An Heir to Bind Them (14 page)

CHAPTER TWELVE

T
HEO
SAW
THE
hurt Jaya made no effort to disguise and suppressed a flinch of guilt. At the same time, his heart pounded like a pile driver. He and Demitri had their moments, but he’d never been as close to getting physical with his little brother as a few seconds ago. Violence was wrong, but if Demitri had touched Jaya, had scared her...

Such a rush of complex emotions strangled him, his instinct was to turn around and walk out, find somewhere private to pull himself together and come back when he felt in control again.

Maybe if Jaya had been angry and accusing he could have walked away from her. Instead she had that vulnerable look about her, the one that wrenched his heart. Like she was exposing her throat and it was up to him to prove he wouldn’t rip it out.

“Zeph sleeping?” he asked.

“He went down twenty minutes ago.”

His wingman wouldn’t provide a distraction then.

He rubbed his face, trying to push his expression back into stoic when he was still unsettled by what he’d walked into. Amazing how he’d become addicted to entering cheerful disarray where a woman and baby greeted him with smiles, maybe some homey smells, and he had to pick a path across scattered toys, but always found a reward of physical affection at the end.

“Theo?” she prompted.

He squeezed the back of his neck. This was why he’d kept to superficial relationships for so long. One-night lovers asked surface questions with easy answers.

Still, the more time he spent with Jaya and Zeph, the more he craved. He liked hearing her sing in Punjabi to their son, liked the homemade food she cooked, liked the way she drew attention when they were out, pulling it off him as people took in her exotic beauty. She’d always been pretty, but with the professional styling taking her appearance up a notch, he had himself a knockout of a fiancée and couldn’t wait to have her legally tied to him as his wife.

He was surprisingly impatient to lock in that life and now realized what had subconsciously been driving him.

But to admit it all to her?
Hell.

“It’s humiliating,” he said, tossing his key card on a side table and moving into the suite a few steps, then halting in frustration. He could feel her rebuff from here. An invisible wall sat between them, dense as lead and heavy enough to compress his chest.

“When?” she asked in a strained voice. “Since Bali? Because I never heard anything about you getting married while I was working there. I’m sure I would have.”

“It was years before that,” he dismissed

That detail seemed to relieve a fraction of her distress, but she still stared at him, willing him to provide more details.

“My father arranged it,” he forced himself to say.

“Arranged. But you were so disparaging when you thought I was quitting to go to France for an arranged marriage.”

“That’s why.” Everything in him ached for distance and privacy, but a different, unfamiliar compulsion kept him frozen here, longing to close the gap between them. He was learning the only way was to pick his path through the minefield of his past. He hated it, but for her, he did it.

“Did you love her?” The tentative edge in her voice told him how hard that was for her to ask.

“No,” he assured with a disgusted exhale. “She was a socialite, a party girl, the daughter of a well-respected New York businessman who was down on his luck. They wanted the connection to our family, my father wanted an heir...”

“You said you never wanted to be a father!”

“I didn’t,” he said, recalling such heavy dread it had stuck with him until he’d learned how it really was to have his own child. “But I didn’t have a choice.”

“Men always have a choice,” she said with resentment. “They’re never as helpless as women in these situations. She was probably under more pressure to go through with it than you were.”

“No, I don’t believe that.” He never went back over those memories, they made him feel too pathetic, but she forced him to with her accusation. “You’re right that I could have walked away from my inheritance,” he allowed, “but I couldn’t do that to Adara. Not after what happened to us once Nic was gone.”

No one would ever know how close he’d come despite that. He’d forgotten how his sister had been the tipping point for him. He’d been scared for her. If he hadn’t been there to protect her, no one would have been. His unhappiness with a marriage to a woman he didn’t care about had seemed like nothing against Adara’s safety.

Somehow, remembering his motive loosed the old shame off him. Yes, he’d been browbeaten and yes, it had been his choice to allow it. But he’d had a good reason.

“Demitri said he slept with her,” Jaya said.

