Chapter Six
CHAPTER SIX
Bree didn’t say a word to him as Sofia emerged from the bathroom and sat to eat a cheese sandwich with apple slices.
Jax stayed out of the way, sitting with Sofia to answer her questions. She had hundreds of them ranging from whether he liked dogs or cats to whether he knew Kylie with the brown hair?
Every second that he spent with her strengthened his resolve to become an integral part of her life. He had already been thinking of a future with both of them when he’d walked in here. His libido had been screaming that no matter what happened, he needed an affair with Bree and his sense of family values had demanded he bring his daughter into his home.
Not that there was anything wrong with the life Bree was providing her, but he could see they were outgrowing this apartment. Also, Bree did seem to do all the cooking and cleaning along with working full time and parenting an active preschooler.
He could and would elevate their circumstances purely because his daughter deserved a lifestyle on a level with his own.
Then this midge of a girl had hugged him minutes after meeting him. He’d been too astonished to hug her back, but she had opened a completely new emotion in him. She had smelled like crayons and laundry soap and some ancient scent that imprinted in his brain, telling him she was his. It was akin to what he felt toward his family, but was even more deeply rooted in personal pride and protectiveness. Mine. Not in a possessive way, but because she belonged with him. She was a part of him. He wanted that proclaimed to the world. He wanted her to have his name.
As he took in how small she was, how trusting and vulnerable, he felt a sharp need to be her provider and protector, while his ingrained sense of having let down his family nipped at him, making him wonder if he could be enough.
Was that why Bree had kept her from him? Did she not trust him to look after his daughter? Them?
He glanced at Bree and the carnal possessiveness that had been reignited at the hotel rose anew. He could still feel her thighs around his waist. Her lips had slaked a desperate thirst while leaving him parched for more. She’d burned like a grass fire, nearly incinerating him.
Honestly, he wasn’t sure if their chemistry was a point in favor or against marriage. His fixation with her wasn’t quite healthy, but it had lasted four years and showed zero signs of fizzling. Marrying her would make official something that was liable to happen anyway. On the other hand, as recently as this morning, he had been committed to making a calculated alliance that would benefit his family.
Bree didn’t fit that directive.
When Sofia was done eating, Bree settled her on the sofa with her tablet, asking her to wear her “ear muffins” so the grown-ups could talk.
She returned to the kitchen to eat the last bite of her own sandwich and began tidying up with jerky movements.
When the silence had gone on long enough, Jax said, “Marriage makes sense. You and I are a unit now. She’s a Visconti. She deserves to have my name and all the advantages that entails.”
“Telling your parents about her today makes sense. You’re only in town a few days. With Eve’s party looming, your mother is only going to get busier, so fine. We can tell her today. But suggesting we get married when we barely know each other is ludicrous. I’m not giving up everything that matters to me, including my independence, to go to Italy and discover that you and I can’t get along.”
“What makes you think we can’t get along?”
“The fact that you don’t listen to a word I say!”
“I’m listening. You’re worried about day care. We’ll hire a nanny. These are all solvable problems.”
“Seriously?” Bree rubbed her temples. “If I wasn’t on the wrong side of this domineering attitude of yours, I’d admire it. I thought middle children were the peacemakers.”
“Nico is the one who’s domineering. Eve is spoiled. Christo is a wild card who rarely does as he’s told. If I don’t hold my ground to get what I want, I don’t get what I want.” He brought her the empty plate from the table and held her gaze. “I prefer to get what I want.”
“Stop doing that.” Pink rose on her cheekbones. “You said you weren’t trying to prove anything.”
“I’m not doing anything. It’s just there.”
“What is? Your compulsion to score?”
“The want.”
Her breath hitched and she swallowed, then turned away to clatter the plate into the dishwasher.
“Welcome to parenthood, where you don’t always get what you want.” She clicked the door closed and turned to face him. “I can’t overturn Sofia’s life for a marriage based on nothing but geography and sex. Is that really the life you want for her? To be raised in a household where her parents married for convenience and don’t even love each other?”
