An Heir to Bind Them (7 page)

Jaya gasped, so caught by surprise she almost dropped the boy.

Theo had no choice but to catch him one-handed, guiding the boy into a safe landing against his chest. The tot flipped and slid into his lap like an otter down a log.

Distant base instincts cautioned him about the tiny feet kicking near his jewels, but a stronger, less easy to define reaction took over. He was shaken by the natural way Zephyr relaxed into him. It was passive aggression at its best, clashing into his protective inner walls with unseen yet gong-like reverberations. He’d been avoiding touching the boy, thinking he’d decide later whether he’d take an active part in the boy’s life, after he’d figured out what to make of the situation and how many options he had.

He didn’t want this puppy warmth sitting in his center, thawing the tight frozen pillars he used to brace himself against the world.

But when he looked up at Jaya, thinking to ask her to take him, her expression was so vulnerable, so fearful of rejection on the boy’s behalf, he couldn’t do that to her. Hell, he couldn’t do it to a child. To his
son.

This situation was the most perplexing, dumbfounding circumstance of his life, but these little creatures were incredibly defenseless. Like her, he couldn’t understand how anyone could hurt a child. He certainly couldn’t do it himself.

Which didn’t make him father material, he reminded himself, ignoring the clenched sensation around his heart. Kids needed a lot more than the basics of food and shelter and a soft place to sit. Nascent things like love were beyond him so she was setting him up for failure with Zephyr. That was not something he could easily forgive, but he couldn’t hurt the boy out of anger with her.

Aware of Jaya standing over him, arms hugged across her middle, he refused to look up to see how she reacted to his playing human recliner.

“There was a farm up the road from my mother’s house in Chatham,” he said, trying for dismissive when he could hear the rattled edge in his tone. “I saw a sow there once, knocked over by her own piglets because they wanted to nurse. Now I know how she felt.” He wasn’t doing this because he wanted to, he implied. He had no choice.

He began to read aloud, silently willing her to go away. It was one thing to have his emotions hanging by a thread while children listened to him struggle through a story. They wouldn’t know the difference, but Jaya was perceptive. He hated knowing she could tell how confused and defenseless this made him.

After a few seconds, she drew a hitched breath.

“Do you know if Androu has a bottle before bed? I’m going to make one for Zeph.” Her voice was blessedly lacking in inflection.

“Text Adara and ask.”

“Okay, but—” She started across to her phone. “What have you told her? Does she know I’m here?”

“I told Gideon I’d recruited you, but that was when we first got here. They don’t know about...” He looked down at the dark head turning against his breastbone, more interested in the older babies and chewing his fist than the picture book.

Jaya didn’t answer. He thought she was texting until he heard the familiar shutter-click of the camera app. He glanced up in dismay.

She shrugged. “This might never happen again.” Her trim figure, encased in three-quarter length jeans and a lime-green shirt, disappeared toward the kitchenette.

He drew in a breath that burned his lungs, suddenly wondering whether he had any choice when it came to involvement in his son’s life. Jaya might have made up her mind that
this might never happen again.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“I
CAN
HONESTLY
say this has been the most grueling day of my life,” Theo said, flopping onto the sofa when he and Jaya came back to the lounge after settling all the babies.

“Try nineteen hours of labor,” she chirped, picking up toys rather than sitting.

Guilt assailed him. He’d put his sister’s pregnancy ahead of Jaya’s. Unknowingly, sure, but at the time he’d convinced himself he was putting both women’s best interests ahead of his own. Somehow he didn’t think saying so would be an easy sell to the woman who’d struggled through childbirth alone.

“Was it bad?” he asked, bracing inwardly while leaning to gather the toys within reach.

“It wasn’t a picnic, but it was fairly typical. He was worth it.”

“That’s what my sister says. I don’t know how women do it.” He searched her expression, awed that she wasn’t berating him.

“You just do. There’s no time to figure out how.” Clenching a stuffed panda between her tense brown hands, she said, “Kind of like the way I sprang him on you. There wasn’t any opportunity to prepare you, but you still seem furious so let’s have it. Don’t keep giving me the robot mode of being terribly polite. If you want to yell, yell. Except, don’t wake the babies, but—” She sighed sharply. “I know you feel lied to, but I swear I didn’t do it for money or to take advantage of you.”

His heart turned over in his chest. He wished he could dismiss her as conniving. It would be so much easier to keep his own emotions out of it if she had none, but one of her main attractions for him beyond the physical had always been her earnest sincerity.

“I believe that money was the last thing on your mind.”

Her smile of relief made him wish they could leave it there, but she needed to fully comprehend the rest. Leaning his elbows on his knees, he rubbed his face, trying to erase any sign of the turmoil still blowing like a hurricane inside him.

“But whether you want money or not, it’s the only thing you’ll ever get from me.”

Her lips slacked in surprise, then pursed. Her brows drew together and she shifted her gaze to the darkened windows. “I don’t want any.”

