Chapter Three
CHAPTER THREE
Present day…
When her supervisor, Sheila, told Bree, “We have a meeting upstairs,” Bree’s knees began to shake.
It was silly. She often accompanied her boss into meetings on the C-level, usually with Sheila’s boss, the COO. Sometimes it was for something as mundane as a marketing presentation.
Today, however, it was just the two of them in the elevator.
“No one else?” Bree asked.
“Dom floated something by me. I’ll let him do the honors.”
Dom. That was Mr. Blackwood to Bree. Was it a promotion? Her pulse lurched with the excitement of opportunity and the apprehension of the unknown.
She had never actually been in his office. It was a massive space at the top of the Manhattan skyrise with access to a rooftop garden and a view of the East River. The office itself was four times the size of her apartment, not counting whatever rooms the various doors led to. She suspected there was a professional kitchen behind one of them and likely a full bath behind another.
The main room was dominated by his contemporary desk sculpted from steel. There was a meeting space on one side and a comfortable seating area on the other.
That’s where they were invited to join Dom and his new wife, Evelina Visconti. Blackwood now. Still Jax’s sister.
Brielle’s head lifted off her body. Her legs turned to sand. She shook Eve’s hand while barely suppressing her semi-hysterical laugh.
“Congratulations on your recent marriage. I’m sorry my hands are so cold.” She feared her palm had been clammy. This was surreal.
“Dom keeps it like the North Pole in here.” Eve sent him an exasperated look. “I’ll keep this quick so you can get back to the tropics. Please sit. Coffee?”
Brielle accepted purely to warm her hands. She tried to keep an agog look off her face, but her heart was in her throat. Eve’s resemblance to Jax was obvious, but she also saw her daughter in her. Since reading the wedding announcement, Bree had been searching Jax online, waffling back and forth on whether to tell him he had a child. He didn’t seem to have any serious romantic relationships, which had been her first concern. She was still tallying all the other pros and cons, though, making it hard to concentrate as Eve spoke.
“With our marriage, the two organizations are looking at an eventual alignment of the hotel chains. This is very early days, but I’ve been tasked with overseeing that process. Dom and Sheila have identified you as one of WBE’s key personnel who could be a valuable addition to my team. If you’re interested, I’d like to forward the offer, but let me outline the key points. It’s a minimum two-year commitment. WBE would grant you a leave so you wouldn’t lose your position here. In fact…” Eve glanced at Dom.
“You came to my attention because Sheila identified you in her succession plan,” Dom said. “I hate losing good people because they’re stagnating, waiting for opportunities. Experience on Evie’s team would give you foundational knowledge of both organizations, something that would inform your role when you take over from Sheila in a few years.”
There was a long silence.
Bree belatedly realized she was supposed to speak.
Professionally, this was a dream come true, but her brain was exploding. She would be working with her daughter’s aunt .
“I—” Thanks to her mother drilling her for years on maintaining poise under pressure, she was able to recover and say something mildly intelligible. “It’s certainly an offer I want to consider. You’ll have to forgive my shock. I thought I was coming here to talk about the logistics problem with the linen supplier. Which has been dealt with, by the way.”
They all chuckled, but it did little to ease Brielle’s nerves.
“I want my core team in place by the end of the month,” Eve said. “I’ll forward the details today. Don’t be afraid to consult with an employment agency to evaluate it.”
Bree hadn’t thought of herself as being at that level, but was flattered when Dom sent a look of mock annoyance toward Eve and griped, “I also don’t like losing people because my wife brings them to the attention of headhunters.”
Eve grinned and said to Bree, “Call me with any questions. Any at all.”
Can I have your brother’s number?
Did she want it? She had deliberately refused to take it four years ago. She had regretted that impulsive decision when she had realized she was pregnant, but she’d also chosen to have Sofia knowing she’d be a single parent.
They rose and shook hands again. Bree tried to catch her breath in the elevator.
“I hate the idea of you leaving my team, but I can’t think of any good reason for you to turn this down,” Sheila said.
Bree smiled weakly. “Neither can I.”
***
Jackson disliked New York at the best of times. November was not the best of times. It was gloomy and drizzly and cold.
Yet, for some incomprehensible reason, his sister had chosen to host her wedding reception here this month. For some equally incomprehensible reason, she had married Domenico Blackwood in a secret ceremony six weeks ago.