Her mixture of disparagement and wistfulness gave him a pang, mostly because it struck him as naive. At one time, he had thought he would marry for love, but had discovered that particular emotion was actually very cumbersome.
“Convenience is for things that aren’t necessary. If all we wanted was sex, marrying would make that more convenient. You and I will marry because it’s practical. Being present in Sofia’s daily life is a necessity to both of us.”
“Talk about wedding-splaining.” She rolled her eyes. “What did Eve say to you when you talked to her, anyway? Is that why you’re suddenly bringing up marriage?”
“No, I thought of it all by myself.” Eve had merely reminded him about her party and what was at stake there, and the fact his mother had arranged a date for him which was why he needed to tell his parents about Sofia tonight. “But Eve’s marriage is a good example of one that’s practical.” He didn’t mention the part where he still disapproved of it.
“Eve and Dom are in love,” she protested.
“They’re in lust,” he corrected. “If they hadn’t wanted to end the feud between our families, they would have had an affair.”
“What a cynical thing to say.”
“Because I’m not putting a romantic spin on it? Practical marriages work because they have goals beyond sentimental declarations. My parents married for social connections and wealth building. It’s a very successful union. They respect and care for each other. They have four children who are accomplished and well-adjusted. What about your parents? They’re divorced, if I recall correctly? Why did they marry? Love?”
“You don’t have to sound so condescending.” She dried her hands on the tea towel. “They married for me, if you must know. Mom was pregnant. Which did not turn out to be a strong enough reason to keep them together. So, no. You and I won’t be getting married.”
“Mama, can I have five more minutes please?”
“Five,” Bree agreed, brushing past him. “Then we have to get ready to go out. Your papà wants you to meet your other grandma and grandpa.”
***
Bree agreed to meet his parents because she wanted the introduction out of the way. It also got them out of her apartment, which had begun to feel very claustrophobic.
Marriage? Was he out of his tree?
She hadn’t been above dreaming of a big wedding as an adolescent. By the time she was living with Kabir, she had been convinced she would marry him in full pageantry. Her father would walk her down the aisle and it would be nothing but happily ever after.
The way Kabir had dismissed her as delusional for even thinking he would marry her had left her feeling foolish for wanting marriage at all, let alone a big ceremony.
Maybe she would have come around again to wanting a life partner, but she had met Jax, then had Sofia—two very strong forces that had pushed the desire for marriage from her mind. She hadn’t wanted to bring a stranger into Sofia’s life unless she was truly, madly, deeply in love, and there’d been little chance of that, not when she compared every man she met to the enigmatic, dynamic Jax.
Most importantly, she knew marriage wasn’t something to enter lightly, especially when you didn’t have genuine love and desire to be with the other person. She’d had a front row seat to the breakdown of her parents’ marriage and would never want to put Sofia through that.
They pulled up to the curb before a stately prewar apartment block. The driver opened her door and Bree stepped out, then swung her bag behind her shoulder as she turned to reach for Sofia, who was unbuckling herself from her car seat.
“Let me carry you so you don’t get your party shoes wet.”
“I’ll carry her,” Jax said, looming beside her. “Move out of the rain.”
Bree stepped under the awning that extended from the entrance to the curb, watching as Sofia trustingly allowed Jax to pick her up. He balanced her bottom on his arm as though he’d been doing it since day one, and Sofia hunched into him for shelter against the spatter of falling rain.
A doorman hurried to open the door for them, greeting them with a polite, “Good evening, sir. Ma’am.”
“Can I walk now?” Sofia asked.
Jax set her down, but offered his hand. She took it, also clasping Bree’s fingers as Jax led them into what looked like a private elevator. A brass plate read Visconti over the call button.
Inside, Sofia looked up at the small chandelier, the glittering mirrors and the flocked wallpaper of blue on silver. “It’s pretty.”
