Paradise: The Masters of The Order Novel Two (35 page)

“No. No. You’ll never lose me, Jacques.”

She rushed toward him and he backed away. Looking at her belly, he dropped into a hell of his own making and said, “I already have.”

She grabbed his biceps and jerked his body hard, making him look into her face. “You’ll be a good father, Jacques,” she insisted with so much faith and trust lighting her features.

The blackness that stained his soul cast a tendril into his mind to remind him who he was. He recoiled from her light. This was more than he could handle.

“Oh, fuck this!” he bellowed and held up his hands in a gesture of utter dismay before storming back into the house.

*****

Isabella batted at her tears.

¡Maldita sea!

Crying wouldn’t accomplish anything and she was mad. Really mad. She’d never felt this kind of emotion toward Jacques, but she had someone else to think about now and he was acting like a jerk.

Un enorme imbécil.

She put her hand over her belly and tried to calm down. Mikalos’s voice reminded her that she wasn’t alone. “Give him time, Isabella.”

“Time to what, divorce me?” she snapped.

“There’s always tomorrow.”

“I struggle with tomorrow.” She dropped into a chair and hung her head. “All any of us have is today. Only today.”

When Mikalos didn’t respond, she glanced at him through a veil of hair.
Uh-oh
. When a Meszaros copped that look, there was no avoiding him.

He cocked his head to one side, appraising her. “Spoken like a true realist. I didn’t take you as such.”

She didn’t really want to have this conversation again, but, oh well. “What do you mean?”

“Jacques said you were a religious woman. Where is your faith?”

“I have faith, but to me, faith is putting your trust in God. What He does with that trust is another matter altogether.”

“So it’s not faith you struggle with.” His look changed from one of appraisal to empathy. “It’s hope.”

“
Otra vez
.”

There was that cursed word again. The suppressed anger welled up from the safe place down deep where she kept it locked away. Her hands balled into fists as it rumbled through her. Enough with the platitudes, she’d heard them all before. Someone was going to hear her perspective on the demon Hope and that someone better be as strong as everyone said he was because this wasn’t going to be pretty.

She turned cynical, unmasked eyes on Mikalos and sneered, “Why does everyone keep yammering on and on about hope like it’s a good thing? Hope is a curse. Hope is doom. Hope is a lie. Don’t you dare tell me to have hope.” She could hear the venom in her voice as she spat the last words at Mikalos.

He didn’t seem to be offended, so she went on. “I watched
mi abuelo
die. I’ve worked at the Institut for over three years and seen heartbreak and pain and despair that no human being should have to endure, but do you know what the worst thing I’ve ever seen is?”

Isabella shuddered in the warm breeze at the chilling memories crowding her mind and her voice failed. Guilt crept in. It wasn’t fair to put this on Mikalos. It was her cross to bear. She suddenly didn’t want to say anymore.

Mikalos reached out and took her hand. “Tell me, Isabella. What is the worst?”

Sucking a full breath, she said, “The moment when hope is lost. The moment when the sparkle in someone’s eyes turns black, when the skip in their step becomes a shuffle, when a chin raised in strength falls in despair. That’s what hope does. It tempts the suffering with a promise, then yanks it away to leave them utterly broken. Hope is cruel and it terrifies me.”

She’d never dared to say those words to anyone, but somehow she said them to Mikalos. Her defenses shot up as she waited for him to start spewing flowery words that flew in the face of everything she’d seen in her life.

Mikalos didn’t say anything. Just stroked her knuckles and looked at her with acceptance in his eyes.

Her defenses lowered, making room for her embarrassment.
Nicely done, idiota. Great first impression you’re making on your new father-in-law
. “I apologize if I’ve offended you.”

He smiled as if being offended was the last emotion he felt. “How? By having a compassionate spirit? By being a woman who wants to bring peace to others with so much devotion that her own peace is destroyed? By suffering through a terrible illness after having seen so many others suffer a fate worse than yours?”

“You’re not going to tell me I’m wrong?”

“No. You’re not wrong.”

What?

“You are, however, strong. That’s what allows you to do what you do for others and still carry on. As for yourself, give yourself time to heal, Isabella. It took me two years after my stroke to believe that I wasn’t going to drop dead at any second. Then I got tired of being weak. Weakness doesn’t suit me. Doesn’t suit you either.”

Mikalos wasn’t a weak man by any definition. He was a survivor, like the one she wanted to be. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course, you’re my daughter and the mother of my grandson.”

Now, he was offended.

“Do you believe in angels?”

“More than I believe in people. Why do you ask?”

