Billionaire's Scandalous Twins

Chapter 5

“So you would have hidden them from me?” His voice was low, soft and just a little dangerous.

Isobel wasn’t worried. Nick might be an arrogant, self-satisfied jerk, but physically dangerous to her or any other woman, he wasn’t. “If you mean would I hide the fact that their father couldn’t care less about them from my sons…then, yes. That’s just what I’ll do.”

“If they are my sons,” he whispered, “no one will keep me from them.”

A flicker of uneasiness sputtered in Isobel’s chest, but she told herself not to react. Physical threats meant nothing, but the thought of him challenging her for custody of their children did. Even as she considered it, though, she let the worry dissipate. Babies weren’t part of Nick’s world, and no matter what he said at the moment, he would never give up the life he had for one that included double diaper duty.

“Nick, we both know you have no interest in being a father.”

“You have no idea what I do or don’t care about, Isobel.” He moved in close, taking that one small step that brought his body flush to hers. Isobel hadn’t been prepared for the move and sucked in a gulp of air as his chest pressed into hers.

She looked up into his eyes and felt her knees wobble a little at the intensity of his stare. He cupped her cheek in one hand, and the heat of his skin seeped into hers, causing a flush of warmth that slid through her like sweet syrup.

“I promise you, though,” he murmured, dipping his head in as if he were going to kiss her and stopping just a breath away from her lips, “you will find out.”

She ducked her head and slapped his hand away and even that contact felt too damn good. Nick stepped back and away from her, which, in that cabin, meant that he was halfway out the door. So once he felt as though he could look at her without wanting to wrap his hands in her hair and pull her mouth to his, he shifted his gaze to hers.

“I don’t have the time to go through this right now.”

She smirked at him, folded her arms over her chest in a classic defensive posture. “Oh, sure, worlds to conquer, women to seduce. Busy, busy.”

“Clever as ever, I see.” He didn’t even want to admit to himself how much he’d missed that smart mouth of hers. Always a retort. Always a dig, putting him in his place, deflating his ego before it had a chance to expand.

There weren’t many people like Isobel in his life. Mostly, those he knew were too busy kissing his ass to argue with him. Everyone but Rhonda, that is. And of course, Isobel. But she wasn’t a part of his life anymore.

“We’ll have dinner tonight. My suite.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You came here to talk to me, right?”

“Yes, but—”

“So we’ll talk. Seven o’clock.”

Before she could argue, stall or whatever else might come into her too-quick mind, he opened the door and left her cabin. He took a breath in the dark hall, then headed for the elevator that would take him out of the bowels of the ship back into the light.

By five o’clock, she was more than ready to meet Mary for margaritas.

Isobel’d left her tiny, hideous, airless cabin only a few minutes after Nick had. Frankly, his presence had been practically imprinted on the minuscule space and had made the cabin seem even smaller than it actually was. And she hadn’t thought that would have been possible.

But he’d shaken her more than she’d thought he would. Just being near him again had awakened feelings and emotions she’d trained herself more than a year ago to ignore. Now they were back and she wasn’t sure how to handle them. After all, it wasn’t as if she had a lot of experience with this sort of thing. Before Nick, there’d been only one other man in her life, and he hadn’t come close to affecting her in the way Nick had. Of course,

since Nick, the only men in her life preferred drooling on her shoulder to slow dances in the dark.

Just thinking about her boys brought an ache to Isobel’s heart. She’d never left them before, and though she knew the twins were in good hands, she hated not being with them.

“But I’m on this boat for their sakes,” she reminded herself sternly.

With that thought in mind, her gaze swept the interior of Captain Jack’s Bar and Lounge. Like everywhere else on this ship, Nick hadn’t skimped. The walls were pale wood that gleamed in the light glinting down on the crowd from overhead chandeliers shaped like ship’s wheels. The bar was a slinky curve of pale wood with a granite top the color of molten honey.

Conversations flowed in a low rumble of sound that was punctuated by the occasional clink of crystal or a high-pitched laugh. First day at sea and already the party had begun.

Well, for everyone but Isobel. She hadn’t exactly been in celebration mode after Nick left her cabin.

In fact, Isobel’d spent most of the day lying on a chaise on the Verandah Deck, trying to get lost in the book she’d picked up in the gift shop. But she couldn’t concentrate on the words long enough to make any progress. Time and again, her thoughts had returned to Nick. His face. His eyes. The cool dismissal on his face when he’d first seen the pictures of their sons.

