The Baby the Billionaire Demands Page 9

  Their eyes locked. “You’re my family?”

  “I want to be,” he said quietly, then shook his head. “Obviously I’m not very good at it. But I’ve never had one before.”

  “What are you talking about? You had parents. You were rich. You inherited a fortune—”

  A flash of emotion crossed his hard, handsome face, but was quickly veiled. “Being wealthy isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.”

  Rodrigo had been hurt, too, she realized. Somehow, in his childhood, he’d been hurt. Her arms tightened protectively around him in turn.

  “We have to look out for each other,” she said. “Watch each other’s backs. Just like we used to, when we worked together. Do you remember?”

  “You and me against the world?” She nodded, and his dark eyes flickered. “Remember what you said the first day you came to work for me?”

  A whisper of a smile traced her lips. “I said you were a disaster and you’d hired me just in the nick of time.”

  “It was true. Since you left, my company hasn’t done nearly as well. Neither have I.”

  “You have Marnie,” she said, striving to keep the bitterness from her voice.

  He shook his head. “She’s had to hire two extra assistants just to keep up with what you did on your own. She’s loyal and tries hard, but she doesn’t have your skill. People still ask for you. You always remembered everything.” Looking down at her, he said softly, “I miss you. I achieved more with you at my side.”

  “I’m back at your side now.”

  “You’re right,” he said slowly. He took a deep breath, then said humbly, “I have a business trip next week to Madrid. Would you come with me? You and Jett?”

  Lola put down her arms, looking uncertain. “Madrid?”

  Rodrigo tried to look modest. “I’m getting the award for CEO of the Year from the International Studio Guild.”

  It was an incredibly prestigious award. She sucked in her breath in delight. “You are?”

  Reaching out, he tucked a tendril of blond hair behind her ear. “You’re a big reason for it.”

  She tried not to tremble at his touch. “Me?”

  Rodrigo gave a nod. “You helped me organize and acquire a television network that now stretches around the Pacific Rim, from Tierra del Fuego to Alaska to Manila. You’re the one who convinced me to produce a film no one else wanted, which cost almost nothing to make but has now made almost half a billion dollars worldwide.”

  Her eyes were big. “The Sapphire Sea?”

  “Turns out that romance is back in style.”

  Her lips lifted. “Who knew?”

  “So will you be my date?”

  Lola paused. “Sure.”

  “Good,” he said quietly. Hearing a loud, noisy yawn, he looked at their baby in his baby play gym. Then he looked back at Lola, and they both laughed.

  “It’s time for his nap,” she said.

  “Let me do it.”

  She hesitated, then nodded. Reaching down, he lifted the baby gently into his powerful arms.

  “You missed your papá this week, didn’t you, pequeñito?” he said tenderly, looking down at Jett.

  Seeing the two of them together, the tiny baby held against Rodrigo’s powerful chest, caused Lola’s heart to twist. She quickly turned away before he could see new tears in her eyes. Really, all this crying was getting out of hand. What was wrong with her? Had she gone completely soft?

  “Here’s his blanket,” she said, pulling it from her nearby diaper bag. “There’s a bottle already in the fridge. I usually rock him to sleep—”

  “We’ll be fine,” he said, still smiling down at the baby. But as he carried Jett toward the hallway, he stopped and looked back at her in the beach house’s great room. “And, Lola?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you for trusting me.” For a moment, his dark eyes glowed at her, tender and warm, then he turned back to the baby in his arms, and disappeared down the hall.

  Standing in the shadows, Lola stood still. She felt her heart thudding painfully in her chest. Her cheeks were hot. She felt vulnerable, exposed. She’d never shared the story of her past before, with anyone. But then, Rodrigo wasn’t just anyone. Not anymore.

  Then, slowly, a smile lifted to her face.

  They were a family.

  * * *

  A week later, Rodrigo smiled at his wife in the back seat of the Rolls-Royce as their Spanish chauffeur and bodyguard drove them through the streets of Madrid.

