CHAPTER SIX

INHINDSIGHT, Laila thought she should have expected that Sebastian would default to form in that spectacularly dramatic fashion of his—getting caught smooching some tall, anemically thin, cheekbones-for-life model/designer/party girl.

Three weeks was a long time for him to act the domesticated homebody, given he'd spent most of his life in the most profligate of ways.

That some tabloid toe rag had caught him smooching said Slavic model wouldn't have been on Laila's radar, if Annika in her desperation to stop Laila from seeing it had inadvertently made Laila curious enough to seek it out.

In a smart black jacket with the white shirt underneath open to his abdomen, he had been caught in profile, with the model's mouth attached to his, her body wrapped around him like a squid's tentacles from the boys' favorite cartoon show. This was on the first night he'd been away from the villa since their arrival.

He hadn't yet returned from his jaunt and Laila wondered if he had to like...build a buffer of partying and sleeping around and causing general mayhem to sustain being the responsible, caring parent the rest of the time. Like her own mother, who'd needed parties and theater and flirting endlessly with "exciting men" because she claimed her life with Baba was boring and dull and predictable. As if it was his primary responsibility in life to provide entertainment for her. Failing that, she'd expected him to support her extravagant lifestyle.

This wasn't the same, Laila tried to tell herself. He hadn't made any promises of fidelity to her. He'd offered a cookie-cutter marriage deal that she hadn't accepted. He was free of obligation to her. They had nothing in common except the boys. He wasn't a man she could trust a hundred percent. Her excuses for him went on and on but didn't stick, didn't make the slice of hurt lessen.

Seeing him with his...flavor of the month felt like someone had picked her up and thrown her across a hard floor. Like her very breath had been beaten out of her. Like the numerous times when her half sister, Nadia, had teased her that she didn't belong with her and their mother because she was so...weird with her "not-so-slender build and over-smart brains" and a freak with her head buried in numbers and models.

Laila's first instinct was to pack up the boys and run away, which was laughable in itself because where would she run to and from what. And she wasn't the sort to run away from reality in the first place. This was her life now, even if disappointment clung like bitter bile to the back of her throat. What she needed was to get out of the villa, at least for a short while. Meet someone from her plane of reality to get her head screwed on right.

After all, this villa and the lifestyle and the man himself... They could all be from an alien planet she'd been thrust into.

She made arrangements with Paloma and her helpers early next morning so that she could have the afternoon for herself. She refused Annika's offer to accompany her on her "shopping trip," having already divided Annika's loyalties enough to cause the rift of a lifetime. Sebastian was still avoiding her and the last thing she needed was to disclose her thorny feelings about him to her.

When Alexandros commanded in that steely voice of his that he'd arranged for a chopper to bring her to Athens, she'd almost lost her temper at him. But he wasn't her culprit. And she was working hard on convincing herself that no one was.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity but really was maybe thirty minutes, the chopper dropped her off on top of a skyscraper in the business district of Athens, close enough to the café that was her destination.

Laila took the elevator down to the boutique Annika had recommended. Not that she could afford anything more than a pair of shoelaces there, but to kill time before her friend was due.

When she stepped onto the sprawling thirty-second floor, with its shining mosaic floors and all-glass facades—clearly home to a host of exclusive, designer stores—the entire level was suspiciously empty. As was the boutique with its gleaming black marble floors, pristine white counters and a lingering expensive scent that made Laila feel like a wild creature in the plastic jungle.

Looking around the quiet space, she wondered if she'd somehow missed a local holiday. On further inspection, she found the boutique to be open, with a tall, stylish woman hovering around the entrance, looking at Laila as if she was a royal dignitary gracing the boutique with her magnanimous presence.

"Dr. Jaafri? Welcome," the woman said. "I'm Natasha. The store and I are at your disposal for the next several hours."

Laila opened her mouth, closed it, then followed the woman into the store. Now, she felt churlish for refusing Ani's company when she'd clearly arranged everything for her. She spent the next hour pleasantly surprised when she tried out the collection of frothy silk dresses, soft-as-butter blouses and trousers she preferred for work that the woman picked out to suit her unusual frame of wide shoulders, small breasts and hippy...hips.