“It is,” Bree agreed with a strained smile, trying not to be intimidated by the overt wealth, but she had a suspicion that was its purpose, to convey the innate power the Visconti name possessed.
The elevator opened into a foyer where the parquet floor held an intricate pattern. A staircase rose in a graceful curve and a pretty half-round table held an arrangement of fresh flowers in a vase Bree would bet was painted by hand with twenty-four-karat gold.
A butler took their coats, revealing Sofia’s corduroy overalls atop a striped pullover. Bree had changed into a wool skirt with a cowl-necked sweater. Jax had approved both outfits, but now Bree worried they were underdressed.
She smoothed Sofia’s flyaway curls after removing her hat, sending yet another encouraging smile to the girl when, really, it was herself she was trying to bolster.
Jax held his hands down to Sofia and she picked up her arms, letting him lift her again. Then he set his hand in the small of Bree’s back, guiding her into a lounge where a man was talking.
It was his younger brother, Christo, standing in front of the fireplace. The Visconti genes were equally strong in him, but he kept his black hair longer than Jax and wore an ivory cable-knit sweater over jeans.
Christo cut off whatever animated story he was relaying and lifted his brows in amused question, sliding his gaze to Sofia, then running a distinctly masculine glance of assessment from Bree’s bangs to her boots.
“I didn’t think you’d be here yet,” Jax said. The hand at her back slid to her hip, securing her closer to his side.
Ginevra Visconti was on the sofa, back stiffening, eyes flaring with startlement at the sight of unexpected company.
“Hello.” Ginny rose and sent Bree a very cool nod. “Perhaps you’d like to introduce us, Jackson. When you texted that we would have two more for dinner, I thought you meant Eve and Dom were coming after all.”
It was a very polite This surprise is unwelcome.
Romeo was in an armchair and Nico rose from another one where the angle of the back had hidden him. He narrowed his eyes, but didn’t seem as surprised to see Bree.
“You’re here, too. Good.” Jax sounded more annoyed than pleased. “I can tell you all at once.”
“Tell us what?” Nico was flicking his gaze between them.
Thanks to her mother’s drilling in poise under pressure, Bree kept a relaxed smile on her face, but her blood was congealing in her veins.
“Mom, Dad. I want you to meet Brielle and Sofia. Our daughter.”
The silence that crashed down on the room should have left the house in rubble. This was even worse than walking into her father’s Georgetown mansion and his wife’s circle of DC’s elite. Romeo and Ginevra Visconti were high society and Old Money. They knew immediately that Bree was not One of Them.
“Are you trying to put Dad back in the hospital?” Christo drawled.
“How are we only learning of this today?” Romeo asked gruffly.
“Yes,” Nico seconded in a tone of heavy distrust. “Why today? Bree has been working for Eve for weeks.”
Ginny shot Nico a look, then back to Jax for confirmation, back to Bree with accusation.
“Maybe Bree thought I deserved to know before she told you ,” Jax said with heavy irony, then addressed his parents in a more even tone. “We met in Como four years ago. Bree was on her way to Virginia. I was needed in Naples. We lost touch.”
His parents were still staring as though utterly confounded.
“This has been proven scientifically, has it?” Nico asked.
“We stopped for a cheek swab on the way here,” Jax agreed.
“And?”
“It will be confirmed tomorrow.”
“But you brought them here today? Come on, Jax,” Nico chided. “You’re smarter than that.”
“We’ll go,” Bree decided and held out her hands for Sofia.
“No,” Jax said, but allowed Sofia to tip into Bree’s arms. “Nico will leave, unless he changes his attitude very quickly.”
It wasn’t just him. Bree felt the waves of dismay coming off his mother. It was exactly the derision she’d grown up in.
He has to let her come here. It’s part of their custody agreement. Otherwise, he’d have to pay more.
“It’s my job to protect our family,” Nico said without apology, holding Jax’s stare. “That includes you.”
“It includes Eve, but you didn’t mind throwing her to the wolf, did you?”