“He did.” He felt nothing making that admission because the act had become the mortar he used to thicken and heighten the walls he used to protect himself. From then on, he’d held everyone even more firmly at a distance, even his siblings. Why in hell would anyone want to be close to him? He was second best to his outgoing, funny younger brother. Everyone preferred Demitri, given the choice.

Except Jaya. Maybe the seeds of his deep admiration had been born in seeing her deflection of men who came onto her, especially the ones who took for granted they could impress with a grin and a flash of money. She had smiles for everyone, but she reserved her warmest for grandfathers with arthritis or little boys who got off the elevator on the wrong floor.

“Why would he do that? Just to prove he could or...?” She shook her head in bafflement. “To hurt you?”

He drew in a breath that burned. “It wasn’t just once for bragging rights. They had an affair. I don’t know who started it and God knows I won’t make excuses for him, but he was nineteen to her twenty-three. She happily drove to Manhattan and paraded herself through the lobby so all our staff could see them carrying on.”

And his father had berated him, like it was his fault when he’d been half a state away finishing exams.
Such
impossible expectations. He swore if Zephyr never aspired to anything more ambitious than flipping burgers in a fast food shack, he’d make sure the boy knew he was proud of him.

“What did she say when you broke it off?”

Here came the degradation, but it was losing its potency as they talked of this. For too many years, he’d let this make him feel weak. He been strong. Enduring. “I didn’t.”

“Didn’t break it off? But...Why not?”

The easy answer was, “I didn’t have to. Adara convinced our father the publicity was too damaging to go through with it. By then Gideon was on the scene. Her engagement let me off the hook.”

“You would have gone through with it?” She sounded appalled.

He was equally galled with himself, which is why he never revisited this ugly time, but he’d been a different man then. One who merely survived, not one who cared about thriving or his own happiness or anyone else beyond the one person who had always been there for him. Looking back, he barely recognized himself.

The turning point had been Bali, he saw now, and not because of Adara’s call—even though that had been a catalyst. No, he’d begun thawing toward his siblings after that, but he couldn’t have managed it if he hadn’t had that night with Jaya. She’d begun the melt in him with her kind acceptance of his weakness that night. He only recognized now that it was her influence because he’d changed so much since he’d seen her again.

Shaking himself out of the stunning realization, he tried to answer.

“All of my options were terrible. If I’d broken it off, my father would have done anything to hurt me, including going after my mother and Adara.” He’d make a different choice today. He was stronger. Because he had someone else in his corner.

Didn’t he? She was still struggling to understand why he’d kept this from her.

“But not Demitri,” she said. “I can see why you’re so loyal to Adara. She’s always had your back, but I don’t know how you tolerate your brother. Or is that your normal interaction with him? Are you two always hostile?” She nodded toward the door.

“No, we get along. The past is water under the bridge.” He forced himself to open hands that had clenched into fists as he recalled his anger when he’d come in to find Demitri with Jaya, her expression cross and distressed. “I wanted him to know there will never be any forgiveness where you’re concerned.” He leveled a stern glance at her. “You’ll tell me if he crosses any lines. I’m serious about this being a red one.”

“Because he did it once before.” She looked to her linked fingers.

“Because you have entrusted me to keep you safe. I’d die before I’d let you feel threatened by him or anyone.” He’d take on anyone for her, he realized. Not because he approved of violence, but because she was that precious to him.

“Theo.” Her head came up in alarm. “Don’t talk about dying.”

“Hey,” he deflected with a snort. “I hope it doesn’t come to anything drastic like that, but I bring so little to this relationship, Jaya.” The tiny flame in him that he barely acknowledged would never be enough for her. “At least let me give you this much.”

“That’s not true.” Tension distended her neck as she took his remark like a knife to the throat. Could she blame him for not bringing his heart to their marriage though, when his own had been so chronically kicked around? “You bring yourself. Stop thinking that’s not enough.”

The silence was so profound she couldn’t look up. Then, even from across the room, she heard his swallow.

“Is it?” he asked in a ragged voice. “Because you brought Zeph and he’s pretty damned incredible.”