“No, you want me to be a father, I can tell. But Jaya, that stuff I told you earlier about my lousy childhood. That’s why I never wanted to be one.” He looked past her knees, jaw clenching, seeing nothing but a blur of his past. “It’s not just fear that I’ll turn out like the old man and raise my hand—”

“You wouldn’t,” she said.

He lifted his gaze to focus on her face, trying to read her meaning. Was it a challenging,
You wouldn’t dare?
Or an expression of confidence in him?

He mentally stepped away from trying to decipher her words, disturbed by how badly he wanted her to believe in him when he didn’t know if he could believe in himself.

“I’d like to think I wouldn’t, but if my life fell apart the way my dad’s did and I tried to cope by drinking...” He rubbed the hard tension from his jaw, needing her to understand that whether she wanted something from him or not, there was nothing here. “Beyond that, though, is the lack of substance in me. I told you what kind of man I was that night in Bali. I’d make a terrible father. I don’t make strong connections, ever. Kids need something better than what I’m capable of offering.”

It was the hard truth, but he still searched her expression, wanting her to argue.

“Aren’t you underestimating yourself?” Hope wound through her question like a strand of gold, catching at him, filling him with bittersweet satisfaction at how predictable she was. He wished he could live up to her view of him, he really did.

He shook his head. “The closest connection I have is with my sister and we don’t talk about personal things.” Well, he didn’t. Adara had opened up about her marriage when it had almost fallen apart, but he’d only had to listen and stand by her. No reciprocation required.

“What about your brother? You said you talked to Adara about Nic that night we—I mean in Bali.”

Inexplicably, he found himself rising, finding himself verging on retreat because her question stood on his toes and leaned into his space, but he couldn’t walk out. He owed her some kind of explanation.

He tried to pace off his discomfort. “Adara talked, I listened. Since then I’ve told you more about how that has impacted me than I’ve ever admitted to anyone else.”

“Really?” She cocked her head in surprise.

“This is what I’m saying, Jaya. I don’t connect on a meaningful level. To be honest, I wish I
could
take a page from Nic’s book. He grew up isolated and neglected and he’s made a really good life for himself. A nice family with Ro and Evie. So has Adara with Gideon. I look at the way they dote on their kids and I’m envious, but I don’t even know what words describe those things they demonstrate so how could I become like they are?”

She pressed her drawn lips together and swallowed like she was fighting back deep feelings. Her unblinking eyes glittered before she dropped her lashes to hide them.

“Not every man falls in love at first sight with his child,” she allowed in a voice that made his heart shrivel. “It’s different for a woman, especially when she carries the baby for nine months. The attachment is there from the minute she holds the baby.”

“What if the attachment never arrives?” His worst nightmare was producing that same feeling of being unwanted and unloved that he’d grown up with. “What would that do to Zephyr if he expects it and it isn’t there? Don’t bother trying to answer that because I know how it feels. I thought I had an attachment to my father and he wound up attacking me with his belt.”

She flinched like he’d struck her and he wanted to kick himself.

“I shouldn’t talk to you about it.” He paced away across the room. This was why he didn’t talk about his personal life. “It upsets you to hear it and it doesn’t do a damned thing to resolve it for me, but that’s what I’m trying to get across. He broke that part of me. I don’t know how to be what a child would need. I only know what not to be.”

“That’s a start.”

“A very pitiful one. Zephyr deserves better. Be the mother I know you are and admit that. You wouldn’t settle for anything less than the best for him.”

She didn’t say anything, only pressed her knuckles to her mouth and kept her head bent. She might even have nodded.

That hurt. It hurt so bad he couldn’t breathe, even though—maybe especially because—it was the honesty he’d demanded.

“So let’s talk about money,” he said.

Her gaze came up, dagger sharp with disbelief. “I was dead serious when I said the last thing I’d ever do is use him to extort anything from you.”

“That doesn’t mean you’ll never struggle. He’s the only progeny I’ll have.” He certainly wouldn’t take any woman’s word and play roulette with his sperm again. He should look into a vasectomy, he supposed, filing that thought for later because right now he couldn’t imagine sleeping with anyone but the woman in this room.

Weird how he could be having this incredibly uncomfortable conversation and still be aroused by the way her breasts moved in the confines of her bra or her pants clung to her backside as she bent.

Forcing himself to set down thoughts too hot to entertain, he said, “Whether you want it or not, I’ll set up a portfolio for both of you. You might as well have a say in it.”

“Oh, Theo! I was going to leave Zephyr with Quentin tonight.” She sprang into action again, tossing soft bears and cloth books into a box that groceries had been delivered in. “Then I saw how much poor Evie and Androu were missing their mamas and I couldn’t deprive Zephyr of a night with his own. And I was mad at you! I was mad that you ignored my calls because I never wanted your stupid money or a relationship or anything for
me.
I only wanted to be decent and let you know you have a son. And now what are you doing? Offering me money and trying to pretend your child doesn’t exist.”

“I didn’t say that,” he growled, pushing angry fists into his pockets, slouching as he turned his back on her. “That’s not what I said.”

“Then take part in his life!”

“How? I’ve just explained that I don’t want to hurt him, physically or mentally, but I very likely would!”

