The Illegitimate Tycoon

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Rafael kept his thoughts secreted on the short boat ride from the yacht to the dock. He’d said nothing when the boat had picked up speed and Leila had taken his hand in a death grip.

The tremors rocketing through her told him everything he needed to know then. She wasn’t fine by any stretch of the imagination. She was putting on a brave front, and if there was one thing he understood, it was how to stand tall in the face of adversity.

His troubled childhood had taught him that bitter lesson!

That’s when he’d buried his own pain of being William Wolfe’s unwanted bastard into learning the intricacies of computers, discovering what made them work, and what to do to make them work better.

He suspected Leila did the same with her modeling. That was her escape, or perhaps her triumph and celebration, over her bout with anorexia.

His gaze lifted to La Croisette and the cluster of fans, paparazzi and celebrities moving about. The tents crowding the beach were the same, though the lights were more subdued. More intimate.

At one time they’d have enjoyed the nightlife. Now he selfishly wanted Leila to himself. The question remained if she was still eager to be alone with him.

“Would you like to take in the sights before turning in?” he asked, stopping well before the flood of lights spilling from the Palais du Cinéma.

She looked at the active scene they’d soon walk into and shivered. “No. I’ve no interest in becoming one of the hundreds in the nightclubs.”

He released a sigh of relief. “What about the secluded beach? Just us walking, like we used to do.”

Music danced on the balmy night air, but he felt the shift in her mood from tense to relieved.

“I’d enjoy that, as long as it takes me away from the spotlight.”

He couldn’t agree more, and was relieved she felt the same. There was a change in Leila that he’d never seen before, and wasn’t quite sure how to deal with. But part of her seemed closed off even to him. Distant. What had happened this past year while they had been embroiled in their careers to put those shadows in her vibrant eyes?

Rafael certainly intended to find out once they were alone. He eased them past the barriers that served to keep the onlookers out and took a trail that wound to a secluded stretch of sand. It wasn’t wide and it wasn’t pretty, but it was quiet.

“I applaud you for avoiding the paparazzi and the guards,” she said, pausing to slip off her heels before they started down the warm sandy coast.

“I was lucky.” Just like he’d been all the times he’d sneaked into Wolfe Manor so he could play with his half brothers and sister, defying his father’s edict.

He shook off those old painful memories and held on to the good ones. He’d made a solid connection with his siblings over the years, though he didn’t keep in touch with all of them. But then his family had remained fractured, with each of his half siblings emotionally or physically scarred by their father.

Rafael had worried that he would not be able to love another person up until the day he’d met Leila. Even during that first year of marriage he’d wondered if what he felt was real. If he’d awaken to discover it had all been a dream.

He glanced down at Leila now, whose features seemed suddenly lighter, freer. He surrendered to his own smile, for there was something about defying the norm that made his own adrenaline surge.

“Feeling better?” he asked, twining his fingers with hers as they struck off down the beach.

“Much. The air is so refreshing.”

He made a sound of agreement, though every breath he took drew her sweet scent deeper into his soul. The tension of being the object of so much attention began easing, yet he sensed Leila hadn’t let go of it yet.

“I’ve missed this,” she said at last.

“The beach?”

“The peace and quiet with you.”

The exact opposite of her lifestyle. Right now at this moment their separate worlds were miles apart. But if they didn’t put a stop to this madness they’d lived with for a year, their marriage would surely suffer. Perhaps it already had.

“Why push yourself so hard in your career now? “

“If I don’t fight to stay on top of it I could end up on the fringe of this business outside of a year.”

Rafael suddenly felt tension seep into his bones. Surely this would happen anyway once they started the family they’d agreed on? Or had that changed?

“It sounds as if you intend to keep working.”

“I do,” she said without hesitating.

Was she serious?

He wanted a wife and the family he’d long to have. A home. A normal family that he’d always been denied.

He wanted Leila back in his life now, not off somewhere on a shoot dragging their children along. Leaving him behind. Lonely. Forgotten. Rejected.

“And what about children, Leila? I thought we’d agreed that when we started a family, you would be a full-time mother. You’d place our children above everything, and most certainly above your career. Are you telling me now that has changed? “

Chapter Three

RAFAEL held on to his emotions as silence roared between them, obliterating the soothing sounds of the surf washing over the sands and the excited beat of music pulsing in the warm night air.