Even though she couldn't really keep any of the pieces, Laila gave in to the pleasurable folly of trying dresses that were utterly unsuitable for her lifestyle and way out of her price range. Neither did she miss the fact that at these astronomical designer price tags, even her body could look damn good.

Two glasses of the most delicious champagne and two macarons later, she felt giddy enough to try a daring sleeveless little number in a burnt orange shade that did wonders for her golden brown complexion. The bodice was pretty much a strap around her breasts and then flared, falling a couple of inches above her knees, showing off her long legs.

Having thanked Natasha for helping her into it, Laila was about to look at herself when her nape prickled. She turned and heard the woman leave the room immediately, the door closing behind her.

Sebastian stood inside the room, immediately shrinking it in size.

In a leather jacket and dark denim that hugged his long legs, he looked like he could be one of the perfectly proportioned mannequins. Except no man made of synthetic materials could hold that warm, wicked light his gray eyes did. He looked how she imagined he'd look after a couple of nights of debauchery. Dark shadows clung to his eyes and there was at least two days' worth of stubble on his jaw. Despite his disheveled state, there was a faint buzz of sensuality that emanated from him, as if he couldn't help putting that particular vibe out.

Had he rolled out of that model's bed an hour ago? Had he come here with that woman's scent on him?

The tacky, jealousy-filled questions gave her whiplash as she fought to tamp them. None of my business didn't really seem to work.

Even the fact that he might have been with another woman not an hour ago could diminish his appeal, though. She had to consciously work on tugging her gaze away from the V of his T-shirt, from the corded column of his throat, that hollow she desperately wanted to...lick and smush her face against.

"Did you miss me, Laila?"

"Excuse me?"

"You have that look in your eyes, the one that says you want to inhale me whole."

Heat crested her cheeks. "That's probably the champagne on an empty stomach. What are you doing here?" Suddenly, the empty building made sense.

"Alexandros informed me about your sudden expedition. The building was evacuated. I had this store open since Ani said you wanted to shop here."

She swallowed and looked around. So, Natasha and the little surprise had been his doing? Because he wanted to assuage a guilty conscience? "Isn't that a bit much?"

"Given there were hordes of reporters here half an hour ago, I would say not."

"Reporters?" she repeated blankly. "Here? Why?"

"I'm not fond of saying I told you so. Smacks of self-righteous pride. I believe it might be because news got out that I have sons." He pushed off the wall with a smooth grace, immediately giving her the impression that he was on the chase and she was his prey. "Alexandros said he barely got you to take the chopper. You should have—"

"I didn't realize I was under house arrest. Or that I need your permission every time I need a break."

Hands tucked into the back pockets of his trousers, chin tucked down, he stared at her. "Something is wrong. Is it Zayn? Has Nikos—?"

"They're fine. Though Nikos won't stop asking after you."

Just like that, the exhaustion clinging to him vanished, changing the panorama of his face. "And Zayn?"

Two simple words and the entire universe seemed to expand with the hope pulsing within them.

For a second, Laila considered lying, then abandoned the idea. Sebastian's devotion to his sons was a rare quality and his actions toward her shouldn't be her barometer to judge him. It was easier said than done, though. "You know how his little body stills and he won't even blink when he's really invested in something?"

Sebastian nodded.

"He gets like that every time Nikos asks after you."

His chest rose and fell, his lips pursing inward and then out. And then in the blink of an eye, he switched personas. "I hear you have a hot date. Is that why you're shopping?"

"I'm meeting a friend for a drink." When he watched her, unblinking, as if she was hiding state secrets, she said, "I thought the advantage of this whole arrangement was that I could take a couple of hours out of my life for myself."

"Of course it is. Unless you told this friend who the boys' father is, and he leaked it to the press."

"Fahad would never do anything that would hurt me."

"Maybe not," Sebastian said, getting a belligerent look in his eyes that she was beginning to recognize as possessiveness. "Then how would we explain why the press was coming after you today? Alexandros doubled the security around the villa."

"Maybe they were here because they wanted to get a look at you and your arm candy?" Laila burst out.

"My arm candy?" With a curse, he rubbed his hand over his face. "You saw the tabloid?"