“I used to think I believed in angels, but now, I, I just don’t know anymore. Jacques said he met an angel who told him we were going to have a long and happy life.”

“And you will.”

“It’s a beautiful idea, Mikalos. I want to believe in it so badly, but I’m not sure anymore. And now this happens. It makes me doubt even more. Cancer isn’t the only thing that can rewrite our happily-ever-after. I want this baby.”

The words sprang from her mouth with the full force of maternal instinct. If Jacques didn’t want to be a father, then he wouldn’t be. But she, she would always be a mother.

“And I want grandchildren,” Mikalos declared. “Explain how you feel to Jacques. He will understand.”

“I can’t, Mikalos.” A mixture of anger and regret coated her words. “I don’t have the courage to face the…”
No, don’t go there
.

“The future.”

She didn’t react, just sat frozen like the proverbial deer in the headlights, and he went on explaining her as if he’d known her for years.

“Because telling Jacques you’re afraid of the future will taint the happiness you’ve given to my stoic son. That’s why you don’t turn to him. Leave him with happy memories, just in case, right Isabella.” It wasn’t a question. “And that’s why you didn’t tell him about the baby. Too much future in that conversation.”

She saw the faith for her and Jacques’s future burning in Mikalos’s eyes as he spoke and felt her own weakness at not sharing that faith. “What if Jacques never wants the baby? What if he leaves us?” As the words left her mouth, her lips began to quiver.

Everything about Mikalos softened and she felt the warmth of family wrap around her. “He won’t,” he said softly and moved forward to hug her.

She closed her eyes and let the ease he offered seep into her. Mikalos’s embrace felt like home. She thought of her
abuelo
and her oldest brother who took his place in her life after he died. Firm, honest, contained men, who didn’t lie or coddle. Men who supported and loved her while she made her way in the world. Men she could trust. Men like this man. She needed advice and turned to her new father-in-law for it.

“I don’t know what to do, Papa. Tell me what to do.”

He cupped her face and nodded as if to say he felt their unspoken bond too. Then his firm voice advised her, “Nothing in life worth having comes easily, Isabella. Be the strong woman you are. If Jacques fights, you fight back and you win.”

It was good advice. Clear, strong and decisive. It was advice she would take. Advice she had to take. She absorbed the words, staring over the ocean as every bone in her body vibrated with her resolve. Oh, she would fight all right. The future still terrified her, but now that future didn’t only belong to her and Jacques. It belonged to the new life inside her. It was their baby’s future she was fighting for.

And as sure as she was looking at that blue ocean, she would win.

23

Trouble in Paradise

“Are we going to talk about this?” Jacques asked in a measured tone.

Isabella turned her face away as if he wasn’t there. “I don’t know, are we?”

The flip response was the wrong approach, but she couldn’t shake the hurt of the silent treatment he’d given her on their impromptu flight back from Greece or the fact that he’d slept alone in a spare room. Add the intense stare and her first instinct was to hit Jacques where it hurt. For a man accustomed to getting everything his way, always, without question, being disregarded was more like a full-on battle assault.

“I demand to know why you lied,” he said in the same measured voice, but now the sound was somehow chillier, as if his voice could actually lower the temperature in the room.

Whoa. Angry Jacques is scary
. “I told you. I didn’t lie. I only found out a few hours before we left and I wanted to surprise you.”

With a sarcastic huff, he added, “Well, you sure as hell did that.”

And kind of mean
. “What am I supposed to say, Jacques? I can’t convince you if you’re hell-bent on not believing me and it doesn’t change anything anyway. We’re having a baby whether you like it or not.”

“You shouldn’t have lied, Isabella.”

And cold. More like a blistering shard of ice.

She stomped to the bathroom. He stomped right behind.

The door slammed.

The lock flipped.

“Isabella,” Jacques yelled through the door, twisting the handle. “Open this door. Right now.” When she didn’t, he started pounding on it.

She slipped into the shower and tried to block him out. She had to get her act together before she opened that door. This wasn’t the time to cower. This was the battle royal. If she had any chance of winning, she had to shake the fear of facing Jacques’s anger. She had to turn that on its heels and make him shake at having to face hers.

But how? How?

She washed her hair, tearing at her scalp, and scrubbed her skin until it was raw, trying to rouse the fighter and banish the chicken. The pulsating jets soothed her tension, healing some of the hurt and helping her garner the courage to walk in front of the freight train waiting to barrel her down when she unlocked that door.

The pounding had quieted by the time she stepped from the shower. She wrapped her hair in a towel, then quickly yanked it away as her mind settled on the perfect approach.

Jacques likes to play with weak spots and what do you know? Two can play at that game
.

