CHAPTER FOUR

ITSHOULDHAVE felt strange to have Sebastian shadow her and the boys for the evening. Laila had found it nerve-racking when Mama and Nadia had visited a month after the boys had been born. And then when the boys had turned one.

Mama had criticized her about everything—that Laila was sharing the bed on alternate nights with Nikos and Zayn, that she didn't impose enough structure on them or that they had too much playtime or that she let them eat from her plate.

It had taken all her goodwill to not point out Mama's own flaws and faults in how she'd raised Nadia. For Laila, it was Baba who'd taken care of everything.

First, she hadn't even expected him to show up. She had compulsively followed enough of his wild, playboy exploits to know that he was a man who was bored easily, who thrived on unconventional risks, who chased every high like his life depended on it. And really, on their best day, her boys were exhausting and demanding. So, she'd been shocked when he'd arrived to get them ready for sleep.

When she got over that initial shock that he actually wanted to be part of their actual routines and rhythms, she'd braced herself to be watched under a microscope, to be weighed and judged and criticized. To be questioned.

He turned her assumptions upside down, yet again. The man had possessed a knack for making Laila feel good in her own skin in just a few hours. He'd made her laugh, step out of herself for a night. Now, she had none of that polish and fake sophistication, and yet, that same sense of ease lingered with the warm, easy energy he put out.

Through playtime and dinner and bath time and story time, he had been a quiet, easy presence in the background, keeping up a soft, slow dialogue with all three of them, without quite crossing the invisible boundary that Zayn had drawn.

It helped that Nikos, as ever, kept up their little unit's momentum, demanding to play, to eat, to be read to, on schedule and that he gave Sebastian one-word answers even as Zayn quietly observed them. By the time they'd settled into bed, Nikos had extracted another promise about the horsey from his papa.

Laila went to shower, leaving Sebastian standing outside the vast bedroom that had magically been arranged with two cribs, a changing table, a number of stuffed animals and toys in shiny new packages, and any number of paraphernalia that the boys could need, in just a matter of a few hours. Without Laila even broaching the topic, he had arranged for Ani and Alexandros to move to the second floor since the numerous open terraces and stairs were dangerous for the boys.

Being a caregiver apparently came easy to Sebastian Skalas, as easily as stunning art and that wicked, sinful smile. As hot water pounded through her tired muscles, Laila couldn't help but wonder if being a good husband would come easily to him, too.

Having dressed in an old T-shirt and a pair of shorts that suddenly felt too tight across her butt, Laila arrived in the attached bedroom to find Sebastian standing on steps that led directly to a private strip of beach from their suite.

With the moon full and high in the sky, silvery light danced on his hair, delineating the breadth of his shoulders and the taper to his waist. He was simply dressed in a linen gray shirt and black trousers and yet, somehow, he managed to highlight the powerful masculinity that seemed to thrum around him.

Laila felt tired to her bones. It had been an especially trying day, and she should have crawled into bed and let exhaustion take over. While Paloma would be the first one to wake usually if one of the boys was up during the night, Laila had given her tonight off. It was a new, strange place and she wanted to be the one they saw if they woke up feeling disoriented. Or maybe it was she who needed the comfort of snuggling one of them in her bed, since she felt more out of element than either of them. Even Zayn, while his usual reserved self, had been constantly taking everything in with those wide eyes.

The loneliness she'd endured for so long came back with a sudden bite, keener and sharper now. As if something inside her knew that what she'd wanted all along was within touching distance. Which was strange, because as she'd told him, Laila had never entertained ideas of romance or marriage. After giving birth to twins, it had become even more distant, for no man wanted to raise another man's twins. Not that she'd even considered the option of dating or fun or anything that didn't remotely concern her sons and her career and how to juggle it all.

But something about Sebastian had always called to Laila. She'd crossed so many of her self-laid boundaries back then and apparently that draw he had held for her hadn't dimmed one bit.

It was simple curiosity, she told herself, basic need for adult company, since she spent every waking hour—and some half-asleep ones—deep in dialogue with two toddlers or in statistics models she hadn't yet solved.

The stability and complexity she had sought in her career all her life suddenly didn't seem enough. Apparently, her body equated Sebastian Skalas with risk and how well and pleasurably it had paid off last time. Awareness didn't make her immune to Pavlovian responses.