Jax was still furious about that. The Blackwoods had given the Viscontis headaches and heartaches for three generations. He was furious with Nico for selling their sister into an arranged marriage to the devil. He was furious with Eve for going along with it.
He was furious with himself. He felt guilty that she’d resorted to such a thing when the roots of this disaster could be traced back to his own negligence four years ago. If he’d gone to Naples as scheduled, Blackwood never would have got the upper hand against them.
As a turn of the knife, Eve had berated all three of her brothers the last time Jax had been here, accusing them of clinging to bachelorhood instead of making a “strategic alliance” the way she had.
She had apologized to Jax later, but her remark hadn’t been as cheap a shot as she feared. His broken engagement was seven years old. Eight? She had a point, and it was stuck in him like a poison-tipped arrow. He could have and should have married by now.
All of the Visconti children were expected to follow in their parents’ footsteps with advantageous unions. Like his brothers, Jax had been putting off finding a wife, but his foot-dragging was no longer about Paloma and that unpleasant history. It was about his obsession with a woman he had slept with once.
He couldn’t say what agitated him more, knowing that if Blackwood hadn’t demanded his attention in Naples he might have stayed longer with Bree, or knowing that if she hadn’t consumed him that day, he might not have lost that property to Blackwood. That incident wasn’t the whole reason things had deteriorated to the point his sister had been forced to marry Blackwood, but it was definitely a factor.
Jackson owed it to his family—to his sister—to step up with a marriage that bettered their collective position financially and socially, especially because of the anguish he’d caused all of them when his first engagement imploded.
At the time, he had been trying to do the right thing, reporting an assault. His fiancée had sided with the perpetrator—her brother. Jax understood that kind of loyalty, but her rejection of him, and the attacks that had followed, had left a mark on his psyche.
Jackson had not only let down his family with his broken engagement, but had caused them real anguish as Paloma’s family turned their back on his, siding with Blackwoods against them, fueling those fires of animosity.
It had become so ugly, Jax’s father had had to send Jax to Italy to get some peace for the rest of the clan. Jax still carried a heavy weight of thorny responsibility over it.
His guilt and sense of rejection were no reason to dodge his duty, though. It wasn’t as though he was averse to marriage. Growing up one of four children, Jax had always presumed he would marry and have a family of his own. That’s why he had proposed to Paloma while he was still at university. He’d been in love and hadn’t seen any reason to put off starting the life he planned to live.
Love was a very troublesome emotion, though. It clouded judgment and tested loyalty and became delicate and brittle when pressed into the space between right and wrong.
He had been guarding his heart ever since, which was another reason he had pushed marriage and children firmly onto the back burner. His sexual infatuation with a tourist hadn’t helped, otherwise he might have considered one of the women his mother had been throwing at him for the past several years. Everything about settling down had felt like settling.
It was time, though. Time to step up and contribute to the family instead of causing scandal and heartache.
He told his mother to arrange him a date for Eve’s party.
Typically, Jax flew in the day before an event he couldn’t avoid. He landed with enough time to sleep off the worst of the jet lag, ate dinner with his parents, accomplished his purpose, and got the hell out of Dodge.
This trip, however, other appointments had been shoehorned into the schedule.
“Come early for your suit fitting,” his mother insisted. She feared Jax’s younger brother, Christo, would turn up in flip-flops if she didn’t dress him herself.
“While we’re together, we’ll hold strategy meetings with Dom,” Nico said.
After a lifetime of rivalry with WBE, they were moving from competition to alignment between their hotel chains. Eve had been appointed to lead that endeavor, which was an excellent use of her skill set, so Jax was willing to be supportive.
Then there was their father. Romeo wasn’t making any demands on Jackson’s time, but ever since his surgery, he had sounded…tired. There was every chance he would bounce back over time, but Jax had to face the fact his parents were aging.
It added fuel to his decision to marry, to offer his parents peace of mind.
He arrived four full days before Eve’s party. He stayed in his childhood bedroom—one of them, at least. The Manhattan apartment was the family home situated closest to the corporate offices and the primary school they’d all attended before leaving for boarding schools in Europe.
After dinner, he watched football with his father, then patiently allowed his mother to brush invisible lint from the lapel of his jacket the following morning.