She ran her fingers through Jacques's ultimate weakness, replaced the towel around her body and opened the door.

Jacques was standing across from it with his arms folded over his chest. His lips pressed tight, his eyes shooting daggers. She pretended to ignore him and sailed past.

“Oh, that’s mature, Isabella,” he scoffed.

“I learned it from you,” she shot right back.

“You didn’t learn to lie from me,” he said in disbelief as he moved between the door jambs to the bedroom. “I never lied to you.”

The words made her seethe, fueling her resolve. She faced him, shoulders squared with a look that did everything but audibly hiss. Her husband may be a Dom and he may be angry as fire, but above all else, he was a gentleman. He stepped aside.

She sensed his eyes boring into her as she made her way across the room and peeked at him in the mirror over the dresser as she fished for her stockings and bra. The matching panties stayed in the drawer.

No need to throw that kind of gas on this fire
.

Jacques stood motionless in the doorway, watching her.

Be strong, Isla. Don’t cave
. Without turning, she dropped the towel and listened to his restrained gasp. Her subconscious pumped a fist in the air.
You want to punish me, Jacques? I’ll show you a punishment
.

Chin kicked high, she walked, more like sashayed, to the end of the bed and began to accordion her stocking over pointed toes, before extending her leg to ease the black sheer slowly up to her thigh. She didn’t bother with the bra. The entire pose screamed,
Nah, nah, na-na-nah. You can’t have me.

“I know what you’re doing,” Jacques said, the annoyance in his voice laced with something huskier as she sat naked before him.

“I’m getting dressed,” she replied flatly.

Jacques walked to where she was sitting and picked up the other stocking, holding it out to her. She took it without meeting his eyes or touching his hand and began to shimmy it up the other leg. Looking down, she grinned at the sight of a pair of forgotten high heels peeking from beneath the bed skirt. It was a sure bet that Jacques would remember what they’d done to each other the last she wore those sexy numbers.

Someone up there loves me.

Isabella slipped her feet into the shoes before heading to the walk-in closet with a slow sway of her hips, knowing exactly what the sight of her naked body would do to her man. She pulled a random dress from the hanger and walked back into the bedroom. No point in putting it on when Jacques couldn’t see her.

His eyes traveled up and down the length of her, threatening and greedy. She had to hide the shiver at the power he wielded over her and her traitorous body as she feigned indifference.

“I don’t want to fight with you, Jacques,” she said as she wrapped the black bra around her shoulders and fastened the clasp. A little bend, a little shimmy and
Voilà
, her girls sat high and round and oh, so inviting. She left the dress on the bed, wanting Jacques to see everything he was giving up if he kept up with the bullying.

“Even if you didn’t intend it, a lie is a lie.” His tone was filled with moral outrage.

How dare he keep saying that?
So she forgot to take the pill. With everything that happened in the past few months, it wasn’t a capital offense. And she waited to tell him about the pregnancy. So what?

“I am not a liar, Jacques.”

Something tugged at her conscience.

Storming past him into the bathroom, she yanked her hair dryer from its hook and started blowing her hair dry. She knew without looking that his eyes were on her.
Well I hope your eyes burn, Jacques
, she thought as she bent to throw the hair upside down over her head and spread her legs, flashing another of Jacques’s weaknesses at him.

When she righted herself, she found him standing directly behind her. His eyes blazed with a mixture of lust and anger. He reached out and she recoiled from his hand.

“Don’t touch me,” she hissed.

His mouth set in a grim line. “You’re my wife,” he growled as his hands balled into fists at his sides.

“And the mother of your child. Are we going to talk about that or just keep going round and round with you insisting I lied and me denying it.”

They stood, face to face, glaring at one another, each refusing to blink. To her utter shock, he blinked first. He hung his head and said, “I don’t want to fight with you either, Isabella. I know you didn’t mean to lie, but it felt that way and it hurt.”

The wounded look on his face nearly undid her, but she reminded her-too-damn-compassionate-self to keep up the callous act. Nothing was resolved and he couldn’t guilt her into backing down.

“Being called a liar hurt too, Jacques. Can we call it even and talk about the real issue?”

His eyes ran over her mussed hair, along the curve of her breasts and down to her naked mound. He stepped back and the look transformed from hurt to distant. “I need some time. I can’t think with you standing there like that. I need some time,” he said again.

The fear that he might shut her out again gripped her hard.

Stay strong, Isla.

She ran the brush though her hair and said, “Do you remember what you said to me in Greece? You said you don’t want to lose me. Well the choice is yours. I want you and our baby, but if you make me choose, don’t be surprised by my choice.”

