Billionaire's Scandalous Twins

Chapter 8

“I’m sure they’ll be great. Way better than the Riviera Deck anyway.”

“Oh,” Rhonda said with a smile, “that’s certainly a fair statement. You go on in, your things have been un­packed. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again.”

 “Okay.” Isobel stood in the hall and watched as Rhonda strode briskly down the long hallway. There was something going on here, she thought, she just couldn’t quite puzzle it out yet.

Then she glanced at her wristwatch, saw she had less than an hour to get ready for her dinner with Nick and opened the door with the key card Rhonda had given her.

She walked inside, took a deep breath and almost genuflected.

The room was incredible—huge, and sprawlingly spacious, with glass walls that displayed a view of the ocean that stretched out into infinity. The wide blue sky was splashed with white clouds and the roiling sea re­flected that deep blue back up at it. Isobel had seen grandeur definitely when she had been working here a year ago but this was not even close to what she had considered would look as the finished products.

Pale wood floors shone with an old gold gleam and the furniture scattered around the room looked designed for comfort. There was a fireplace on one wall, a wet bar in the corner and what looked to be priceless works of art dotting the walls. There were vases filled with glorious arrangements of fresh flowers that scented the air until she felt as if she were walking in a garden.

“This can’t be my cabin,” Isobel whispered, whip­ping her head from side to side as she tried to take in everything at once. “Okay, sure, upgraded to a suite. But this is the Taj Mahal of suites. There has to be a mistake, that’s all.”

“There’s no mistake,” Nick said as he walked easily into the room and gave her a smile that even from across the room was tempting enough to make her gasp. “This is my suite and it’s where you’ll be staying.”

“You can’t be serious.” Isobel took one instinctive step back, but couldn’t go anywhere unless she turned, opened the door and sprinted down that long hallway.

“Damn serious,” he said, and walked toward her like a man with all the time in the world.

He wore a dark blue, long-sleeved shirt, open at the collar, sleeves rolled back to his elbows. His black slacks had a knife-sharp crease in them, and his black shoes shone. But it was his eyes that held her. That pale blue gaze fixed on her as if he could see straight through her. As if he were looking for all of her secrets and wouldn’t give up the quest until he had them.

“Nick, this is a bad idea,” she said, and silently con­gratulated herself on keeping her tone even.

“Why’s that?” He spread both hands out and shrugged. “You came to my boat. You tell me I’m the father of your children and insist we have to talk. So now you’re here. We can talk.”

Talk. Yeah.

In a floating palace that looked designed for seduc­tion. Meeting Nick in her tiny cabin hadn’t exactly been easy, but at least down there, there’d been no distrac­tions. No easy opulence. No sensory overload of beauty.

This was a bad idea. Isobel knew it. Felt it. And didn’t have a single clue how to get out of it.

“We shouldn’t be staying together because you are the one who is getting engaged and not me,” she said finally, and winced because even to her she sounded like a prissy librarian or something.

“We’ll be staying in the same cabin. Not together. There’s a difference.” He was so close now all he had to do was reach out and he could touch her.

“Are you sure that your fiancé is going to like the fact that you are going to be staying in one cabin with me once she comes to know this? Your reputation with women is not exactly sterling and you know that…not only you…everyone knows that,” said Isobel in a furious voice.

“Well until we are married she does not have any say on my choices and it is not like that I am cheating on her and sleeping with you. Why do you think that she is going to have a problem with you being here?” asked Nicholas as he crossed his arms.

“Oh is that so? You think that she is not going to have to say anything at all when she comes to know about the fact that the mother of your children is here and you are sharing the same room with her?” asked Isobel in an icy voice.

If he did, she’d be a goner though, and she knew it.

“What’s the matter, Isobel?” he asked. “Don’t trust yourself alone with me?”

“Oh, please.” She choked out a half laugh that she desperately hoped sounded convincing. “Could you get over yourself for a minute here?”

He gave her a slow smile that dug out the dimple in his left cheek and lit wicked lights in his eyes. Isobel’s stomach flip-flopped and her mouth went dry.

“I’m not the one having a problem.”

Did he have to smell so good?

“No problem,” she said, lifting her chin and forcing

herself to look him dead in the eye. “Trust me when I say all I want from you is what your kids deserve.”

The smile on Nick’s face faded away as her words slammed home. Was he a father? Were those twin boys his? He had to know. To do that, he needed some time with Isobel. He needed to talk to her, figure out what she was after, make a decision about where to go from here.