He’d asked a simple question, one they’d agreed upon before they’d gotten married. The answer should be instant, in keeping with her promise.

“Many mothers work as well as look after their children, Rafael,” she said, which sounded like she was building up to an admission that she’d had a change of heart.

He bit off a curse and jammed his hands into his trouser pockets when every cell in his body goaded him to shake sense into his wife. The last thing he needed to do was lose his temper. He had to remain calm. Rational. Or as rational as he could be when his dreams of a family were teetering on the edge.

“Most women with children hold down a job because they have to. You most certainly do not need to work.”

“I disagree with you,” she fired back. “Many women work because it gives them purpose.”

“You think being a mother won’t do that?”

He wished he could see her face, but the velvet night swallowed up the details. The tension he felt rocketing through her though was very real, and very telling.

“I can’t think of anything on earth that would be as soul-satisfying as having a child,” she said at last, her voice breaking a bit with genuine emotion. “But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t work in moderation. I love my career, Rafael. Through it, I’ve been able to help other young girls who suffer with eating disorders. I’ve made a difference in their lives.”

He was well aware of the clinic she’d established in Rio and he was proud of all she’d achieved. He was aware, too, that of late she’d suffered a financial setback there. A setback that he could have easily funded for her. But when he’d offered to secure her clinic under his business umbrella in March, she’d thanked him before she’d flatly refused his help.

He’d not brought the subject up again, but now he had to know. “What about your business manager? Doesn’t he oversee those issues for you?”

“Yes, but I have final say. Especially with the clinic. It’s important to me that I keep a close watch over it,” she said.

Leila had as much pride as he. She was also clearly set on having control over her career as well as her charity.

He understood that, for he was the same. But of late he suspected that her drive to make crucial decisions in her life had edged to the extreme. It wasn’t just the little things she needed to evaluate. She was micromanaging everything.

Their marriage and future family as well?

She couldn’t give up her career, and she wouldn’t put the management of her charity into anyone else’s hands. She insisted she could keep a finger in her work and still be a mother – which she was obviously again trying to put off starting.

He sucked in a breath, then another, but his nerves were still snapping like ribbons in the wind. He knew full well how part-time work could eventually suck up all the hours in a day. He knew, too, how devoted – no, driven – Leila was with her career.

Which made the thought of her being a working mother all the more troubling. A baby could easily be shuffled off while she was busy on a set, cared for by strangers.

Just like his youth? Passed from one neighbor to another while his mother cleaned houses for a meager living. And later, when he was left alone in their small flat when his mother couldn’t support them and her various causes with just one job.

Rafael ground his teeth in annoyance, for he’d vowed at an early age that no child of his would endure that type of life. His children would have a home and two parents to come home to every day. They would know they were loved. Wanted. Cherished.

He took her hand and lifted it to his mouth, placing a light kiss on her fingers. A shiver rocketed from her into him, telling him she wasn’t immune from him at least.

“Leila, I am tired of us being apart and waiting to start a family,” he said. “I want a wife who lives with me again. I want a home and children.”

He heard her clear her throat, felt another tremor skitter through her. “God knows I’ve missed you. But what you are asking me to give up right now is unreasonable.”

“No, I am speaking from experience,” he reasoned softly. “I lived with a mother who worked all her life, not one but two jobs. I know what it is like to be alone, and I will not put our child through the same.”

Before she could answer, a couple’s low laughter intruded on them, followed by a barbed comment from a man. He glanced at the sound, noting with irritation that two couples were coming their way, all close to being lost to drink, he’d guess.

“Let’s return to our suite,” he said, pulling Leila away from the approaching group.

“Gladly.”

By the time they’d wended their way through the crowd and into their hotel in brittle silence, Rafael’s emotions were stretched to breaking point. At this rate any further conversation about children would likely end in an argument. Yet how could he rest until he knew what had changed Leila’s mind?

Dammit, they’d made these plans long ago. Had he simply deluded himself into thinking their marriage and their love was strong?

“It is clear to me that you need to decide what you want,” he said, his voice sounding suddenly cold. “A family with me. Or your career.”

“Perhaps it is fate’s choice to make and not mine.”

There was something in her tone that chilled him. Something heart-wrenching in the shadows lurking in her eyes.

Without another word, she slipped into the bedroom. Instead of following, he stood there alone, dreading that there was far more to her prophetic comment than he would like.