3. Chapter Two
Chapter Two
S oaking wet and irritated, Rafael rang the doorbell again. He glared back at the street where one of Jaime’s jackass neighbors had blasted through the flooded street and thrown murky water all over him. His carry-on bag seemed to have been spared the worst, but his shoes and suit were ruined.
The door finally opened, and he swung back toward it, hoping it was Maddie and not Jaime, who would roast him relentlessly for showing up on their doorstep looking like a drowned cat. But, as the door opened fully, Rafael realized he had made a terrible mistake.
Sky?
Sky wasn’t supposed to be here today. She was supposed to be on vacation. He wouldn’t have come otherwise.
His heart stammered wildly in his chest as he locked eyes with Sky. The same eyes that had been tormenting him since the excruciatingly awkward baptism of little Jasper. He had been trying to convince himself he could handle seeing her again, but he was wrong.
Those green eyes made his brain melt, and he couldn’t think of anything else but running his fingers through the loose blonde waves that fell around her shoulders. All these years later, he could still remember the soft touch of her pouty lips. He could still feel the flutter of her heartbeat beneath his fingertips.
She was the biggest regret of his life, but never for the reasons she believed.
“Rafael?” She flinched at the sudden crack of thunder and opened the door wider. “Come inside before you get zapped.”
“Thank you,” he said, finally breaking free from the stupor of seeing her again.
“Oh, you’re soaked!” Sky held up both hands. “Wait here. I’ll get a towel.”
She rushed off, and he slipped out of his suit jacket. He removed his boots and wet socks, leaving his bare feet cold on the vintage tile floor. Sky returned with some bath towels and held them out to him. “Did you swim to the front door?”
“One of the neighbors was driving like an idiot down the street. Churned up a tsunami of water with that stupid lifted truck.”
“Brent,” she said with a scowl. “He’s one of the Greene boys. They gave him that truck for his seventeenth birthday, and he’s been acting like a fool ever since. That big crack in the windshield? That was your brother. That little jerk decided to roll coal at Maddie and Jasper, and Jaime pelted his windshield with a Yeti tumbler.”
Rafael snorted. “Yeah, that sounds exactly like something Jaime would do. How much are they coming after him for?”
“Nothing,” Sky said, and that surprised him. “Bob made Brent come apologize. Not that he learned anything.” She gestured to his soaking-wet pants. “You better go get cleaned up.”
“Where’s Jaime? Are he and Maddie out on a date?” The house was too quiet, and he was sure that meant his brother and sister-in-law were gone for the afternoon.
“They’re on their way to Miami and then Punta Cana in the morning.”
He frowned. “That’s this week?”
She nodded and glanced at her watch. “They’ll be in Miami soon if you need to speak with Jaime.”
“He’s flying?”
“Yes. For the Miami leg, at least.” She glanced toward his brother’s office tucked away at the end of the hall. “The flight plan is in his desk if you want to check.”
“There's a tropical storm in the Gulf.” Rafael tried not to worry about his brother. Jaime had been flying planes since he was a teenager and had logged thousands of hours. He wouldn’t do anything reckless with Maddie in the cockpit next to him. “Where is Jasper?”
“Asleep.”
“Upstairs? By himself?” Rafael frowned. “Shouldn’t you be watching him?”
Her expression hardened. “I was watching him on the monitor until you rang the doorbell.”
There was an even louder crash of thunder, and seconds later, Jasper wailed. Sky turned toward the stairs, leaving him dripping wet and making a mess in the entryway. He shouldn’t have second-guessed her babysitting choices. Jaime only had good things to say about her and how she cared for and loved Jasper.
Why do you always say the wrong things to her?
That question troubled him as he mopped up the floor and gathered up his shoes and socks. Once upstairs, he went straight to the guest room at the very end of the hall. He ignored the whimpering cries as he passed the nursery and Sky’s gentle voice soothing their nephew. If he ducked in to check on them, she would think he didn’t trust her with Jasper. Nothing good would come from that.
After he changed into jeans and a shirt from his luggage, he placed his suit on a hanger and left it in the shower to drip. It needed a trip to the dry cleaner. Maybe Sky could help him out with that.
Wearing socks and no shoes, he made his way back downstairs. He found Sky in the kitchen making a bottle of formula for Jasper, who had calmed down and now noisily sucked his fingers. Startled by the sight of her looking so maternal with a baby in her arms, his heart raced. She was the wild child who had run away to travel the world and live out of a suitcase. She would have been the last person he would have chosen to be a nanny to a little one, but here she was, proving him wrong again.
“Do you want to hold him?” Sky noticed him lingering nearby.
“Yeah. Of course.” He stepped up to take his nephew from her and marveled at how much he had grown in the last seven weeks. “He’s so much bigger than the last time I held him!”
“Wait until you see how well he crawls, pulls up on furniture, and plays with blocks.” She grinned as she finished making the bottle. “We have so much fun together while Maddie and Jaime are at work.”
She handed him the bottle, and he took it from her. Their fingers touched briefly, and he wondered if she felt the same spark of contact. If she did, she didn’t show it. “Are you hungry? Do you want something to drink?”