The men weren’t toe to toe, but they might as well have been. They were the same height, the same build. Animosity crackled like lightning between them.
Sofia read the room and buried her face in Bree’s neck, hugging arms and legs tightly around her.
“Bree wouldn’t risk Sofia’s well-being on a lie that could be disproved so easily,” Jax continued in a tone weighted with warning. His fingers dug into her hip, keeping her pinned against him. “They’re both also now part of this family. Act like it,” he commanded Nico.
No, thank you.
The very last thing Bree wanted was to be force-fed to anyone. Been there, done that, and had been thrown up like a hair ball to prove it.
“She’s Lili all over again,” Romeo said gruffly. “Look at her. Sofia,” he called gently. “Let me see your face.”
At her name, Sofia picked up her head to peek at Romeo.
“See?” the older man said with a nod of satisfaction. “The truth is right there.”
“Yeah. What part of this are you having trouble believing?” Christo asked Nico out of the side of his mouth. “That Jax had a shot with a solid gold ten and blew it? Kind of par for the course with him, don’t you think?”
No one laughed, especially not Ginny.
“I really wish I’d had this information sooner, Jackson. What about the party?”
“They’re coming with me,” he said as though that was obvious.
His mother’s expression tightened.
“I don’t want to overshadow Eve on her special day,” Bree said firmly. “It sounds like it would be very overwhelming for Sofia, too. So, thank you, but no.”
“You’re coming,” Jax told her, arm like iron across her back. “I’ve asked Bree to marry me. I’d like her to wear Nonna’s ring.”
Another resounding silence fell.
***
“Jackson,” Bree said under her breath. Her eyes were bright with hurt and anger.
He didn’t blame her, but this chilly reception wasn’t about her. His mother was already two hundred miles down the road of marrying him to Tabitha and connecting the Viscontis to her wealthy, influential family. Coming back from that, and the explanations she would have to make in order not to offend, were consuming her in this moment.
Bree tried using the shifting of Sofia’s weight to her other hip to force him to release her. She wanted to leave, but he wouldn’t let her.
“Come to me, piccolina . Mama’s arms are tired.” He drew her from Bree’s hold back onto his arm, liking the feel of her featherweight and steadying hand resting behind his shoulder. “Is the ring here? Or does someone have to visit the bank?”
“I’ll check,” his father said.
“That’s really not necessary,” Bree said to Romeo’s back. “I haven’t agreed…”
Her faint words were overshadowed by Sofia’s surprised, “Did you call me a pickle?”
“I called you piccolina . It means little one .” He tilted his forehead closer to hers, incapable of resisting her cuteness.
She giggled, shoulders coming up. “I thought you said pickle .”
“Do you want me to call you pickle ?”
She shook her head.
“Piccolina?”
She nodded.
“Stay for dinner. I insist,” Ginny said firmly, gaze softening as she watched them. “Forgive me, Brielle. I completely forgot my manners in the face of this happy news.”
Jax felt the small jolt in Bree’s frame as though she stifled a snort.
“Please come sit.” His mother patted the cushion next to her. “Sofia? Will you come, too? I’d like to know more about you. How old are you?”
Jax ushered Bree closer. She reluctantly lowered onto the sofa, where Sofia wanted to sit in her lap. His daughter was then happy to chat with her new grandmother, telling her she was three and liked to paint and draw.
Bree sat as though she was in military school, spine straight, expression stiff and unreadable. Jax stayed on his feet, moving to accept the drink Nico offered him, but keeping his eye on Bree.
Christo set a glass of white wine on the table in front of her with his signature come-home-with-me smile.
Bree’s response was a tepid, “Thank you,” which amused Jax for its complete imperviousness to his brother’s charm.
Christo applied himself to winning over Sofia, asking what she wanted to drink, teasing her with offers of wine and beer. “Is that not what children drink? You’ll have to teach me how to be a good uncle.”
“Now I know.” Nico was watching, too, sipping his own scotch.
“What?”
“What kept you in Como four years ago.”