  Her beautiful face lit up with pleasure as she pointed out the sights to their baby in the car seat between them, while their chauffeur drove them down the wide Calle de Alcalá. Lola had always loved Madrid when she’d come here as his assistant. Now, as he looked at her joyful face, everything felt new. For both of them.

  He’d been wrong about so much. When he thought of the way he’d tossed her out of his life so ruthlessly last year, he felt almost ashamed. He should have asked Lola for an explanation, rather than just believing the worst of Marnie’s report.

  Trust didn’t come easy for him, it was true. Mostly because every single time he’d trusted someone, they’d betrayed him.

  But this was different. He’d known Lola for years. He should have given her the benefit of the doubt.

  He’d make it up to her, Rodrigo told himself now. He’d watch out for her and give her the life she deserved. The life they both deserved.

  A shudder went through him at the memory of the pleasures they’d shared over the past week. Their relationship had only intensified after Lola—tough, fearless Lola—had cried in his arms.

  From that moment, all he’d known was that he had to protect her. She was a part of him now, and he never wanted to let her go.

  He’d had her story checked out, of course. Trust, but verify. It was the best he could do. Women had lied to him too often, and though he’d believed her, he’d needed proof. There was knowing, and knowing.

  But if anything, his investigator had told him, she’d downplayed the poverty and tragedy of her childhood. She’d left out the fact that her stepfather had gone to prison, then died there a few years later. She’d left out the fact that the illness of her mother could have been cured, if only she’d had money and time to see a specialist earlier.

  And while the investigator was at it, Rodrigo had had him check to see if Lola had had contact with any other men, especially Sergei Morozov. She hadn’t.

  Rodrigo could trust her. Really trust her.

  It was a shock to his system. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d really trusted anyone.

  But it had turned out, though his wife had grown up in poverty in the California desert, and Rodrigo had grown up in luxury in Madrid, they weren’t so different after all. They’d both been hurt.

  But never again.

  Rodrigo’s eyes caressed his wife’s beautiful face as she happily pointed out sights to their baby through the streets of Madrid.

  They were a family.

  The Rolls-Royce pulled to the curb in front of an elegant nineteenth-century building in the exclusive Salamanca district, on a wide, tree-lined avenue overlooking the vast green expanse of the Parque del Buen Retiro. As the driver opened the passenger door, Lola unbuckled their baby from the car seat. Getting out of the vehicle, she looked up in awe.

  “It’s actually finished?” she breathed.

  “Sí. Finally.” For most of his adult life, he’d avoided this building, preferring to stay at a luxury hotel like the Campania Madrid, rather than face his childhood home. It was Lola who’d convinced him, two years before, to remodel the place and make it his own. She’d been aghast at the thought that he’d allowed a nineteenth-century penthouse on the Calle de Alcalá, overlooking the famous park, to dilapidate into dust.

  “I can’t wait to finally see inside,”
Lola said now, her eyes sparkling. “You never let me see it before.”

  Rodrigo looked up at the building as memories floated back to him of his childhood. He’d been lonely here, with his parents often gone. And when they were home, the house was filled with their screaming fights, slamming doors, his mother’s taunts, his father’s broken bottles smashed against the walls and the sour smell of expensive, wasted wine.

  “Rodrigo? Is something wrong?”

  Coming back to himself, he shook his head. “There wasn’t much to see, after twenty years of neglect. Broken-down walls. Dust.”

  “I can imagine,” she said quietly, looking at him.

  A twinge went through him at the sympathy of her gaze. It was too close to pity, which implied weakness.

  Lola reached for his hand, her eyes glowing and warm. “But everything is different now.”

  For a moment, Rodrigo was lost in her eyes. Then he pulled his hand away.

  “Yes.” He turned on the Madrid sidewalk. “Come see.”

  As the chauffeur and bodyguard lingered outside, getting their bags from the car, Rodrigo led her into the lobby. Hiding a smile, he turned to see her reaction.