She gave in to the urge and reached the cozy landing off the bedroom where he stood. Two bowls sat on the coffee table, one full of fruit and the other covered. Lifting the lid on the second, she found thick creamy yogurt with an assortment of nuts and seeds and honey in smaller bowls around it. He'd remembered the snack she'd asked for the first time they'd woken up tangled in each other that night. Warmth flickered in her chest, even as she reminded herself that the second time, she'd woken up alone and had gone through his apartment.

"Thank you for making today easy," she said, conveniently to his back. To avoid meeting his eyes, she busied herself with adding the nuts and seeds to the yogurt, and then a generous dollop of honey on top. She licked one thick streak from her thumb, and looked up to find his gaze on her mouth.

Heat licked through her blood, like the very honey on her tongue. Suddenly, she was aware of the heavy achiness of her breasts, and a loose, languid pulse fluttering low in her belly, right at the center of her core, desperate for friction.

"Is there anything else you need for tonight?" he said in such a matter-of-fact voice that Laila instantly felt foolish. It was all in her head, then—the lick of heat she'd seen in his eyes.

"No," she said, tugging the ends of the threadbare oversize cardigan she'd thrown on at the last minute over her worn-out T-shirt. "You thought of everything."

He nodded and then took the seat opposite hers, while she stirred the honey in.

A soft briny breeze was a welcome relief against her overheated skin while the yogurt was thick and creamy against her tongue. The quiet, breathtaking beauty of the setting, the sudden silence after hours of constant chatter from Nikos and Zayn, seemed to amplify the tension she felt around him. Spending too much one-on-one time with him was a bad idea, her gut said, and for once, she knew she needed to heed the instinctual voice.

"Am I speaking out of undeserving paternal pride," Sebastian said, stretching his legs, his fingers steepled on his abdomen, "or are they especially easygoing for two-year-old boys?"

Laila smiled at the lingering awe in his voice. It was good to know he was capable of those emotions, at least for their sons, and felt no shame in expressing it. "They are easygoing. Your paternal pride, I'd say, is not undeserving, either. You have a knack with children. Annika..." she said, hesitant to bring up the other woman but wanting to make sure he understood she'd only done the right thing, "told me you used to spend endless hours playing with her."

He shrugged, his gaze on the ocean. In profile, in repose, the magnetic quality of his presence should have been minimized, at least blunted. And yet, there was still that near-violent thrum around him, as if he was forcing himself into stillness and calm.

"Alexandros was too busy studying, doing magic with numbers and trying his damnedest to please Konstantin, to indulge in silly games with me. Ani...made it easy to escape the things I loathed. Which was everything, living under my father's thumb. Entertaining myself while I watched her for Thea and played with her...was purely selfish. It also had the added benefit of getting under Alexandros's skin, because even back then, he cared about her more than he would ever let on."

Laila absorbed every word and nuance like a sponge parched for water. There was such fondness when he talked of Annika and yet, he had refused to even look at her again after Laila's arrival. Something about how he framed it made her frown. "Is there a selfish motive in how you behaved with the boys today, then?"

He smiled. And it was the soft, disarming smile of a predator, who for some reason wanted her to feel safe with him. "Of course there is. I want them to feel safe with me, to trust me. To let me in. I know Nikos warmed to me pretty quickly, but I didn't miss how much Zayn's behavior dictates his own."

"You don't miss anything," she said, feeling both relief and a strange dread at the realization.

"You fooled me very thoroughly that night," he quipped, one corner of his mouth tugged up. The lack of any rancor only made her want to explain.

"I didn't mean to. Or I mean, yes, I meant to corner you and demand some kind of...answer for why you were targeting Guido. I dressed up so out of my comfort zone, spent hours making myself up because you would've never paid me attention in my usual getup," she said, pulling at her T-shirt. "But everything that happened after I actually met you, that was unplanned. It spiraled into...something else. I didn't plan to sleep with you, Sebastian."

"I should feel rewarded that you did before stealing from me and blackmailing me that you would out me as the artist to the world?"

"Whether it was a reward or not, I don't know. But I'd never done that before and that—"

"You did not do what before?"

"Sleep with a man after knowing him for a few hours. Or sleep with any man," she added, though she immediately wished she hadn't. All this intimacy between them, it was forced by circumstance, not mutual want. In the normal world where she dwelled, she would have never gotten this close to Sebastian Skalas, nor should she want to.

"So you might think it's some cunning plan to seduce you but it wasn't. The moment you noticed me and started speaking to me, I lost control of everything. Including myself."