It was a sucker punch, one that Jax should have seen coming. One he deserved, perhaps. At the time, Dom’s father had recently died and Romeo had just retired. They’d seemingly had Dom on the ropes, financially. Jax had been confident he had the property in Naples sewn up, but his dallying with Bree meant Dom got there first. It was the first good hit Dom had landed against them and hadn’t been the last.
“Don’t take it out on her,” Jax warned. They’d all underestimated Dom if half a day was all he had needed to gain an advantage over them.
Besides, Jax had lost more than that property four years ago. Losing to Dom because he’d prioritized sex was an embarrassment, but it would be a long time before he got over his anger at himself for leaving Bree without taking her number. Now he knew he had missed years with Sofia that he would never get back. That wasn’t entirely Bree’s fault.
You didn’t take my number. Why should I take yours?
Bree had thoroughly captured his interest that day. His dereliction of duty had proved it. After Paloma, he hadn’t wanted any woman to take up that much space in his life or head or heart. So he’d accepted the clean exit that Bree had offered him.
In the four years since, he had tried to convince himself he’d been right to keep it no-strings that day, especially since his inability to forget her proved she had the power to knock him off his stride.
He was still wary of her effect on him, but now Sofia was part of the equation.
“Don’t tell me not to bring them to the party,” he said to Nico. “I have to.”
“You do,” Nico agreed. “ You have to be there no matter what. If we don’t all show our support for this marriage, the whole exercise is a bust.”
Jax snorted, thinking of Bree claiming his sister had married Blackwood for love. No, Eve’s belated wedding reception was the equivalent of a state dinner where two warring factions would put down their arms and promise to live in peace from now on. If anyone refused to attend, it would give the impression they were still holding a grudge.
“Tabitha would have been a better look. This will cause ripples,” Nico warned.
“I know.” An old sting of culpability spread under Jax’s skin.
He hadn’t expected his actions against Paloma’s brother, Tucker, to impact his whole family. He had stood by his principles when he had reached out to the victim and offered to back her up if she wanted to press charges. He had given a police statement when asked. Jax was the one who had worn the print of Paloma’s slap on his cheek for days and caused Tucker to move to Brazil to get away from the notoriety.
When their family had attacked Jax, he had accepted the retaliation, but his parents and siblings had become collateral damage. Romeo had sent Jax to their grandmother in Italy to cool things off. It wasn’t meant as punishment, Jax knew that, but having his family push him away on the heels of Paloma’s rejection had made him hyperconscious of never letting them down again.
Then he had. By sleeping with Bree.
The very last thing he wanted to do was instigate fresh gossip, but he was about to reveal a secret daughter, looking like a deadbeat dad who had ignored his responsibilities for four years. So much for his lofty principles. That’s how Paloma’s family was likely to frame it. At the time, their hatred toward him had gone so deep they had cozied up to the Blackwoods in a “my enemy is your enemy” alliance.
One Jax feared would show its ugly head at the party.
“Anything less than acting loud and proud to learn I’m a father looks like I’m trying to hide her. I have to announce it immediately and drive the narrative. I need the support of the family while I do it.” He sent Nico a significant look.
His brother held up a hand. “I had to ask the questions. But I agree. You have no choice but to acknowledge your child and marry her mother. You’ll take them to Italy?”
“Yes.” There was no way he’d leave Bree and Sofia here to navigate whatever stones Paloma’s family chose to throw at her.
“Good. I’ll have a press release prepared.”
Exiled again.
Jax tried to forestall the thought, but it was a cut that had scarred over while remaining ultrasensitive.
Bree’s profile was more remote than ever as she tried to insist to his mother that she couldn’t attend the party because she had nothing appropriate to wear.
“Please take pity on my mother, Bree,” Jax said. “Eve got married without telling her. She’s dying to help someone shop for a gown.”
“It’s true. I love an excuse to shop.” Ginny patted Sofia’s hand. “And I have some spoiling to catch up on with this one, don’t I?”