“Coffee, if it’s not too much trouble.” He smiled at Jasper, who seemed enthralled by his beard. His chubby fingers pulled at the short hair, and he ran his little palms over the bristly bits and laughed.
“It’s no trouble,” she said, her voice soft. When he glanced at her, she had a look in her eye he couldn’t quite place. It was warm and liquid as if she might have had the same thoughts he had earlier when he saw her holding Jasper. “I’ll bring it to the living room. You’ll have better luck getting him to finish his bottle if you’re sitting and holding him on your lap.”
Grateful for her coaching, he carried his nephew out of the kitchen. When they reached the living room, he picked the chair that was closest to the window and settled into it. Jasper knew the drill and wiggled into place on his lap. The baby reached for the bottle, and Rafael let Jasper take it. He kept his fingers under the bottle, propping it up. His other hand drifted to Jasper’s hair. The dark curls his nephew had inherited from the Farias side of the family felt familiar under his fingers.
Sky placed a travel mug on the table next to his elbow. “It’s safer,” she explained. “Jasper likes to kick and snatch at things.”
“It’s fine.” He didn’t mind drinking from a lidded mug if it meant he could spend time with his nephew.
She placed three almond biscotti on a cloth napkin next to the mug and then moved to the nearby sofa, where she curled her feet under her. She looked effortlessly sexy in her simple black leggings with an oversized Aggie sweatshirt bearing one shoulder and the no-nonsense strap of a sports bra. “He favors your family so much. Jasper looks like a mini-Jaime.”
Rafael abandoned his inappropriate thoughts and focused on his nephew instead. “Jaime was fatter and shorter.”
Sky snorted, and—God help him—he found that even more endearing. “Rafael!”
“What? It’s true! He outweighed me when I was seven and he was four! Instead of hand-me-downs, Mama used to hand Jaime’s clothes up to me!”
“Stop!” Her laughter made Jasper smile, and he dribbled formula all over Rafael’s hand. She grabbed a burp cloth from the back of the couch and tossed it at him. “Here.”
“Thanks.” He dabbed Jasper’s chin and wiped his hand. “That reminds me—do you know if there’s a dry cleaner open today?”
“For your suit?”
He nodded. “It’s a mess.”
“Jaime and Maddie use a service that picks up and drops off every Friday morning. I can Google to see if anyone is open on a Sunday.”
He shook his head. “I’ll handle it.”
“Are you staying long?” She must have realized how it sounded because she winced. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I know I’m not exactly someone you want to share a house with,” Rafael replied, avoiding her gaze by focusing on Jasper who was nearing the end of his bottle. “I’m leaving tomorrow morning.”
“Oh.”
Was he imagining it, or did she sound disappointed? “I have meetings in Dallas tomorrow evening. I thought I would stop in to see Jaime, but I must have gotten the dates mixed up in my calendar.”
“Oh.” This time, her tone got his attention. “You thought I was going to be away on vacation today.”
There was no point denying it. “I did.”
“Well, I won’t interrupt your time with Jasper.” She stood abruptly, and he wanted to ask her to stay but didn’t. “I’m going to make Jasper’s snack and then I’ll be in the library if you need help with diaper changes or anything.”
“I can handle those.”
“Okay.” She nodded and smiled awkwardly before fleeing the living room. He hated himself for making things tense between them. After the wedding, he was just as surprised as everyone else when Lola announced that Sky had left the estate before sunrise. No one knew where she was going or why she had left.
Well. Not exactly no one.
As soon as he had learned that she was gone, Rafael had known why she had fled the estate. Embarrassment. Shame. Fear. He should have gone after her and tried to find her, but he had convinced himself that Sky wasn’t his problem. When she had finally turned up in Casablanca, of all places, he had been both relieved to know she was safe and alive but simultaneously terrified she would get into trouble and get hurt.
But did he go to Casablanca? Or Dubai? India? China? Australia? New Zealand? Or any of the other dozens of places she had turned up during her worldwide trek? No. He stayed in Mexico, hiding from the truth. Like a coward. As if he were ashamed.
And maybe he was—a little.
He had no business being attracted to Sky back then. She had always been one of many faces in Lola’s photos on social media. Gangly. Freckled. Braces. Then, she had been Maddie’s sister. Less gangly. Still freckled. No braces. He hadn’t seen her as anything but what she was—a child.
Until Jaime and Maddie’s engagement party. He hadn’t even recognized her. The knockout blonde in the black dress caught his eye the second he spotted her walking into the hotel ballroom. When he had finally registered her familiar green eyes and mischievous smile, Rafael had been torn between shock, lust and discomfort. Technically, she had been an adult, but ethically? Ethically, it was a shit show.
He had fought those inappropriate feelings for the better part of a year. He had reminded himself again and again that she was too young, too inexperienced, too sweet, and good for a tired, grumpy man a decade her senior. But then she’d kissed him—and he’d lost control.
All these years later, he still hadn’t gotten over her. He had dated many women, but none of them had ever made his heart race like Sky did. He dutifully went on dates his mother arranged, but the spark never materialized. They were all lovely, accomplished, beautiful ladies, and if Sky Van Cleef hadn’t stolen his heart six years ago, he would have probably fallen in love with one of them.
But his heart still belonged to Sky, and he wasn’t sure how to get it back.
Or if he even wanted to...