“Christo will be here tonight. Remind Nico to come for dinner.” She plucked to ensure his sage-green pocket square was exactly one quarter of an inch from the edge of his pocket. Her gaze swept down his black shirt and cream-colored trousers, all the way to his black loafers, ensuring there were no imperfections.
A Visconti was nothing if not well-dressed. Jackson happened to agree with her on that.
“I invited Eve and Dom. They have plans with his sister. Will you take these proofs to her? They’re for the place settings and the reception program. I need to tell the printers today if she wants to go ahead.” She picked up an envelope from the table in the foyer.
“We have this new thing called texting, Mom. You take a photo and send it.”
“We also have couriers, which is how these came to me yesterday. Be mine today since you’ll see her anyway.” She offered the envelope. “This process has been so rushed. I hope when you boys marry, you’ll give me more notice.”
He took the envelope without speaking.
Her smooth expression grew contrite. “I didn’t mean anything by that.”
“I know.”
She wasn’t deliberately reminding him of his broken engagement. At the time, she and Romeo had thought he was too young to marry anyway, insisting he wait at least a year. None of them had expected a breakup that would turn so ugly.
“You’ll like Tabitha,” she said, mentioning his date for the party. “She’s very bright, educated in Paris, spent time in Tuscany and loves Italy. I’ve known her mother for years. Her parents were already coming, so this works out well. I’ve seated you with them so you can get to know them as well.”
He ignored the twist of resistance in him and the sensation of a rope dragging him somewhere he didn’t want to go.
“I’ll see you tonight.” He kissed her cheek and left.
Twenty minutes later, he entered the Visconti Group building and would have been waved through, but he paused to ask Security, “Do you know if my sister is here yet?”
“She’s on twenty-eight, sir.”
“Thanks.” He was glad for the excuse to check in with Eve away from the rest of the family. Away from her husband.
He would die for any of his siblings, but Eve had always been the one he was closest to. While she’d been at school in Switzerland, she had often stayed with him in Naples, rather than flying home for long weekends. She had never made him talk about what had happened with Paloma, but had always been available if he wanted to.
That’s why her Peter Pan comment had landed so hard on him. He couldn’t have known how badly things would turn out with Paloma, but that was no excuse for making her carry the load where marriage and the family legacy were concerned. If he’d taken action sooner, she wouldn’t be married to Blackwood.
He should have crushed Blackwood when he had the chance, instead of getting his rocks off. God, he hated himself for that negligence.
Nothing like it would happen again. He might have given in to his libido to the detriment of his responsibilities once, but he was past puerile self-indulgence now.
Case in point, the receptionist on this floor offered him a starry-eyed look and sweetly offered to escort him to the boardroom where Eve was conducting a meeting.
“I can see the door,” he said drily.
He ignored the stares as he walked through the bullpen of cubicles and peered over the stripe of frost on the boardroom’s glass walls. Eve was at the far end, circling something on a smart whiteboard. A half dozen people were at the table, faces turned toward her as they listened attentively.
He knocked and entered.
“Jax!” Eve beamed with surprised pleasure. “My brother, Jackson, everyone. He runs Visconti’s Euro division.”
“Excuse the interruption.” He sent a polite nod to the half dozen faces that swiveled to face him. “Our mother—”
Bree. The sight of her punched the breath clean out of him.
She was far more beautiful than he had allowed himself to remember. She wore a navy blazer over a turquoise-colored top that brought out her startling eyes and made her golden complexion glow. Her russet brown hair fell in a silky curtain to her jaw, framing fine-boned features while giving her a chic, businesslike air.
Was she thinner? Or were her cheeks hollow because she was slack-jawed with shock?
He was taken aback himself. By the sight of her and by the weight of desire that landed in his gut like a comet hitting the ground.
For four years, he’d been wanting this woman, only this woman. Here she was. At last.
But what was she doing here ? He frowned, moving past shock to puzzlement. Did she know Eve was his sister?
Her gaze dropped to the tablet in front of her. A fierce blush rose in her cheeks.
“Let me introduce you to everyone.” Eve’s voice was a half note higher than normal. She rattled off names that he made no effort to remember, unable to look at anyone but Bree.
“And Brielle Hughes, also from WBE,” Eve finished.
Brielle. Not Brianna, as he’d assumed all this time. He vaguely recollected her name from an announcement about Eve’s team. He hadn’t put together that Brielle could be Bree. It hadn’t occurred to him that the elusive unicorn he’d thought resided in Virginia could be here in New York working for his sister .