For a long while, he didn't say anything. Frustration coiled around Laila's heart. The man had a knack for making her own up to all kinds of things and yet clammed up just when she needed him to say something. But she'd come this far, so she might as well say the rest. "I stand by what I did to protect Guido from you. But I wish I didn't have to do any of it. I would have come to you ages ago to tell you about the boys if not for the history between us. How can you insist on any kind of relationship between us when what I did will always color your thoughts, Sebastian?"

"Do you want me to forgive you, Laila? Or beg for forgiveness myself? Will it clear the slate between us?"

"I don't know," she said honestly.

He pushed a hand through his hair. "It is enough if I admit that I understand why you did it, ne?"

"But I want to—"

"How about we call a truce, Dr. Jaafri?" he said, interrupting her. "For the sake of our sons, we will start afresh, as much as possible. We will leave our misguided reasons behind and move forward."

It was the best she was going to get out of him—that almost admission of guilt. Something about the resolve glinting in his eyes made her ask, "What if Zayn takes longer to get close to you? To trust you? Will you abandon the whole venture then?"

Gray eyes held hers. "Patience is one of my virtues, Laila."

"What isn't?" she said, his words pinging over her skin.

"You'll find out soon enough," he said, his eyes taunting her yet again. "This is a novel experience for me, too. There are very few times in my life that I have set my mind to something."

"With Zayn..." Laila said, trying to parse through to the meaning in his words, "respecting his boundaries is very important and for a man who's had nothing to do with children, you made it seamless. My mother and sister usually..." She hesitated, loath to dump her frustration with them on his head.

He sat up slowly, like a predator uncoiling itself from its resting stance. "Usually what?"

"They...crowd Zayn. They constantly demand he talk to them or force playing on him or pick him up when he doesn't like to be touched. The whole thing riles him up and then he digs down into his bad mood. It usually takes me two to three days after they leave to reassure him that I won't encroach on him like they did, to get him back to a routine."

"Why not talk to them about respecting his boundaries?"

Laila scoffed. "Two-year-old with boundaries? My mother doesn't even acknowledge mine. You should have seen her reaction when I told her I was having the babies."

When the silence continued to build and he watched her steadily, Laila flushed. "Why does your silence feel like you're holding back?" she bit out.

He laughed then and this was different. This was real, with a jagged edge to the sound, as if it had caught him by surprise and he didn't have enough time to run it past a filter. The Charming Playboy filter. "You're very clever and perceptive, ne? Glad our boys have one parent to inherit smarts from."

"I know better than anyone who you are, Sebastian. But since reminding you of how I know that might spoil the mood, I shall not. Why did you laugh?"

"Because you pinned me spot-on. If you marry me, I can deal with your mother. I can deal with anyone who doesn't respect my son's boundaries. Zayn is just as special as Nikos," he said with such sudden aggression in his words that Laila felt like he'd sliced open her biggest fear for her sensitive son. "I'd hate for anyone to make him think otherwise."

His fierce support of Zayn made emotion surge through her. The yogurt felt sticky in her throat. "I agree. If I thought Mama or Nadia were causing him harm, I'd cut them out of our lives without another thought."

He nodded. But even their mutual agreement seemed to stir up tension between them.

Laila felt it in the pit of her belly, a taut thread tugging her this way and that. It was so new to her...this restlessness simmering under her skin. Along with the long, emotional day she'd had, it was a bit much to take in. Her breath shuddered as she tried to contain all the different emotions vying for attention.

Two seconds later, she almost jerked out of her chair when gentle fingers danced over her ankle. She looked up to find Sebastian had moved to a closer chair in front of her. "What are you doing?"

"You've had a long day," he said, bringing her foot to rest on his thigh. When she remained stiff in his hold, he looked up. "It's okay. You can let go for two minutes."

She hadn't cried on long, hard nights when it felt like the boys would never settle or when her career seemed to stall because she couldn't give it her hundred percent and when the bills seemed to pile on. And yet now... A sudden sob burst through her. Swallowing against it felt like fighting an incoming tide and a small part of her wanted to drown.

She could feel his shock in how his fingers stilled. "Are you okay, Dr. Jaafri?"

Laila tried a mockery of a smile. "I'm sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me...the whole thing is hitting me now, I think, and..."

"You don't have to apologize. I understand," he said in such a tender voice that Laila forced herself to look away. She was afraid that that tenderness, real or fabricated, might just be her undoing.

Sebastian didn't let her think, though. He nudged her foot farther into his grasp and his nimble fingers pressed into her heel and the painful arch and the sore digits, and he was kneading and pressing with such gentle, firm strokes that she felt like she was floating away on some fluffy cloud, as far as possible from hard, cold reality.