  Holding their baby, Lola looked with awe at the grandeur of the seven-story atrium, with the large oval staircase climbing all the way up, around each floor. Her steps slowed, then stopped, as she tilted her head back to look up at the stained-glass cupola crowning the top ceiling, beaming warm patterns of colored light against the marble floor.

  “Wow,” she breathed. “You paid for the lobby to be remodeled, as well?”

  “I bought the whole building. I remodeled all the other apartments and sold them at a fat profit.”

  She glanced at him sideways. “Nice.”

  “This way.”

  Rodrigo led her to the new large elevator that had replaced the rickety birdcage elevator he remembered as a child. His nanny had often taken him to play in Retiro Park, when his parents’ screaming became too loud. But usually the screaming was still going on when they returned, even hours later. They could always hear it before they even reached the top floor. So his nanny, looking stressed and sorry for him, would invent games allowing them to linger in the elevator.

  Now, the gleaming silver door slid open silently, and they rode it to the top floor. There, they had a view of the entire atrium, stretching seven stories below. At the penthouse door, Rodrigo paused for a moment. He realized he was listening. But the apartment was silent now. No one was screaming or smashing glass.

  His proud, aristocratic Spanish father—or at least, the man he’d believed to be his father—had been wealthy from birth, and bought a small Spanish movie studio, which was where he’d met Rodrigo’s mother, a spoiled, much younger American actress. He’d loved her—been obsessed with her—but she’d never loved him, only his money. She’d enjoyed taunting him with her affairs. His father’s rage had finally gotten the better of him, and he’d died of a stroke when Rodrigo was twenty-one. His mother had died a few years later, from a bad reaction to anesthesia during plastic surgery.

  He’d never met the chauffeur who had supposedly sired him. The man had died when Rodrigo was just a child.

  So many lies. So much deceit and rage. Rodrigo took a deep breath, closing his eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” Lola said cheerfully, coming up to the door. “Did you lose the key?”

  He looked back at her. Jett’s childhood would be so different. He was beginning to trust his wife as no one else. They had the same goals. They respected each other. And there was no messy emotion like love or jealousy to cloud anyone’s judgment.

  But he knew he’d never tell her about his childhood. There was no point. He wanted neither her sympathy nor her inevitable attempt at psychological analysis. There were some things a man dealt with better on his own.

  And his past was in the past. Over. Forgotten.

  “Don’t worry.” Reaching into his pocket, he held up the key. “I have it.”

  Pushing open the door to the penthouse apartment, he let Lola enter first, with the baby. As she passed him, Rodrigo’s gaze traced hungrily over the lush curves of his wife’s body.

  Her eyes were wide as she looked around the elegant, minimalist apartment with its large windows and view of the park and much of Madrid, beneath the Spanish sky. “This was your childhood home?”

  He remembered the screaming, the expensive clutter, the broken glass. “It didn’t always look like this.”

  “But still.” The edges of her lips lifted as she turned back to him. “You should have seen the place I grew up.”

  “A trailer,” he said. “On the edge of the California desert.”

  Lola’s hazel eyes went wide. Her beautiful face turned pale as she breathed, “How do you know that?”

  He came closer. “I had to find out what was true.”

  “You had me investigated?” He heard cold anger beneath her voice. He shrugged.

  “I had to know if I could trust you.”

  “And now?”

  Reaching out, he pulled her into his arms.

  “Now I do,” he whispered, and he lowered his mouth ruthlessly to hers.

  CHAPTER SIX

  SINCE THEY WERE in Madrid the day before the awards ceremony, Rodrigo decided to visit the set of his company’s new prestige film, a historical drama-romance of the Spanish Civil War currently being shot near the Plaza de Canalejas.

  But even there, as he discussed the production’s progress with the film’s director, his eyes rarely strayed from his wife.

  He couldn’t look away from her. The way her beautiful face lit up as she chatted with the cast and crew. The warmth of her hazel eyes. The joy of her smile.