At the sound of her name, Bree lifted her lashes, but her smile was…a mask.
He’d seen that expression on her face once before, when she had said, This was nice. Arrivederci .
She met his gaze very briefly, only long enough for him to read apprehension behind that false smile. Was she afraid he would say something to embarrass her? Or was that inability to meet his gaze something else? Guilt?
His senses prickled, trying to parse out the cryptic signals floating on the air between them. Suspicion filled him, but he wasn’t sure why.
“You should join us for lunch,” Eve was saying.
“Your group?” He reluctantly dragged his attention from Bree to his sister.
“Gosh, no. They get enough of me in here. Dom is coming to get me. Invite Nico. You’re going upstairs to meet with him, aren’t you?”
“Yes. I only came in to give you this, from Mom.” He offered the envelope, but his mind was turning over the fact that Bree hadn’t seemed as surprised to see him as he was to see her. In fact, now he really thought of it, that initial look on her face had been alarm .
“Thanks.” Eve took the envelope. “I’ll walk you to the elevator.”
“Not necessary.” He glanced again at Bree, wanting to talk to her, but she was avoiding his gaze. Her profile was stoic, her posture so still he had the sense she was forcibly trying not to reveal her agitation.
“Jax?” Eve opened the door, waiting until he’d walked out and the boardroom door had closed behind them before she hissed, “Keep it in your pants!”
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, please. She’s very pretty, but you know the rules.”
“She doesn’t work for me.” It was a reflexive response from a place that didn’t want to hear no.
“This is a workplace, not a nightclub. I thought Mom was fixing you up with Tabitha? She has a daughter, you know.”
“Tabitha?” That was information he should have been given.
“Bree,” she corrected with exasperation.
“She’s married ?” It hit like a kick to the stomach.
Was that why she’d looked so uncomfortable? Did she think their long-ago tryst would get back to her husband? Who was this other man, anyway? Jax had no right to the jealousy that pierced him, but it struck like a viper.
“No, I don’t think the father is in the picture.” Eve was keeping her voice down as they navigated the bullpen. “She said something about her mom being nearby to help with day care. We’re all still getting to know each other.” They arrived at the elevator and she stabbed the button, then glared at him. “She’s off-limits, is what I’m saying. Definitely not someone to notch your belt with.”
He didn’t tell her they’d already had sex, but his brain was exploding over the memory of a broken condom. Now she had a little girl? How old?
No. He was overreacting. It had been four years. Plenty of time to have a baby with someone else. And she’d been on the pill. He had left her his number. If her daughter was his, she would have called him.
Wouldn’t she?
Tamping down on the wild suspicion trying to bubble up inside him, he stepped into the elevator. Now that he had Bree’s full name, it was easy to call up her socials.
Her posts were stale with nothing more recent than a year ago. In the few photos of her daughter, she had kept the girl’s face off camera, only showing the back of her head. He stopped scrolling on one with a woman asleep in a hammock. She was an older version of Bree. Her mother, Jax presumed. She held a baby in a sun hat face down on her shoulder. The caption read “First birthdays are tiring for everyone!”
It had been posted in early April two years ago. That meant her daughter had been born three and a half years ago, which was a very coincidental nine months after he’d met Bree the previous July.
The doors opened on Nico’s floor, but Jax stood there until the doors closed again. The car didn’t move, but it could have been plunging into the basement for all he knew.
It wasn’t possible that Bree had had his baby. He had only just decided he was ready to consider marriage again. He wasn’t ready to be a father.
He wasn’t sure he was fit to be a father. Children needed love and when he loved, he caused pain.
News like this would only produce a fresh scandal and worry them. This wasn’t an unplanned pregnancy, allowing time for everyone to get used to the idea. It was a child . One he’d neglected for three years . How did a man make up for that?
No. She couldn’t be his. He refused to believe it.
But deep down, in the roiling pit of his gut, he knew that she was.
***
Bree was still hyperventilating when they broke for lunch.
The project team was small because they were still in an information-gathering phase. So far, the work was interesting and challenging. After heavy deliberation, she had taken the position because the pay was excellent and the experience an asset on her CV. It allowed her to develop relationships with top executives in both companies, something she believed would serve her in the future.