She didn’t know what was coming next, and the worry over it had gnawed at her insides all day. Which

was why she’d decided to keep her margarita date with Mary. Isobel had spent too much time alone today, with too much time for thinking. What she needed now was some distraction. A little tequila-flavored relaxation sounded great. Especially since she had dinner with Nick to look forward to.

“Oh God,” she whispered as her stomach fisted into knots again.

“Isobel!”

A woman’s voice called out to her, and Isobel turned in that direction. She spotted Mary, standing up at one of the tables along the wall, waving and smiling at her. Grate­fully Isobel headed her way, threading a path through the milling crowd. When she reached the table, she slid onto a chair and smiled at the margarita already waiting for her.

“Hope you don’t mind. I ordered one for you as soon as I got here,” Mary told her, taking a big gulp of her own oversize drink.

“Mind?” Isobel said, reaching for her frosty glass, “Are you kidding? This is fabulous.” When she’d taken a long, deep gulp of the icy drink, she sat back and looked at her new friend.

Mary was practically bouncing in her seat, and her eyes were shining with excitement. Her blond hair looked wind tousled and her skin was a pale red, as if she’d had plenty of sun today. “I’ve been looking for you all over this ship,” she said, grinning like a loon. “I had to see you. Find out where they put you.”

Isobel blinked and shook her head. “What do you mean? Put me? Where who put me?”

Mary stretched one hand out and grabbed Isobel’s for a quick squeeze. “Oh my God. You haven’t been back down to the pit all day, have you?”

“No way,” Isobel said on a sigh. “After my meeting, I came topside and I’ve been putting off going back down by hanging out on the Verandah Deck.”

“So you don’t know.”

“Know what?” Isobel was beginning to think that maybe Mary had had a few margaritas too many. “What’re you talking about?”

“It’s the most incredible thing. I really can’t believe it myself and I’ve seen it.” She slapped one hand to her pale blue blouse and groaned like she was in the midst of an orgasm.

“Mary…what is going on?”

“Right, right.” The blonde picked up her drink, took a big gulp and said, “It happened early this afternoon. Joe and I were up on the Promenade, you know, looking at all the shops. Well,” she admitted, “I was looking, Joe was being dragged reluctantly along behind me. And when we came out of the Crystal Candle—which you should really check out, they have some amazing stuff in there—”

Isobel wondered if there was a way to get Mary to stay on track long enough to tell her what was happen­ing. But probably not, so she took a sip of her drink and prepared to wait it out. She didn’t have to wait long.

“When we came out,” Mary was saying, “there was a ship steward waiting for us. He said, ‘Mr. and Mrs. Curran?’ all official-sounding and for a second I wondered what we’d done wrong, but we hadn’t done  

anything and so Joe says, ‘What’s this about?’ and the

steward only told us to go with him.”

“Mary…”

Her new friend grinned. “I’m getting to it. Really. It’s just that it’s all so incredible—right.” She waved one hand to let Isobel know she was back on track, then she went right back to her story. “The steward takes us up to the owner’s suite—you know, Nick Falconari?”

“Yeah,” Isobel murmured. “I know who he is.”

“Who in the English-speaking world doesn’t?” Mary said on a laugh, then continued. “So we’re standing there in the middle of a suite that looks like a palace or some­thing and Nick Falconari himself comes up to us, introduces himself and apologizes about our cabin in the pit.”

“What?” Isobel just stared at the other woman, not sure what to make of all this.

“I know! I was completely floored, let me tell you. I was almost speechless and Joe can tell you that that almost never happens.” She paused for another gulp of her drink and when she finished it, held up one hand for the waitress to bring another. “So there we are and Mr. Falconari’s being so nice and so sincere about how he feels so badly about the state of the rooms on the Riviera Deck—and can you believe how badly misnamed that deck is?—and he insists on upgrading us.”

“Upgrading?”

“Seriously upgrading,” Mary said as she thanked the waitress for her fresh margarita. She waited until the server had disappeared with her empty glass before continuing. “So I’m happy, because hey, that tiny cabin

is just so hideous. And I’m expecting a middle-grade cabin with maybe a porthole, which would be great. But that’s not what we got.”

“It’s not?” Isobel set her glass down onto the table and watched as Mary’s eyes actually sparkled even harder than they had been.

“Oh, no. Mr. Falconari said that most of the cabins were already full, which is how we got stuck in those tiny ones in the first place. So he moved us into a luxury suite!”

“He did?”

“It’s on the Splendor Deck. The same level as Mr. Falconari’s himself. And Isobel, our suite is amazing! It’s bigger than my house. Plus, he said our entire cruise is on him. He’s refunding what we paid for that hideous cabin and insisting that we pay nothing on this trip.”