“He is, isn’t he?” she said shamelessly. “But he’s half yours so—” She took a few faltering steps toward him, then hesitated, not sure if he was ready to close the distance. The things he’d shared had been hard for him. She’d had to pull the details like teeth and there wasn’t any anesthetic for things like this.

He met her halfway, his strong hands reaching out to take hers in a gentle grip. Her own clenched convulsively, grasping for something more than his steady strength, even though she knew she should be satisfied with that. It should be enough.

Pressing her trembling lips into a line, she searched his face.

He didn’t like it and looked away, obviously not comfortable with her need for reassurance. She dipped her head, suffering another wave of doubt that he’d ever open his heart to her.

“I’m sorry,” he said gruffly. “I should have told you myself, not left it so you’d find out like that. It was like what happened last night, when Gideon told Androu not to touch the light socket and that just made him more aware of them. I didn’t want to put the idea into your head.”

“That I could have an affair with Demitri? He floated that balloon years ago and I stabbed it with a pen.”

Theo snorted, thumbs stroking over her knuckles. “I don’t know why he has to behave like such an ass.”

“You and Adara hold your lives under tight control. If he turns things upside down he gains the upper hand.”

“Now how did you see that and I never have?” He leaned back to absorb that.

“You’ve spent so many years putting up shields, you can’t always see past them.”

He blinked in surprise, seeming disconcerted. “But you can.”

“Sometimes,” she said warily. “Does that bother you?”

He drew a deep breath. “It’s not comfortable.” His hands tightened on hers and he looked into her eyes, even though he winced as he did it, like it was a kind of torture to let her see inside him. “But...” He swallowed, then, “I trust you, Jaya. I know you’re not going to use anything I tell you to hurt me.”

His grip crushed her hands, but she didn’t think he was aware of it. She squeezed back, feeling they stood on a precipice that, if they took this leap of faith, they could land in new, rich, broad territory.

“I would never want to hurt you. Not ever,” she promised, then held her breath.

Bringing her hand to his mouth, he ran the knuckle of her ring finger along his lips. His breath clouded warmly against her skin as he spoke, making her wrist tingle.

“I think half the reason I still speak to Demitri after what he did is gratitude. Ultimately he got me out of a situation I didn’t want.”

“Really?” This didn’t seem the deep confidence she half expected. “Do you think he did it on purpose?” she asked, wondering if that was digging too deep.

“Hell, no. He’d never show that kind of forethought, but he created the excuse and I was glad. Swear to me you’ll never reveal that to him.”

A giggle escaped her, part relief, part joy that he was confiding in her a little. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

He took a deep breath and looked down on her with something like pride and...affection? His expression had softened into amusement and tenderness. It almost looked like happiness and made her warm all the way to the soles of her feet. He was solemn as he cradled her face and caressed her cheek with the pad of his thumb.

“I can’t wait to marry you.”

“Really?” She wanted to smile, but she was dissolving under his look and couldn’t seem to hold any part of herself steady. “Because I thought it was you at first, when Demitri came in. He made out with that woman right there in front of me and I thought for a horrible second it was you and we were finished. I was devastated,” she admitted.

His mellow smile faded. “I’ll kill him.”

Her turn to set a hand against his smooth cheek, freshly shaved and smelling of something tangy and fresh. “But then I realized it couldn’t be you because you’d never do that to me. I never expected I’d be able to trust a man this much, Theo. I wish I could tell you what a gift you’ve given me with that.” She slid her other hand up his chest and around his neck so her breasts pressed into the hardness of his chest and her damp lips touched his ultra-smooth jaw.

He gathered her in, crushing her close in tight arms and releasing a shuddering breath against her ear.

They sought each other’s mouths, colliding with practiced alignment, parted lips meeting and sealing, plunging her into a dark jungle of sultry heat and velvet sensations. Combing her fingers up the back of his head, she reveled in the short, freshly cut strands, the new haircut, exactly as he’d promised. The thought made her want to smile but he was kissing her too intently.