t hear the silenced gunshot or notice the commotion behind you in an almost empty street.”
Richard shook his head, dazed. “You saved my life.”
Numair gave a curt nod. “And since you saved mine when you reconnected me with Jenan, this repays my debt.”
Unable to stand anymore, Richard sagged on the nearest horizontal surface, dropping his head in his hands.
Numair came down beside him. “What the hell is going on with you, Cobra?”
He slanted him a glance without raising the head that felt as if it weighed half a ton. “Don’t tell me you care.”
“To borrow what you said—when you helped me resolve Zafrana’s debts, saving Jenan’s kingdom and its king, her father—if I didn’t, I wouldn’t have intervened on your behalf.”
“You didn’t do it for me. You were just discharging your debt. You’re terminally honorable that way.”
“That notwithstanding, and though I might have seriously considered killing you before, I wouldn’t want your life to end at the hands of such a worthless scumbag.”
“You think I deserve a more significant end, eh?”
“Definitely a spectacular one.” Numair’s expression suddenly grew thunderous. “Will you tell me what the hell is wrong with you? Are you...sick?”
Richard’s breath left him in a mirthless huff. “You can say that.” Before Numair could probe, Richard sat forward, deciding to end this meeting. “Thanks for bringing this to my attention. And for saving my life. I’m in your debt now. You know the drill. You can ask for anything and it’s yours.”
“Again, to echo what you said to me before, I’ll collect right now. Answer my questions.”
“Why? Really, Phantom, what do you care?”
“Let’s say now I’ve found this hugely undeserved bliss with Jenan, and you do have a hand in it, I can no longer hang on to my hatred of you. I don’t want to. I want to wipe the slate clean, don’t want to let old animosities taint the new life where our child will be born. Especially since you turned out to be human after all, apparently wanting a woman so much you’ve been putting up with her family and friends for weeks on end. Not to mention slipping up like mortals do. So just tell me the truth, dammit.”
Richard had long thought it pointless to tell Numair why he’d betrayed him, causing him to be punished within an inch of his life for two months straight. But he wanted to stop hiding from him, as he’d stopped hiding from Rose, and from himself. He needed to resolve the issues between them, once and for all.
So he told him the truth. About everything.
To say Numair was stunned would be an understatement.
Suddenly heaving up, Numair dragged him with him by his lapels, his teeth bared, his shout like thunder. “All these years...you crazy bastard...you let me think you betrayed me, made us live as enemies...all these years.”
This wasn’t among the possible reactions he’d expected. Numair was enraged...but not as he’d thought he would be.
Richard swallowed the thorns that had sprouted in his throat. “I did betray you. I almost had you maimed. I did get you scarred. And it didn’t matter why I did.”
Shock expanding in his eyes, Numair shook him, hard. “Are you mad? Nothing else mattered. You had no other choice. Your family had to come first. You did the only thing to be done, sacrificing the one who could take the punishment for those who couldn’t. I’m only damned sorry it didn’t save your family. I would have taken far more damage if it had ultimately spared their lives.”
Richard tore himself from Numair’s furious grip, sagged again to escape the contact, the crashing guilt, the crushing futility. Numair’s hands descended heavily on his shoulders.
“Look at me.” He did, letting Numair see the upheaval filling his eyes. Numair winced. “I went mad all these years, hated you as fiercely as I once loved you for never giving me an explanation, not for the betrayal itself. You were the first person who ever gave me a reason to cling to my humanity, the one I looked up to, the one who gave me hope there’d one day be more for me than being The Organization’s slave. Because there was more with you, a friendship that I thought would last as long as we both lived. I hated you, not because I got scarred, but because I thought you took all that, my belief in you, in our bond, the strength and stability it brought me, away from me.”
Moved beyond words, Richard stared up at Numair, the stinging behind his eyes blurring his vision.
Numair sat, fervor replacing the fury on his face. “But I have my friend back now. And you have me, too. It’s twenty-six freaking years too late, but better late than never. You damn self-sacrificing jackass.”
Richard coughed. “That was no self-sacrifice. I just believed there was no forgiving my crimes. I only hoped you’d consider, after all I did over the past ten years, that I atoned for them, at least in part. But you’re as unforgiving as your homeland’s camels.”