"It's none of my business."

When she tried to move forward, he blocked her, his hand on her elbow. Even disheveled, the man packed a punch with his magnetic presence. "You aren't upset, then?"

She shook her head, avoiding his gaze.

"If I tell you that she came onto me and kissed me, and the photographer caught us right as I untangled myself? That I have no interest in her or anyone else? That she and some friends orchestrated that whole scene in some stupid welcome joke since I've been MIA?"

Laila folded her arms, feeling that strange tension gather in her belly again. It was that irrational, inconvenient want she felt near him. "It doesn't matter, Sebastian."

He leaned in closer, trapping her against the glass wall behind her. "It doesn't matter that I propose marriage to you and then turn around and sleep with the first woman I come across that's not you?"

Laila stilled, sensing a sudden change in the very air around them. He was...angry. Blisteringly so. He hadn't been this angry when she'd revealed the news about the boys. And she knew instantly that she had made a mistake, that she had rubbed salt on a wound that clearly festered. "Since I didn't accept your proposal, it's not..."

He laughed then and it was so bitter that she felt nauseated. His lean body tightened with tension. "Maybe Alexandros is right that I'm a fool to offer you all that I have."

Laila didn't give a damn what Alexandros thought. She did care, however, that she had misjudged Sebastian through her own insecurities and created strife between them. "I hate to say this but your history made me believe the clip, Sebastian. You're notorious for this kind of behavior, for changing partners on a whim, for chasing every high, for excessively wild risks. What was I supposed to do when you disappear after three weeks with us and then show up with a woman clinging to you plastered all over the internet?"

"You could have asked me. Or is my word not trustworthy, too?"

"If you say you didn't kiss that woman, you didn't kiss that woman," she said, rushing through the words. "But we're...opposites. You thrive on excitement, and risks and bending society's rules and I'm a boring, dull statistician whose deepest, darkest wish is to stay in and listen to old maestros on precious records. That's why your proposal won't work. You'll eventually tire of me."

"All of this based on a gossip rag that caught me at a bad moment?" His tone could cut through glass and she knew this was the real Sebastian.

"All of this based on a relationship that I've once seen go up in flames, where the...parties were just like us," she said, biting her parents' mention at the last second. "We have nothing in common except the boys."

"Oh, wow, so this is the statistician extrapolating data?"

Laila sighed. "You ended up at a raucous party the first night out in three weeks. You...were itching to get away the last few days. You..."

"Because I was beginning to get one of my bloody migraines. It's not a pretty sight for anyone and they claw me under for a few days. I didn't want to frighten the boys or you. And I ended up at the bloody party because I wanted to come back to the villa and needed something to numb the pain. Like an edible. It's the only thing that helps."

Suddenly, his disheveled state, the dark shadows under his eyes, the faint tension thrumming around him made...so much sense. Why hadn't he told her? "I'm sorry. I didn't know that you suffered from—"

He stepped back from her, shaking his head. And Laila had the suddenly dawning fear that she had lost something that she didn't know she needed—his willingness to build something between them. That fear made her articulate something she'd have never allowed herself—a right to him and his secrets, to his real self. "You could have told me you were unwell. Or that you needed to get away, that you get...restless when it begins. Just one line, Sebastian and all of this could have been avoided. How do you think a marriage would work between us if you won't even give me that at this stage?"

"I will not spend another half of my life trying to prove who I am or what I'm capable of."

The bitterness in his words, the flyaway tidbits she gathered about his childhood from Annika, his disinterest in anything related to the Skalas name, his refusal to share himself with the world as a renowned painter... She was operating blind on an emotional minefield. But the thing she knew with a sudden clarity was that she wanted a map to him. She wanted to reach him.

"You said we would start over and that can't be done if you hide parts of your real self from me, and show me the charming mask you put on for the rest of the world. The boys need a father who will not hide away imperfect parts of himself. What do you think that says to them?"

A soft hiss escaped his lips and Laila knew she'd reached him. But there was more and she let it pour out. "I can't be in a relationship with a man who won't even give me easy communication in such small things. We might as well call it quits now."