“But that’s it, that’s the vital piece you think you don’t have. You already care about him. Don’t you? A little?”
Don’t beg,
she warned herself. He might be right. It might be better to buffer Zephyr against indifference if that’s all Theo was capable of.

She really didn’t want to believe that, though. She didn’t want her son growing up feeling as she had, dismissed and unimportant. For heaven’s sake, didn’t he realize what a gift she’d given him? A
son.
That was supposed to elevate
her
value in his eyes.

Congratulations, Jaya.
Modern women raise their children alone and
nobody
regards her as special. The clash of cultural mores made her furious.

“Don’t write Zephyr off without even trying to get to know him. That’s callous. It’s cowardly. You be a better man than that,” she demanded with a point of her finger. “I never would have slept with you if I believed you lacked compassion and the ability to respect someone for their worth.”

“Really.” He spun to confront her, head thrown back in challenge as he stared down his nose at her. “I thought we were using each other for escape that night.”

And he was getting his back up because he thought she’d been after a deeper relationship after all. Maybe, yes, way down she had feelings for him that longed to be requited, but she shook her head vehemently.

“No. I mean yes, I was using you. But I wouldn’t have used a man less decent than you are.”

He barked out a disbelieving laugh. “Nice.”

“That didn’t come out right. I’m saying that I didn’t expect to have sex with you, but it happened because I respect you. And I’m not sorry. I’m happy we made Zephyr. I was resigned to not having children so...” She was saying too much. With a pleat stressing her brow, she clammed her mouth and decided they’d talked enough for one night.

“Really?” He tucked in his chin. “You’re the most natural person I’ve ever seen with kids. Was there something wrong that made you think you couldn’t have any?”

They’d definitely talked enough.

“I told you my career was important to me,” she mumbled, casting about for the last of the toys, but they’d tidied up all of them.

“And you still have a career despite being a single parent. Not always an ideal situation, I’m sure, but I can’t believe you didn’t see before Zephyr that kids and career can coexist. You must have considered it an option. You didn’t say you weren’t
planning
to have kids, but that you resigned yourself not to, like you didn’t think it was possible. Are you okay, Jaya? Because my sister may not have confided all the trauma of her miscarriages, but I’m aware there can be complications with any pregnancy. It makes me a real bastard for not protecting you that night if I put your life at risk.”

“Have you listened at all? I was textbook normal. I’m made to have babies and I’m not sorry I had him. Not one bit. That’s all I meant. Now we should get some rest. Even if they sleep through the night—which they won’t—they’ll be up early.” She tried to scoot past him.

He caught her arm.

She caught her breath.

Silly, silly Jaya. Still flushing like a preteen at this man’s touch. Shyness kept her face averted. She didn’t want him to see how much he still affected her.

His thumb brushed her bare skin, hot palm leaving an imprint of his firm but gentle grip.
Those hands.
Knowledge burned in a trail from the light caress of his thumb to the pit of her stomach and lower, flooding her inner thighs with tingling warmth. Her face stung with the pressure of a hard blush.

He cleared his throat and pulled his touch away like he felt the scald. When he spoke, he didn’t pursue the other topic, but floored her with something else.

“When I asked if there was someone in your life, I meant a man. Is Zephyr it, or is there someone else I should be worried about?”

“Would you be?” she asked, snapping her head up then regretting it. He must be able to read the flush of awareness savaging her, but he looked his old, contained self.

“This is complicated enough without navigating some other man’s sense of claim.” So aloof. So hands-off. She was back in Bali, heart tattooing her breastbone like a moth against a window, trying to reach the light.

She looked away and rubbed the feel of his touch from her arm. “No, there’s not. What about you?” The question escaped as the horrifying thought occurred.

“Are you kidding? No.”

“Still playing concierge for the Lonely Hearts Club?” she sniped, annoyed.

“Open to new members. Always.”

Ouch.
She set her jaw, trying not to let his flippancy bother her. He was only trying to prove his shallowness. Maybe he is that shallow, Jaya.
There’s not a woman in the world with enough training to fix me. Don’t try.

She needed to believe he was better than what he was pretending though, she needed it like oxygen. It was how she had let down her guard with him that night. Yes, his rakish ability to give her pleasure had made the memories he’d given her particularly delicious, but her trust in him had been the groundwork. She had believed him to be a good, honorable man, which had allowed her to put herself in his care.

“Don’t be less than you are, Theo.”

“Don’t imagine I’m more.”

“I’m only expecting you to be you, the man who saw potential in me and gave me a chance to develop it. You’re fair. You’re kind. Sometimes you’re funny. This isn’t a test. You don’t have to pass it right now. We have a few days. Apparently,” she added with a jerky shrug. “Can’t we use this time to figure out how to proceed? Do we have to spit out a settlement contract this evening so you can run out the door tomorrow? Maybe the reason you don’t have close relationships is because you don’t stick around to nurture them.”

He rocked back on his heels. “Touché.”

“Was that harsh?” she asked, not as repentant as she could have been.