Which meant she had also met Nico as well as Eve. Nico was a slightly older, more buttoned-down version of Jax. She had tried not to stare, but she’d had the same overwhelmed reaction while speaking to her daughter’s uncle as she had had to his aunt.
This whole situation was so bizarre, she kept pushing the reality of it to the back of her mind. At the same time, she had been mentally counting down to the wedding reception this Saturday. It was the party for the elites of New York, falling the weekend before Thanksgiving when anyone who was anyone was preparing to leave the city for family visits and Christmas vacations and warmer climates.
Bree wasn’t going anywhere, but she had given herself until Friday to decide whether—and how —to tell Jax he was a father. She hadn’t expected him to waltz into the boardroom today .
When Eve had exclaimed, “Jax!” Bree had had one second to swallow her soul back into her body before being struck afresh by how compelling he was.
He had eschewed a power suit for a checkered jacket over tailored trousers. His natural charisma immediately captured the attention of everyone in the room, including her.
Oddly, she had been so stressed at the idea of telling him about Sofia, she hadn’t been prepared for the heat that engulfed her or the vivid memory of writhing with him in the throes of ecstasy. Where had she found the audacity to behave like that? It was mortifying to think back on in the professional setting of her workplace!
Maybe he won’t even remember me , she had thought with equal parts dread and hope.
Then his polite but indifferent gaze had locked with hers and lit up. It was the same energy he’d projected four years ago, as though he was saying, There you are. All his masculine energy looped out to snare her, exactly like the first time.
Heartening as it was that he recognized her and still found her attractive—or considered her easy, more likely—the stakes were entirely too high. If she hadn’t been a mother to their child, she might have been persuaded to follow him anywhere. All he had to do was crook his finger.
Instead, the pull of attraction crashed into the decision she’d been putting off. Tell him? Or keep Sofia to herself?
Through Eve, she knew a little more about the Viscontis. They were tightly knit. Bree was envious. She’d never felt close to her stepsiblings. Her father’s family weren’t interested in Sofia, either. If anything, that disinterest made Bree more reluctant to tell Jax. What if he and his family were ambivalent, or worse, hostile to Sofia’s existence?
Telling Jax was a huge gamble, the kind that could pay off or devastate her.
After he walked out, the morning passed in a blur. She had no idea what she said or did. She was on guard the whole time, aware he was in the building. The walls pulsed with his presence. When everyone rose to leave for lunch, all she could think was that she desperately needed air.
“Okay, Bree?” Eve hung back as everyone else filed from the boardroom.
“Totally,” she lied, slapping a big, fake smile on her face.
“Good.” Eve didn’t look convinced. She nodded toward the elevators as they stepped out the door. “I’m having lunch with Dom and my brothers. If I’m not back by one, will you take lead on the supply chain mapping?”
“Of course.” As she followed Eve’s glance to where the three men waited near the elevators, she saw Jax staring this direction as though he’d been waiting for her to emerge.
A fresh wave of anxiety assaulted her, one so strong her knees nearly melted out from under her. She mumbled something about water and dived into the coffee room.
It was a galley style with a coffee machine, a refrigerator, a sink, and some chipped mugs. There wasn’t anywhere to sit so it was empty.
She poured herself a glass of water, making herself sip while trying to form a rational thought. All she could think about was her complete abandonment with him. She couldn’t let him undermine her willpower like that again.
“Bree.”
She choked and nearly dropped the glass. Water splashed against her sleeve and she had to wipe her chin as she spun around.
A fresh rush of hot-cold attraction-dread washed through her. Her physical response was monumental and her emotions zigzagged all over the map.
I can’t. I want. Look at him. Run .
He raked his attention down her office attire—a simple jacket and wool trousers with a light knit top. The touch of his gaze was as tangible as his hands had been that day, as though he remembered every place he’d touched as vividly as she did.
When he came back to meeting her unblinking stare, there was a fierce light in his eyes. A demand for answers.
“Where’s Eve?” She looked past him, wondering if he could hear her heart since it was pounding hard enough to deafen her.
“Powder room. She told me you have a daughter.”
Oh, God.
She wanted to close her eyes, but she was transfixed like a deer in headlights, watching his eyes narrow. Feeling the truth bearing down on her.
Say something.
Her throat was too tight. She could hardly breathe. All of her went cold. She suspected she was ashen as a ghost.
“Mine?” he asked under his breath.
She couldn’t lie. Her voice was as faint as her vision.
“Yes.”