her and Joel to live with him, she’d turned him down. Nicole refused to subject Joel to her father’s unpredictable temper.
The threat of Rafe Medici continued to buzz in the back of her mind like a fly bouncing against a window, but Nicole cuddled Joel against her and read the second book, and the third. Halfway through the fourth story, Joel’s little body sagged against her, his chest rising and falling in slow even breaths.
Nicole smiled. He’d fallen asleep. She gently shifted him off of her, and he burrowed into his covers, but his eyes remained closed. She kissed his forehead and turned out the dinosaur lamp beside his bed and left his room.
Returning to her den, silence settled around her like a cloak. In the beginning, after Tabitha had just died, she’d had to talk herself down from panic at the enormous job she faced of raising her sister’s child. Was she up for it? There was no choice, she’d realized. She would have to muddle through.
After teething, chicken pox and potty training, she didn’t question herself as much. Joel was a happy, healthy little boy.
Now the silence just underlined the fact that she was alone. She used her remote to turn her sound system on low volume and skipped through the selections until she landed on a collection of mindless, but cheerful pop music. As she sipped the glass of water she’d left by the couch, habit made her reach for unfinished paperwork for her job.
After Joel went to bed at night, Nicole was aware of how alone she truly was. Her mother lived on the other side of the world. She couldn’t trust her father.
Thank goodness for her cousin Julia. Julia frequently scolded her to go out more often, but Nicole found it difficult to leave Joel in the evenings. As for a man, well, Tabitha had been the natural man magnet. The man Nicole had been seeing just before Tabitha died hadn’t been interested in taking on a ready-made family. When the time was right, maybe a man would come into her life. An average man who wasn’t an egomaniac or obsessed with success. Someday perhaps, but not today.
She forced her attention to her work to distract herself. A half hour passed, and a knock sounded at her front door. She noticed the time, 8:30 p.m. and cautiously rose. Glancing through the peephole, Nicole felt her stomach clench. Her worst nightmare was standing on her front porch.
Two
Nicole considered not opening the door, but she didn’t want Rafe Medici to continue ringing her doorbell, perhaps awakening Joel. Taking a quick shallow breath, she whisked the door open and met his gaze in silence, mentally girding herself for the battle she knew she faced.
“Joel is my son,” he said in a rock-hard voice.
“Joel is mine, legally and in every other way that counts,” she immediately responded. Keeping her voice cool wasn’t difficult since her blood felt like ice.
“Tabitha was his mother,” he said, his lips moving in a bitter smile. “I’m not surprised she didn’t want me to know since she felt I was good enough for playing, but not for staying.”
“Tabitha made her wishes clear in her will,” Nicole said. “She knew Joel needed a loving, nurturing and stable home environment.”
“Joel deserves to know his father,” Rafe said, anger glinting in his gaze. “He’s been deprived of that for almost four years.”
“I can assure you that Joel hasn’t suffered under my care. He is my top priority.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that he needs a father, too.” Rafe looked past her. “Are we going to continue to discuss this on the front porch, or are you going to let me in?”
Reluctantly, she stepped aside. She couldn’t help noticing how his tall, muscular body filled the small foyer. “If you wake up my son,” she said, “I won’t hesitate to call the authorities to have you removed from my home.”
He gave her an odd look. “I rarely find it necessary to raise my voice,” he said in a tone that oozed solid, quiet power.
Her thoughts immediately went in two different directions. With that kind of confidence, he wouldn’t need to rant and rave like her father had. Perhaps he accomplished whatever he wanted through a single quelling glance. She looked at his powerful hands and her stomach dipped in fear. Unless he used his fists.
Tabitha had never said he’d actually hit her, but she’d called him the brawny, bully type. An unsophisticated, but initially charming man she’d apparently underestimated.
“It’s time for me to meet my son,” he said.
Her heart jumped in apprehension. “I don’t want Joel’s life disrupted. He’s happy and secure. Meeting you would confuse him. Besides, it’s clear you don’t know anything about kids. He’s been in bed for an hour.”
“At some point, he’ll realize he has a father. The later I wait, the more he and I will regret the loss of time. I have legal rights. If I need to pursue things that way, I will.”
Nicole jerked her head around to meet his gaze. “Don’t you dare threaten me. What do you have to offer him? Where do you live? On some kind of playboy yacht? What kind of life is that for a child?”
Rafe’s mouth tightened. “I’m willing to make adjustments for my son. He should be living with me. I can hire help.”
Her blood boiled at the very thought. “Hire help? Why, how fatherly! I can’t believe you want a real relationship with Joel. You just want control, just like Tabitha said.”
Rafe stared at her and she realized she’d revealed too much. He rested his hands over his slim hips, his gaze taking her in, assessing her from head to toe. “What did Tabitha tell you about me?”
Her nerves jumping, she shrugged and stepped backward. “She said you frightened her. The two of you met at a club in Miami and had an affair that lasted a few months. She initially found you handsome and charming, although you seemed rougher around the edges than her usual boyfriends. Toward the end of the relationship, you became someone who wanted control of her.” She stopped short of telling him that Rafe had reminded her too much of their father.
Rafe inhaled, his nostrils flaring slightly. His demeanor appeared calm, but his eyes glinted with emotion. “So you took her impression of me as gospel,” he said. “Without ever meeting me.”
Nicole blinked. “Why shouldn’t I believe her? She was my sister.”
“Then you also know she wasn’t perfect,” he pointed out.
“No one is perfect.”
“Some people are more capable of fabricating lies than others,” he said.
“If you’re insinuating that Tabitha would lie about something this important—”
“Are you saying she never lied about other important things?” he asked.
She opened her mouth to protest, but faltered a half beat. “Nothing this important.”
“You don’t know me,” he said. “You’ve made judgments about me based on one flighty woman’s opinion. Are you as flighty as she was?”
“No,” she impulsively