Funny, Nick had been waiting all afternoon to enjoy that look of stunned disbelief on Isobel’s face when she first walked into his suite and realized that she’d be staying with him. Payback for how he must have looked when he’d first seen the photo of the babies she claimed were his sons. But he hadn’t enjoyed it as much as he’d thought. Because there were other considerations. Big­ger considerations.

His sons. Nick’s insides twisted into knots that were beginning to feel almost familiar. Countless times during the day, he’d looked at the photo of the babies he still carried in his shirt pocket. Countless times he’d asked himself if it was really possible that he was a father.

And though he wasn’t prepared to take Isobel’s word for his paternity, he had to admit that it wasn’t likely she’d have come here to the ship, signing up for a cruise if it wasn’t true. Not that he thought she’d have any qualms about lying—she’d lied to him when she first met him after all—but this lie was too easily found out.

So he was willing to accept the possibility. Which left him exactly where? That was the question that had been circling in his mind all afternoon, and he was no closer to an answer now than he had been earlier.

He looked her up and down and could admit at least to himself that she looked damn good to him. Her dark blond hair was a little windblown, stray tendrils pulling away from her braid to lay against her face. Her eyes were wide and gleaming with suspicion, and, strangely enough, that didn’t do a damn thing to mitigate the at­traction he felt as he drew in a breath that carried her scent deep into his lungs.

“I’ll stay here, but I’m not sleeping with you,” she announced suddenly.

Nick shook his head and smiled. “Don’t flatter your­self. I said you’re staying in my suite, not my bed. As it happens, there are three bedrooms here besides my own. Your things have been unpacked in one of them.”

She frowned a little and the flush of color in her cheeks faded a bit. “Oh.”

“Disappointed?” Nick asked, feeling a quick jolt of something hot and reckless punch through him. It was just like that last time. Things were hot and fast and he was still not in control of his faculties where Isobel was concerned.

“Please,” she countered quickly. “You’re not exactly irresistible, Nick.”

He frowned at that, but since he didn’t actually be­lieve her, he let it go.

“I’m actually grateful to be out of that hole at the bottom of the ship,” she added, glancing around at the suite before shifting her gaze back to his. “And if staying here is the price I have to pay for your attention, then I’ll pay.”

One dark eyebrow lifted. “How very brave of you to put up with such appalling conditions as these.”

“Look,” Isobel told him, “if you don’t mind, it’s been

a long day. So how about you just tell me which room is mine so I can take a shower. Then we’ll talk.”

“Fine. This way.” He turned, pointed and said, “Down that hall. First door on the left.”

“Thanks.”

“My bedroom’s at the end of the hall on the right.”

She stopped, looked back at him over her shoulder and said, “I’ll make a note.”

“You do that,” he whispered as she left the room, shoulders squared, chin lifted, steps long and slow, as if she were being marched to her death.

His gaze dropped to the curve of her behind and something inside him stirred into life. Something he hadn’t felt since the last time he’d seen Isobel. Some­thing he’d thought he was long past.

He still wanted her.

Spinning around, Nick stalked across the room to the wide bank of windows that displayed an awe-inspiring view of the sea. His gaze locked on the horizon as he fought to control the raging tide of lust rising inside him.

Isobel Baker.

She’d turned him inside out more than a year ago. Ever since, he’d been haunted by memories of their time together until he wasn’t sure if what he was remember­ing was real or just fevered imaginings offered by a mind that couldn’t seem to let go of the woman who’d lied to him. And Nick wasn’t a man to forget something like that. Now she was back again. Here, trapped on his ship in the middle of the ocean with nowhere to go to escape him.

Yes, they had plenty to talk about—and if her chil­dren were indeed his sons, then there were a lot of deci­sions to be made. But, he told himself as he shoved both hands into his slacks pockets and smiled faintly at the sunlight glinting on the vast expanse of the sea, there would be enough time for him to have her again.

To feel her under him. To lay claim to her body once more. To drive her past the edge of reason. Then, when he was satisfied that he’d gotten her out from under his skin, he’d kick her loose and she’d be out of his life once and for all. He wouldn’t even allow her to be a memory this time.

The only problem was that he had his engagement to think about. How on earth was he going to make sure that Barbara remained in the dark regarding what he did or even what he was thinking of doing. His engagement with Barbara was a purely profitable relationship where business was concerned but she was not going to take this lightly at all.

But even Nicholas Falconari did not know what Barbara was up to and it was she who was sleeping with her bodyguard at that moment when he was worried and pacing in his cabin.