  Lola was more beautiful than the star of any movie, he thought. Her long, highlighted hair swayed over her shoulders, caressing the tops of her breasts. She was dressed modestly, in her black coat and jeans that showed off her shape. As she pushed the baby stroller, she seemed utterly unaware of the fact that wherever she went, Rodrigo’s eyes followed her.

  Every other man’s, too.

  As she walked, her curvy body moved so gracefully and sensually, she seemed to be dancing to unheard music. Rodrigo frowned when he saw her speaking earnestly to the star of the film, a famous Spanish actress whom Rodrigo had once known well. Very well.

  Ten years before, when Rodrigo was just twenty-seven—in the first flush of success, having expanded the derelict Madrid studio he’d inherited from his father to twenty employees, including Marnie McAdam—he’d been briefly engaged to Pia Ramirez.

  He’d fallen in love with Pia before they’d even met, while watching her onscreen, where she’d played a poignant heroine who sacrificed everything for love before she died, nobly and beautifully, at the end of the film. Five years older than Rodrigo, she’d seemed equally lovestruck after their first date. Within two weeks, he’d proposed marriage, and she’d accepted.

  A month later, he’d been anonymously sent photos of Pia naked in bed with a man he didn’t recognize. Young and naive as he’d been then, it had nearly killed him.

  Little had Rodrigo known that this pattern would be repeated twice more, with two other women. A quick engagement, followed by an equally swift betrayal. With photographs.

  But a few months earlier, when the director had wanted to hire Pia for this film, Rodrigo hadn’t tried to stop him. Pia was talented and, at forty-two, still a major draw at the international box office. His other two ex-fiancées also still worked in the movie industry, and he’d never tried to hurt their careers. If you blacklisted everyone who betrayed you in Hollywood, you’d have no one left to work with.

  But now, as the director continued to talk anxiously about the film’s dailies and bloating budget, Rodrigo barely listened. His eyes kept falling on his wife talking to his former fiancée. He wondered what the two women could
be talking about so intently. Him? No, surely not. Why would they?

  Rodrigo’s gaze dropped to Lola’s backside, her hips. The gentle curve of her waist. She drew him like honey. He could hardly wait to take her home and—

  He watched Lola take her phone out of her coat pocket. Looking down at it, she read something and smiled. A warm, intimate smile. As if she had a wicked secret. Still smiling, she tucked the phone back in her pocket.

  What message could make her smile like that?

  Who had sent it?

  A memory of her voice came back to him. If you’re just going to ignore me, I’m taking Jett back to New York. To be with friends.

  Friends? A trickle of ice went down his spine. Friends like Sergei Morozov?

  Why would the man propose if he’s never even slept with you? His question echoed in his memory, along with her answer.

  Because he thinks it’s the only way he can have me.

  It’s nothing, Rodrigo told himself firmly. She hasn’t been in contact with Morozov. I know she hasn’t.

  So why did he feel so suddenly on edge?

  He interrupted the director in the middle of the man’s sentence. “Excuse me.”

  “Of course.” The director looked shocked, as if no one had dared to be rude to him for a long time. Leaving without a glance, Rodrigo strode past the side lights and cameras to the edge of the set.

  “Hello,” he said shortly to Pia Ramirez, who had been married to another man for eight years now. They had three children, none of whom he’d met, but he knew about them, in the way that everyone knew everything in the insular world of television and film production.

  The Spanish actress sobered. “Hello.” She smiled at Lola. “I just met your new wife.”

  “I see that.” He looked at Lola. “What have you been talking about?”

  Her lovely face was blank. “Nothing in particular.”

  But Rodrigo thought Lola had a guilty expression. What was she hiding? He didn’t like it.

  He ground his teeth into a smile. “I’m done here. Shall we go?”

  “Sure.” Her voice was overly casual as she turned to tuck a blanket around their baby in the stroller. “Jett is hungry, anyhow.”