He paled, his face frozen, then closed his eyes. “It’s too soon, Isabella.”

She felt herself succumbing to the need to comfort, but used the anger to derail the unwanted compulsion to fall into him. Then swallowed hard and threw down the gauntlet. “Get over yourself, Jacques. I’m not thrilled with the timing any more than you obviously are, but this baby is ours and he’s innocent. He doesn’t deserve to suffer because of your past and only you can see that he doesn’t.”

Hard eyes locked on as she posed the challenge. “You said you don’t want to let me down. Then don’t. Take all the time you need. We’ll be here when, and if, you come back.”

With that, she grabbed her dress and walked out.

*****

“Jacques?” Isabella barreled around the corner and skidded on her heels as Jerard walked through the door.

“Sorry, Isla,” he grimaced, holding up his keys. “I guess I should have knocked.”

“Oh, it’s okay, Jerard,” she muttered trying to hide her disappointment that it wasn’t her errant husband standing in the foyer.

“So you gonna tell me what’s up?” Jerard asked, obviously knowing something was as he walked toward her with open arms.

She answered as she fell into one of his unlimited hugs, “Jacques and I had a fight.”

“'Bout what?”

“I’m pregnant, Jerard.”

He grabbed her shoulders and moved back to look into her face, then lifted her off her heels and swung her around the room. “That’s awesome, totally awesome.” He put her down and both hands reached toward her belly, backed away and reached out again. “Sorry, Isla. I got carried away. I didn’t hurt, um, the baby, did I?”

His eyes never left her torso and the smile never left his face. That was the look she’d hoped to see on Jacques’s face and it made her sad.

“No, Jerard. You didn’t hurt the baby.”

Without asking, Jerard’s hand moved over her belly, his eyes staring in wonderment as he stroked little circles over her stomach. “So Jacques freaked.”

“You might say that.”

“Then he stormed off in a self-righteous huff.” He leaned over and whispered, “
Salut. Je suis votre Oncle Jerard
.”

She smiled at the sweet reaction. “How did you know?”

“I lived with him for over a year, Isla. I know how he reacts when he loses control.”

“He said he doesn’t want children, Jerard.”

“Of course he did. You caught him off guard and his defenses shot up.” He spoke to her belly again, “Are you a boy or a girl?”

“Don’t know yet.”

“Uncle Jerard’s going to teach you to paint,” he said softly and she started to cry, feeling no need to hold back.

Jerard was a man comfortable with uncomfortable emotions. He led her to the sofa, more than willing to be her shoulder to cry on, and sat with his arms around her until she got it all out.

When her tears dried to a trickle, he tried to reassure her, “I know Jacques, Isla. The man was made to be a father. He’ll thrive on it. When he gets his head on straight, he’ll see that and come running back.”

Her bond to Jerard coaxed the fear from her lips. “What if he doesn’t?”

Jerard held her watery gaze and said, “He will and deep in your heart, you know it.” His body language showed his complete confidence in what he was saying.

She thought of all of Jacques’s comments about wanting to be a different man from the one he’d been. Jerard knew that man, in ways she didn’t, and he thought Jacques being a father was a no brainer. Maybe Jerard’s perspective was right. Maybe it was only the shock that sent Jacques reeling. After all, Jacques described his own father as his inspiration and after meeting Mikalos, it wasn’t a stretch to think that his inspiration might extend beyond business acumen. She’d seen Jacques pull one hell of a daddy routine on Jerard and Nicolai countless times. And let’s not forget the legion of people who relied on him.

But what if none of that means…

Jerard’s hand came to her face. “Don’t torture yourself with what-ifs, Isla. Those wicked little demons will only make you confused and scared. You’re stronger than that.”

Then he smiled in that unassuming way of his and added, “And don’t let Jacques off the hook too easily. Control is an illusion and he’s going to struggle mightily with that when it comes to his family. He’s going to need your strength to get him to a place where he’s comfortable with a lack of control and stop acting like a jackass every time something doesn’t go as planned.”

Is that the answer?
She needed Jacques to become the woman she was meant to be and he needed her to do the same? Maybe she should take Jerard’s words to heart. There was wisdom in everything he said and he’d accumulated more wisdom than most people twice his age. She truly admired him.

And there was something else too.

She leaned into the courageous, talented, huggable man sitting next to her. “I love you, Jerard.”

He smiled, so humbly, and said softly, “I love you too, Isla.” Then those brown eyes looked directly into hers and the voice became anything but soft. “So does Jacques. More than I think you understand.” With a playful wink, he added, “And he is a guy. Be creative. I’m sure you can think of a fun way to bring him around.”