Billionaire's Scandalous Twins

Chapter 13

“Then your memory is wrong. Don’t look for some­thing that isn’t there, Isobel,” he said softly, just in case their driver spoke English. “I’m not a lonely rich boy looking for love.” He leaned in toward her, keeping his gaze locked with hers, and added, “I’m doing this DNA test for my own sake. If those babies are mine, then I need to know. But I’m not the white-picket-fence kind of guy. So don’t go building castles in the air. You’ll get trapped in the rubble when they collapse. What I have with Barbara is a purely business arrangement and I am aware of that, as well as her. So do not think that showing me in a better light is going to improve your chances in some better way. Whatever might happen, it is not going to change what I think about you.”

Isobel felt a chill as she looked into those icy blue eyes of his. All night she’d lain in her bed, thinking about him, wondering if she’d done the right thing by coming to Nick. By telling him about their sons. Now she was faced with the very real possibility that she’d made a huge mistake.

Once he was convinced that the boys were his, then what? Would he really be satisfied with writing out a child support check every month? Or would he demand time with his children? And if he did, how would she fit him into their lives?

Picturing Nick spending time in her tiny house in Seal Beach was almost impossible. His lifestyle was so far removed from hers they might as well be from dif­ferent planets.

“Nick,” she said, “I know there’s a part of you that thinks I’m lying about all of this. But I’m not.” She paused, watched his reaction and didn’t see a thing that

made her feel any better, so she continued. “So, before you take this DNA test, I want you to promise me some­thing.”

He laughed shortly, but there wasn’t a single spark of humor lighting his eyes. “Why would I do that?”

“No reason I can think of, but I’m still asking.”

“What?” he asked, sitting back, dropping one hand to rest on his knee. “What’s this promise?”

She tried again to read his expression, but his fea­tures were shuttered, closing her out so completely it was as if she were alone in the cab. But he was listen­ing and that was something, she supposed.

“I want you to promise me that whatever happens, you won’t take out what you feel for me on our sons.”

He tipped his head to one side, studied her for a long moment or two, then as she held her breath, waiting for his response, he finally nodded. “All right. I give you my word. What’s between you and me won’t affect how I treat your sons.”

Isobel gave him a small smile. “Thank you.”

“But if they are my sons,” he added quietly, “you and I have a lot of talking to do.”

The DNA test was done quickly, and before she knew it, Isobel and Nick were back in the cab, heading for the docks again. Her stomach was churning as her mind raced, and being locked inside a car hurtling down a crowded street wasn’t helping. She needed to walk. Needed to breathe. Needed to escape the trapped feeling that held her in a tight grip.

Turning to Nick, she blurted suddenly, “Can we get out? Walk the rest of the way to the dock?”

He glanced at her, and whatever he saw in her face must have convinced him because he nodded, then spoke to the driver in Spanish. A moment later the cab pulled to the curb. Isobel jumped out of the car as if she were on springs and took a deep breath of cool, ocean air while Nick paid their fare.

Tourists and locals alike crowded the sidewalk and streamed past her as if she were a statue. She tucked her purse under her left arm and turned her face into the breeze sliding down the street from the sea.

“It’s still several blocks to the ship,” Nick said as he joined her on the sidewalk. “You going to be able to make it in those shoes?”

Isobel glanced down at the heeled sandals she wore then lifted her gaze back to his. “I’ll make it. I just— needed to get out of that cab and move around a little.”

“I don’t remember you being so anxious,” he said.

She laughed a little and sounded nervous even to herself. “Not anxious, really. It’s just that since the boys were born, I’m not used to being still. They keep me running all day long, and sitting in the back of that cab, I felt like I was in a cage or something and it didn’t help that neither one of us was talking and we’d just come from the lab, so my brain was in overdrive and—”

He interrupted the frantic flow of words by holding up one hand. “I get it. And I could use some air, too. So why don’t we start walking?”

“Good. That’d be good.” God, she hadn’t meant to go on a stream of consciousness there. If he hadn’t

stopped her, heaven only knew what would have come out of her mouth. As it was, he was looking at her like she was a stick of dynamite with a burning fuse.

He took her arm to turn her around, and the sizzle of heat that sprang up from his touch was enough to boil her blood and make her gasp for air. So not a good sign.

Music spilled from the open doorway of a cantina and a couple of drunk, college-age tourists stumbled out onto the sidewalk. Nick pulled Isobel tight against him and steered her past them, but when they were in the clear, he didn’t release her. Not that she minded.

“So what’s a typical day for you now?” he asked as they moved along the sidewalk, a part of, yet separate from, the colorful crowd of locals and tourists.

“Typical?” Isobel laughed in spite of the fact that every nerve ending was on fire and lit from within due to Nick’s arm wrapped tightly around her waist. “I learned pretty quickly that with babies in the house there’s no such thing as typical.”