Leaning against the back of her soft chair, she threw her head back and closed her eyes. The man could weave magic with those fingers, and not just on her feet. Tension lingered but more crept in—this languorous sense of well-being she had never tasted. With her heel tucked snugly against his abdomen, which was a slab of rock, something else stirred beneath the overwhelming relief. She groaned when he switched to the other foot, hitting an especially sore spot.

"Will you throw in these foot massages daily if I agree to your condition?" She meant to sound jovial. But her body betrayed her, making her words sound like a husky invitation.

His fingers stilled on her ankle. With a lock of jet-black hair falling onto his forehead, his mouth wreathed in that wicked smile again, he looked exactly how she'd dreamed of him for three years. "Try me and see, Dr. Jaafri."

Wordless, breathless, she pulled her feet back. When she stood up, tiredness hit her like a full-body slam at her martial arts class. "Thank you for...everything."

"I did no more than the minimum expected of me today."

"You really believe that, no?" she said, picking up her spoon and the empty bowls.

Reaching her, he took them from her hands. The simple contact of his fingers lingering on hers felt so good that she had to pluck hers away. "The staff will pick those up."

"Good night, Sebastian," she said and turned away.

Behind her, he said, "Why did you decide to have the babies?"

"Why do you think?" she said, feeling instantly defensive.

"Don't worry. In all this, there's one thing that's very clear. You seek nothing from me that's not solely for the boys."

Somehow, that didn't sound as reassuring as it should have. It felt more like...scorn or mockery.

"You said your mother disapproved of your decision and I can see why, at least partly." Suddenly, he was standing too close. "How old are you?"

Laila jerked her gaze up from the inviting hollow of his throat. "Twenty-seven."

He cursed. "So, you were twenty-four when you—"

"I already had tenure at university, a clear path for my career," she said, cutting his taunt off.

"At that young age?"

"I graduated high school very early, finished my PhD when I was twenty. Academics are easy for me," she said, expecting his surprise. "Socializing, and saying one thing but meaning another, playing the polite but backstabbing games with colleagues in academia, all the strange dating rituals...not so much.

"Romance wasn't in the cards for me. Then you and I happened. When I found out I was pregnant, with twins at that... It was terrifying at first. But... I also had Guido and Paloma and the safe space to really think it through."

"It was that easy to make that decision?"

"When I was a little girl, I used to pray and wish and hope for a fun, boisterous, happy family, with parents who adored one another and siblings who loved each other. I wanted to be...loved and wanted as I was." She tried to scoff at her na?veté, afraid that he would do it, but couldn't.

"With the pregnancy, I realized this was my chance to make my wish come true. Even if the boys only had me, I thought...this is it. The logistics and reality were much, much harder than even my rigorous calculations," she said with a self-deprecating laugh, "but the love I see in Nikos's and Zayn's eyes when they look at me or reach for me or when they kiss my cheek with grubby mouths... I know I'm living my dream. No fear, or worry or overdue bill can take that away from me."

Sebastian walked impossibly closer, and her pulse began to race. She could see the deep, disorienting gray of his eyes, could smell his cologne and sweat, could feel the warmth of his lean body graze her muscles in a lazy invitation.

She held his gaze, some wild instinct she'd known only once before egging her on even as her belly took a dizzying dive.

"I've always wanted a family like that. Now we can both get what we want, ne?" His words were low, soft, as if he was tempering some great emotion. "You have only convinced me that I'm right, Dr. Jaafri. And soon, you'll agree."

Then, in a move that made her heart beat out a wild rhythm, his hands landed on her shoulders, and he pulled her to him.

Laila sank into the hard warmth of his body, trembling like a leaf in a storm. His arms felt like salvation, like a cocoon, like her very own safe place to land. And somehow, that deep sense of security seemed to open the floodgates to all the worries she'd been shouldering alone even before the boys had been born.

Soundless sobs shook her, washing away any embarrassment she should feel for breaking down in front of him. Sebastian didn't seem even a bit surprised or thrown off at her crying. His arms tightened, his lips whispering soft, sweet words in Greek, wrapping them around her like a safety blanket. His words, his touch, his warmth... It was a glorious gift she hadn't known she needed.

Relief filled her in soft, overwhelming waves, followed by sudden, thick fingers of sleep and she barely had a memory of sinking into his arms and the vague impression of him carrying her to bed and tucking her in, as if she too were precious to him.

Laila slept like the dead that night, thinking it curious that it was thanks to the same man who had kept her awake for countless nights.