His gray gaze pinned her to the spot, something dancing there. "Fine. This is my fault a hundred percent and I apologize. But instead of demanding an explanation, you decided to invite your boyfriend here in some twisted revenge?"

"Fahad is not my boyfriend," she said, suddenly understanding his anger.

"But he would like to be, no?" he retorted, with an unnerving perception.

Laila's shocked silence said things she didn't want to say.

He thrust a hand through his hair, a hardness she hated entering his eyes. "I will make other arrangements for you to stay close to the villa while I start custody proceedings. I know you won't believe it, but I'll be fair."

"I don't want that," she whispered, grabbing his arm, the resonant truth of her words dawning on her. "I invited him because he's from my world, Sebastian, and one of the few people who doesn't treat me like a freak. I needed to find the ground under my feet."

He stilled, as if her very touch was repellant. "You can't have it both ways, by holding some unnamed condition over my head then coming to the worst conclusions in your head. You agreed to give this a fair chance."

"You can't go off to parties with models without telling me why, either, Sebastian. Or better yet, just don't go to parties with models," she burst out, and then cringed at how demanding and possessive that sounded. The words lingered between them, dancing over a line she wished she had the strength to not cross. Laila pressed her forehead to his arm and exhaled. His hand in hers was big, rough, broad, and something about the touch anchored her. Gave her strength to be honest with him and herself, as strange as that sounded to her rational mind. "I...if I'm to give our bet a real consideration, if I am to believe that a marriage between us has a chance of working, you should know I...want fidelity, Sebastian. I want it to be as real as we can make it. I can't even consider doing it any other way."

"Noted, Dr. Jaafri," he said and the serious tone of his voice told her he understood the step she was taking.

"I convinced myself it did not matter if you kissed another woman," Laila went on. "I promised myself that I wouldn't let this become personal between us, wouldn't let my weakness for you...muddy this."

"Your weakness for me would blind you to who I am?"

She scoffed, her lips trembling at the dense muscle packed in his arm. "No. It blinds me with my own insecurities. It confirms patterns that I seek to protect myself with, even when they aren't there," she admitted with little grace.

"Look at me, Laila."

She raised her eyes, feeling as if she'd cracked herself open past a door that had always been inaccessible to her.

His eyes searched hers, a steely resolve to them. "Nikos and Zayn adore you. They will believe everything you do. You owe it to me to be careful how you judge me."

"That's the thing that sticks in my craw. When it shouldn't," she said, with a snort. "You see me as nothing but their mother. I could be any woman from the long list of your lovers and you would offer me the same little package deal." She pressed a hand to her chest, her heart thundering in there. "Apparently, I'm selfish enough in all this to not want to be a placeholder."

"You think I invited you into my home, my brother's home, into our private lives, without knowing what kind of a woman you are? Without considering the fact that you nearly ruined me and yourself out of loyalty for a man who's not even related to you? Without considering that you're not only devoted to my sons, but would stand up to me if I wasn't good enough for them? Without remembering that, amid all the lies you wove and the plans you made, you responded to me with a hunger and need I have relived a thousand times over in three years?"

Laila stared, feeling more than foolish. Fingers of heat trickled through her, banishing every doubt for now.

Sebastian scoffed. "Unlike you and Alexandros, I trust my instinct. As for not seeing you..." He rubbed a hand over his lower lip and she was beginning to see it for the tell it was when he wanted her. "You live under my roof and you follow my every move with those big eyes, just as hungrily as Zayn does. You seduced me and disappeared for three years, leaving me a damn note while I obsessively looked for you. I would plan what I'd do when I caught you so elaborately, dream of the moment I had in you in my hands... I'd see your face in every woman who was tall or had that way of walking or..." His warm breath coated Laila's lips. "It is already personal between us. It was, even before the boys."

Laila felt a liquid longing well up within her at his soft words. She felt greedy, grasping, voraciously so, for more from him. Of him. As much as it had been an act, the one night she'd spent in his company had been the most alive she'd ever felt. The most she had lived in her entire life.

It was a dangerous game to want to matter and she had lost before and yet... She felt like Paloma's yarn when the boys got their hands on it, unspooling away into sensations and feelings, tangling into knots, changed forever.

"What would you have done with me if you had caught me?"