But then he saw the door to the conference room was open. He always met with Emilio in the younger man’s suite, and Emilio only came up to the penthouse to drop off a few things he requested and even then, he’d only gone into the conference room to use the fax machine, so why was the door opened?

He saw the scattered papers from the doorway, and his heart fell into his stomach when he spotted the Dallas Times article. He’d been planning to tell Gina to kill the article this morning, but now it was too late. The damage had already been done, and who knew what Eva was thinking. Probably that everything he’d told her last night had been a lie and that he was exactly what she’d accused him of being—a man who would do anything to win.

Anguish at the thought of losing Eva over this tore through him. No, he had to fix this. She’d most likely gone back to Drummond. He’d follow her there and he’d do whatever he’d have to do to make her see he really did love her, and that he was ready to start over fresh with her. No more lies, no more manipulation, just the two of them again like the last eight years had never happened.

His smart phone, which he’d stuffed in the pocket of his robe, started vibrating. It was Emillo. “I was just about to call you,” he said, after he pushed the Accept button. “I need for you to arrange for the plane to take me to Drummond. I want to be in the air within the hour.”

“Um, I think you’ll want to hear what I have to say first. The guy I hired to look into this Aaron fellow couldn’t find any Aarons over the age of twenty-one in Drummond, so he looked for documents linking Eva to an Aaron, and he found quite a few, including a birth certificate and school records.”

Alexei shook his head, his minding reeling under the onslaught of this new information. “So you are saying she and this Aaron have a school-aged child together?”

“No, I’m saying Aaron is her child. He was born about seven and a half years after Eva broke up with you, and my guy emailed me a picture of him, which I’m looking at right now. Of course, we’d have to get a DNA test, but if the eyes are any indication, this is your kid.”

Chapter Twenty-One

“MAMA, mama!” Aaron came running out of Steve’s five-story, yellow apartment building to meet her, with his Uncle Steve close behind. It seemed to Eva he must have grown at least a couple inches since the beginning of the summer, when she’d seen him last. If he kept going at this rate, he’d be up to her shoulder by his next birthday. That is, if he made it to his next birthday. She only hoped she could get them out of Italy before Alexei or his uncle managed to hunt them down.

She fell to her knees on the sidewalk to meet her son’s hug and he wrapped his long gangly arms around his neck. “Oh, sweetness, sweetness,” she said. “I missed you so much.”

“What are you doing here? I thought we were supposed to be flying back to Texas next weekend.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too,” her brother said, appearing behind Aaron.

She threw her brother an apologetic look over Aaron’s shoulder. “Sorry, it was a last-minute decision to come to Italy. I would have called, but I only had time to look up your address in the airport before flying out here.”

Steve looked more than a little suspicious. “Well, you got here at the right time. We were just about to eat lunch. Aaron, please go inside and tell your aunt to put another plate on the table for your mother.”

“Okay, Uncle Steve.” Aaron quickly pulled out of the hug and ran back inside the apartment building to do Steven’s bidding, punching a code in at the door to gain entrance. Good, she thought, at least Steve’s building had some measure of security.

“Where’s your suitcase?” he asked when Aaron was out of earshot. “You didn’t leave it in the cab that dropped you off, did you?”

“No, I didn’t bring anything. Just myself. I was hoping Maria might loan me a few things to wear.”

Steven frowned. “You came all the way to Italy with nothing but the clothes on your back and a passport?”

“Yes,” Eva said. “Like I said. It was a last-minute decision.”

“Mmm-hmm, does Dad know about this last-minute trip?”

She gave him a tight smile. “Not yet.”

He shook his head. “Little sister, you seem to keep on finding new ways to keep him mad at you.”

“Yes, “ she snapped. “Because everything I do is designed to upset Daddy. Thank you for reminding me of that, once again, my perfect big brother.”

“I’m not trying to remind you of anything,” he snapped right back. “And don’t pull that routine with me. You’re the one who showed up here out of the blue, unannounced.”

She laid a placating hand on his arm before he could go any further. “You’re right. I was out of line. It was a long flight, and I’m just really tired and turned around and freaked out.”

“What’s going on, Eva? First Dad tells me something about how Aaron’s dad is back in the picture and apparently threatening to ruin the town. And now suddenly you’re in Italy, talking about you how ‘just decided’ to take a trip.”

“I’ll explain everything later. Right now, I need to help Aaron get his bags packed and then we need you to get us some fake IDs.”

“Fake IDs? What?” Steve grasped her arm, serious alarm etched across his face. “Eva, you need to tell me what’s going on right now.”

“That is just what I was about to say,” came a voice from behind them.

Eva turned and clapped a hand over her mouth. Standing on her brother’s front lawn in a black business suit, over five thousand miles from South Padre Island, was her ex-boyfriend, and the father of her child.

“Where is my son, Eva?” he said, his body positively vibrating with barely contained rage. “Take me to him. Now.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

FRESH grenades of rage were still going off in Alexei’s chest by the time he got off his plane in Milan. How could Eva have done this to him? Left him because she was pregnant and didn’t want to be without her daddy’s money? And why had she let him believe Aaron was her boyfriend as opposed to telling him the truth?

It said something about how far he had come from his criminal roots that his first instinct hadn’t been to call his uncle and have her disposed of, as any self-respecting Rustanov would have done just a decade ago if crossed in such a way. However, he did spend the thirty minutes it took to get from the airport to the address in Milan concocting increasingly vicious revenge scenarios. Taking sole custody of Aaron wouldn’t be enough, he decided. He’d also make sure she never saw him again. He’d buy every judge from New York to Texas if that was what it took. Business ethics, be damned. He’d use every underhanded tactic he could to ensure she was robbed of Aaron the way she had robbed him of his son all these years.

The thirty minutes passed by fast in this manner, and before he knew it, the Bentley Emilio had secured to get him from the airport was coming to a stop in front of a mustard-yellow apartment building. He knew this must be the right place, even without looking at the address Emilio had given him, because Eva and her brother were outside the front door, so engrossed in conversation neither of them noticed the car pull up behind them.

“I will let myself out,” he told the driver. “Stay here.”

He exited the Bentley with grim determination pumping through his veins. When he returned to the car, it would be with his son in tow.

“I’ll explain everything later. Right now, I need to help Aaron get his bags packed and then we need you to get us some fake IDs,” he heard her say as he approached.

“Fake IDs? What?” A black man in glasses, and only a few inches taller than Eva, took her by the arm. This must be her brother, the Foreign Service officer. “Eva, you need to tell me what’s going on right now.”

“That is exactly what I was about to say,” he said, interrupting their conversation.

When Eva gasped and turned around, he saw real fear in her eyes. Good, he thought. He wanted her scared. No, he didn’t just want her scared, he wanted her to rue the day she’d decided to cross him for the rest of her life.

“Where is my son, Eva?” he said. “Take me to him. Now.”

Despite her previous moment of uncloaked fear, she stood her ground, folding her arms across her chest. “No, not like this.”

“You kept him from me for seven years and now you think you can just tell me ‘no?’” he roared, approaching her.

“Now calm down.” Her brother stepped in front of him and tried to stop his advance. “We don’t want to cause a scene.”

But Alexei shoved him aside and pointed at Eva. “You will take me to him. Now.”

“No!” she said, her voice quivering with her own anger. “Leave us alone. You’re a bully and a liar and you need to just go away now.”




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