Numair arched a teasing eyebrow. “What, pray tell, did you do to atone? It was I who deigned to put my hand in that of my betrayer to build Black Castle Enterprises for us all.”
“You deigned nothing. You couldn’t do it without me.”
Numair’s face opened on a smile Richard hadn’t seen since he’d been fourteen. “No, I couldn’t. And I now believe what Rafael kept telling us all these years. That my escape plan wouldn’t have worked, certainly not as perfectly as it had, without your help.” Suddenly a realization dawned in Numair’s eyes. “You waited until we were all out before you left, too, didn’t you?”
Letting him read his answer in his eyes, Richard attempted a smile. “We didn’t do too shabbily for sworn enemies, did we?”
Numair clapped him zealously on the back, imitating his accent. “We did splendidly, old chap.”
The knife embedded in his chest only twisted at Numair’s lightheartedness. “At least, you did. You’re there for the woman you love every moment she needs you, to love and protect her. You’ll share with her every up and down of childbirth and child rearing. You’ll never leave her to face a merciless world alone, like I did with Isabella.”
Numair frowned again. “You had reasons for your actions, and she understands them like I do now. The fact that she let you in your son’s life attests to that.”
“She may understand, even forgive, but she’ll never forget, not what I did in the past, or what I did when I first invaded her life again. She’ll never love me again.”
Numair grabbed his shoulder, turning him fully to him. “When has never been a word in your vocabulary? You keep after something until it happens. So you lost seven years of your son’s life...”
Unable to bear Numair’s placation, he tore his hand off, stepping away from him. “I didn’t lose them, I threw them away. When I didn’t give her the benefit of the doubt, didn’t trust my heart about her, when I left her in the hands of the monster who’d destroyed my family. I almost cost her, and Rico, their lives...”
“Stop it, Richard,” Numair roared, bringing his tirade to an abrupt end. He’d never called him Richard before. “You won’t serve them by wallowing in guilt. From now on, you’ll live to make it up to her, and to your son. From what Rafael tells me, the boy worships you. And she’s trusting you to be around him. This says a lot about her opinion of you as you are now, and of your efforts to atone. Keep at it, prove to her how much you love her and your son. When she realizes the best thing for her is to open her heart to you again, she will. Hang in there. When she bestows her love and trust on you again, nothing will ever touch that blessing. I know.”
Richard only nodded so Numair would let this go. He couldn’t bear one more word on the subject.
Satisfied that he’d talked him down, Numair let Richard divert their conversation to their own shattered relationship. Numair did mo
re than wipe the slate clean. He pushed a restart button where they’d left off as teenagers.
Numair finally let him go two hours later, and only one thing he’d said looped in his mind until it almost pulped it.
When she realizes the best thing for her is to open her heart to you again, she will.
What Numair thought would bolster his hope for a future with Isabella had only pulverized it, since she undoubtedly realized the best thing for her would be to never open her heart to him again, to stay as far away from him as possible.
* * *
When he finally worked up enough nerve to go back to Isabella’s home, it was she who let him in. She’d sent Mauri out with Rose’s family and stayed behind to talk to him.
With foreboding descending on him like a suffocating shroud, he followed her into the living room.
Once they sat, the voice he now lived to hear washed over him, a tremor traversing it.
“I overheard you and Mauri...and Rico...earlier today.”
So she’d heard their son’s desire to be called Rico again. And his demand for Richard to admit that he was his father.
Would she forbid him to do so, revoke his privilege to come to her home and spend time with Rico? Would she cast him out?
Isabella’s hushed words doused his panic. “If you need my blessing to tell Rico the truth, you have it, Richard. I will accommodate your every desire to be with him.”
The delight that detonated within him almost blanked out the world.
She wasn’t casting him out but letting him further in. As Numair had said, she’d grown to trust him with Rico, was giving him the ultimate privilege of claiming his son.
But...was she telling him that was the extent of their relationship? He’d only be Rico’s father, but...nothing to her?
In the past he’d been worse than nothing, her bane, steeping everything between them in deceit and manipulation, then in lust and degradation. If he’d intentionally set out to destroy her feelings for him, he couldn’t have done a more complete job. If she wanted something real and lasting with a man, she’d look for it anywhere else but with him. She deserved the real thing. The best there was. And he wasn’t it. He had sinned against her beyond forgiveness, was tainted beyond retrieval.
