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Rafael found it odd that she was so willing to trust someone she’d never met, given she was such an alarmist where her parents were concerned. He understood her concerns around them, but often wondered what she thought they could do to her at this stage. She was an adult, married, living away from them. Given his growing assets, she didn’t need the fortune that was supposed to come to her. He understood and respected her desire to take possession of what belonged to her, but he wasn’t afraid to put her stepfather through the wash and hang him out to dry in the courts—or physically, if necessary—should Humbolt truly misbehave, yet she seemed to feel her stepfather held something over her.
There were times he wanted to prod her on that, but one of the strengths of their relationships was the boundaries they drew around their pasts. They accepted each other as they were right now, which was exactly the way he wanted it.
But given how carefully she managed what her parents knew about her life, he was surprised that she was willing to air their private business to some unknown woman in America who lived only one state over from them.
His wife and their surrogate seemed to have forged an immediate connection, however. As soon as Alexandra agreed that Molly could tell her mother, Molly smiled with relief. Her “Thank you” almost seemed to transmit more than gratitude. A silent message?
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. What—
“I understand you’ll want a thorough background check on me and my mother.” Molly addressed that to Rafael. “I will consent to that and I’m confident my mother will, but within that agreement, I want your promise that you will not delve into my sister’s birth history. She knows she’s adopted, but it’s for her to pursue the identity of her birth parents if or when that becomes something she wants. It’s not your place to reveal that and that information has no relevance here.”
Her gaze slid to Alexandra and she quickly spoke for both of them again.
“Rafael understands that sort of intrusion very well. It’s public knowledge that he’s adopted, but there have been times that’s been used against him. He wouldn’t do that to a helpless child.” The look she sent him was both challenge and wariness, like the point of a knife under his chin, daring him to contradict her.
He didn’t know which shocked him more, that she was putting words in his mouth or that she would doubt his ethics on this front. That hurt, which wasn’t something that happened often. He and Alexandra had a perfect relationship—one that was affectionate enough to let down his guard with her more than he did with anyone else, but superficial enough that he was rarely stung more deeply than ego level when they argued.
“It’s true,” he said briskly, steeling himself against those harsh memories of being kicked to the ground and called every sort of name. Bastard. Imposter. Garbage. “I don’t see any reason to find her birth parents since they’re firmly out of her life and won’t impact ours. I agree to leave her out of the screening.”
Was it his imagination or did Alexandra exhale when he agreed to that?
He glanced at her, but she was adjusting herself in her seat and flicking her hair behind her shoulder, smiling blandly at Molly.
“Let’s move on to how we’ll keep your pregnancy under wraps once it becomes obvious,” Alexandra said.
“I can take a medical leave from work. I’ve looked into it and they don’t need to know what it’s for,” Molly said. “As much as I would love my mother to attend the birth, that would require my going back to America. I don’t think that’s ideal for the level of privacy you’re seeking. As long as I’m given consistent care, I’m open to delivering wherever it suits you best. Athens, perhaps?”
“She could stay at the island villa once she’s showing.” Alexandra glanced at him. “It’s private, but only a short helicopter flight to Athens when she goes into labor.”
“Would you stay there with me?” Molly brightened as she looked to Alexandra.
“Why?” Rafael interjected flatly, instantly feeling threatened for no reason that he could fathom.
“To bond with the baby.” Molly blinked in surprise, as though that should be obvious.
“Oh.” He looked at his wife.
Alexandra did that thing where she dropped her lashes and painted a bored expression across her face, completely masking her thoughts.
“Let’s see how things go,” she murmured, not committing.
The legal side of things wrapped up very neatly after that. Before he knew it, they were getting the call on the terrace in Rio. The pregnancy was confirmed. Their baby was only the size of a kidney bean, but was already taking up all his thoughts, filling him with more anticipation than he had expected to feel.
He would swear he wasn’t a sentimental man, but there was something very elating in knowing he had a baby on the way, one who was a mix of him and Alexandra. A link that could never be undone.
Why? He was enlightened enough to know that masculinity was a construct, not something that was proven by procreation. He had taken on his adoptive father’s name and business, making them his own. There was no reason to feel he couldn’t have done the same with a baby who did not share his bloodline.
Others placed importance on those things, however, which definitely played a part in his sense of satisfaction. A dynasty was not built on one man clawing his way to the top. An heir represented continuity. For that reason, he wanted to tell the world that he did, indeed, have a baby on the way. It was a final checkmate in the external chess game he’d been playing since he’d taken over his father’s business.
His mother hadn’t had the capacity to fend off the sharks that had come circling back then, the ones who’d been frenzied by the scent of blood in the water. Those predators hadn’t taken him seriously and even the employees had smirked at a teenager ordering fully grown men back to work. The only authority he’d had at the time was his status as “heir” and many had tried to dismiss it as an illegitimate title.
So yes, having a baby with his DNA mattered, but that wasn’t the source of this simmering satisfaction. This was a sensation of being pulled toward something bright and solid. It was an indelible connection to his wife.
That was it. That was the reason for his sense of triumph. It wasn’t the achievement of making a baby. It was the unbreakable bond their baby represented.
Why was it so important, he wondered with a twinge of unease? It smacked of a sop against uncertainty, something he refused to let himself feel.
But his wife seemed so damned elusive and unpredictable these days! He couldn’t help feeling he needed all the hooks and grapples he could get to hold on to her. The baby was due around Christmas, but he wanted to hurry the time away. He wanted to begin planning for this addition to their family, accumulating more evidence of their baby’s impending arrival.