She risked a glance at him, and his blue eyes con­nected with hers for a heart-stopping second. Then he nodded and said, “Okay, then describe one of your un­typical days for me.”

“Well, for one thing, my days start a lot earlier than they used to,” she said. “The twins sleep through the night now, thank God, but they’re up and raring to go by six every morning.”

“That can’t be easy.” His arm around her waist loosened a bit, but he didn’t let her go and Isobel felt almost as if they were a real couple. Which was just dangerous thinking.

“No,” she said quickly, to rein her imagination back in with cold, dry facts. Their lives were so different, he’d never be able to understand what her world was like. He woke up when he felt like it, had breakfast brought to his room and then spent the rest of his day wandering a plush cruise ship, making sure his guests were happy.

She, on the other hand…

“There are two diapers that need changing, two little bodies who need dressing and two mouths clamoring for their morning bottle. There are two cribs in the room they share and I go back and forth between them, sort of on autopilot.” She smiled to herself as images of her sons filled her mind. Yes, it was a lot of work. Yes, she was tired a lot of the time. And no, she wouldn’t change any of it.

“How do you manage taking care of two of them?”

“You get into a rhythm,” she said with a shrug that belied just how difficult it had been to find that rhythm. “Carrick’s more patient than his brother, but I try not to use that as an excuse to always take care of Jade first. So, I trade off. One morning I deal with Carrick first thing and the next, it’s Jade’s turn. I feed one, then the other and then get them into their playpen so I can start the first of the day’s laundry loads.”

“You leave them alone in a playpen?”

Instantly defensive, Isobel shot him a glare. “They’re safe and happy and it’s not as if I just toss them into a cage and go off to party. I’m right there with them. But I have to be able to get things done and I can’t exactly leave them on the floor unattended, now, can I?”

“Hey, hey,” he said, tightening his grip around her waist a little. “That wasn’t a criticism…”

She gave him a hard look.

“Okay,” he acknowledged, “maybe it was. But I didn’t mean it to be. Can’t be easy. A single mother with two babies.”

“No, it’s not,” she admitted and her hackles slowly lowered. “But we manage. We have playtime and the two of them are so bright and so interested in everything….” She shook her head. “It’s amazing, really, watching them wake up to the world a little more each day.”

“Must be.”

He was saying the right things, but his tone carried a diffidence she didn’t much like. But then how could she blame him? He didn’t believe yet that the boys were his sons. Of course, he would hold himself back, refus­ing to be drawn in until it had been proven to him that he was their father.

“When they take their naps, I work.”

“Yeah,” he said, guiding her around a pothole big enough to swallow them both, “you said you had your own business. What do you do?”

“Gift baskets,” she said, lifting her chin a little. “I design and make specialty gift baskets. I have a few corporate clients, and I get a lot of business over the Internet.”

“How’d you get into that?” he asked, and Isobel was almost sure he really was interested.

“I started out by making them up for friends. Birth­days, baby showers, housewarming, that sort of thing,”

she said. “It sort of took off from there. People started asking me to make them baskets, and after a while I realized I was running a business. It’s great, though, because it lets me be home with the boys.”

“And you like that.”

Not a question, a statement. She stopped walking, looked up at him and said, “Yes, I like it. I couldn’t bear the thought of the boys being in day care. I want to be the one to see all of their firsts. Crawling, walking, speaking. I want to hear their giggles and dry their tears. I want to be at the heart of their lives.”

He studied her for a long minute or two, his gaze moving over her face as if he were trying to imprint her image on his mind. Or trying to read her thoughts to see if she had really meant everything she just said.

“Most women wouldn’t want to be trapped in a house with two screaming babies all day,” he finally said.

Instantly Isobel bristled. “A, the women you know aren’t exactly the maternal type, now, are they? B, the boys don’t scream all day and C, spending time with my kids isn’t a trap. It’s a gift. One I’m thankful for every single day. You don’t know me, Nick. So don’t pretend you do.”

One dark eyebrow lifted, and an amused glint shone in those pale eyes of his. “I wasn’t trying to insult you,” he said softly. “I…admire what you’re doing. What you feel for your sons. All I meant was, that what you said was nice to hear.”

“Oh.” Well, didn’t she feel like an i***t? “I’m sorry. I guess I’m a little quick on the trigger.”

“A little?” He laughed shortly, and started walking again, keeping his arm locked about her waist as if con­cerned she might wander off. “The words Mother Grizzly come to mind.”

Even Isobel had to chuckle. “You’re right, you know. I learned the moment the boys were born. I was so electrified just by looking at them…to know they’d come from me. It’s an amazing feeling. Two tiny boys— one minute they’re not there, and the next, they’re breathing and crying and completely capturing my heart. I fell in love so completely, so desperately, that I knew instantly I would never allow anyone or anything to hurt them. Nobody criticizes my kids. Nobody.”