The key to handling fear was to keep the brain well supplied with oxygen so your thought processes remained clear and your reaction time was lightning quick. Knowing this, Rhea concentrated on slow, deep breathing.
A minute ticked by, then two.
She stood there motionless while he raised and lowered his drink. When the glass was empty, he set it down and gave it a little shove. The heavy glass slid smoothly to the end of the bar with less than an inch to spare. It was a practiced maneuver, she decided, perfected over time.
Another minute lapsed before the white leather stool slowly rotated. Rhea’s heart skipped several beats, then several more when his dark eyes finally locked with hers.
Joey Masado was an awesome looking man. She had always thought so. Over six feet tall, he had brown bedroom eyes, jet black hair and a body that looked like it had been crafted out of iron.
His hair was shorter than she remembered—more businesslike, and a contradiction to the growth of whiskers that lined his jaw. It appeared he hadn’t shaved in three or four days. The stubble, however, didn’t detract from his handsome face, it simply added another measure of danger to an already dangerous man.
A minute dragged by before he spoke, but when he did, his deep voice sent raw chills racing the length of her spine.
“Rhea, in the flesh. After all this time, in a heart-beat she returns as quickly as she left. What brings you to town, darlin’?”
Rhea fought the constriction in her lungs, the sudden weakness in her knees. “You know what brought me, Joey.”
“I’m not sure that I do.”
He was going to make her say it. “Where’s Nicci? Where’s my son?”
“You mean ‘our son,’ don’t you, Rhea?” He came off the stool in one fluid motion, gestured to the stuffed animal in her hand. “Is that the bear he keeps asking for?”
“Yes. He sleeps with it.” She expected him to be wearing one of his expensive suits. Instead, he wore jeans and a black V-neck sweater that revealed a dusting of black hair on his chest.
Joey was known for his Sicilian charm and lazy smile, but both were absent as he held out his hand for the bear.
Rhea shook her head, pulled the bear close. “I want to see him. I want to see my son.”
“No.”
“I need to see him, Joey. I need to know that he’s all right.”
“He’s fine.”
“Prove it.”
“I don’t have to prove a damn thing to you, Rhea.”
“Let me give him the bear, and tell him…”
“Tell him what?”
“That I love him. That everything is going to be all right.”
“Is it?”
Rhea’s chin started to quiver despite her best attempts to remain strong.
Suddenly he swore. The vulgar words were followed by several more in Italian. Finally he shouted, “He’s my son, damn you! How dare you steal my flesh and blood?”
“Steal? I didn’t steal him, Joey.”
His nostrils flared as he regarded her with cold eyes. “When were you going to tell me about him, Rhea? When he was five? Ten? Twenty?”
Rhea refused to give in to the urge to scurry behind his desk. She’d been in similar situations before—a hundred times before. She knew better than to cower, or run. Standing her ground, she said, “He’s my son, too. I gave him life.”
He gave a rude snort. “That’s the controversy of the century, darlin’. I believe I gave him life.”
His words sent Rhea’s eyes down his hard body to that area that…yes, had been responsible for giving her son life. Feeling caught, she jerked her gaze back up. “Tell me when I can see my son?”
“When hell freezes. How does that sound?”
“It sounds like something Stud would say, not you.”
Another string of Italian obscenities scolded the air.
“You have so much, Joey. All I have is Nicci. A child needs his mother.”
“But not his father?”
“I never said that. Never wanted that.”
“What did you want, Rhea?”
She had wanted to share their son. To be a family. But that hadn’t been possible. “I wanted my baby born healthy.”
Her words gave him pause. “And is he healthy?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of mother denies a child his father, Rhea? A father who wants him and has the means to take care of him? If a child can’t trust his mother to have his best interests at heart then who the hell can he trust?”
Rhea’s own mother had walked out on her when she was seven. A few years later her father had died, and she’d been placed in an orphanage. From the minute Nicci was born, all her energy had centered around being a good mother to him. No, not just a good mother—the best mother ever.
“You can accuse me of many things, but not of being a bad mother. Nicci can trust me, Joey. I’ve kept him safe and warm and happy since the second I learned I was pregnant.”
“The way I see it, what you kept him was fatherless.”
“That wasn’t my fault.”
“You’re the one who left. He didn’t even know about me until last night.”
“You told him you’re his father?”
“I am his father. Yes, I told him.”
Rhea rarely swore, but she did now. “Dammit, Joey, you’re a stranger to him. Scaring him half to death in the middle of the night, then confusing him about who he is… You—”
“He’s not confused or scared.”
“How the hell would you know what he is? You’ve been a father less than twenty-four hours.”
“Not by choice.”
Rhea squeezed her eyes shut, her concern for Nicci escalating. She didn’t realize she’d forgotten to breathe until a wave of dizziness stole her balance. She swayed, but before she fell, a strong hand gripped her upper arm. Startled, she blinked her eyes open to find Joey directly in front of her. His fingers bit into her arm as he stared down at her. Unable to hold his gaze, she looked past him to their reflection in the large gilded mirror behind the bar.
Joey’s size dwarfed her, and again she realized that she was no match for him, and that maybe it would have been smarter to wait for Frank.
Suddenly he let go of her arm and walked around her. “One or two scars… Not bad. You didn’t lose your eye.”
From the mirror, she watched as he studied her as if she were on an auction block. He circled again, this time stopping behind her. Leaning in, his lips brushed her ear. “Were you able to nurse my son?”
The question might have seemed strange, even crude, to anyone else, but Rhea knew why Joey had asked it. Her dance with death had kept her in chest bandages for weeks. She had still been in them when she’d left town. Nonetheless, the intimacy of the question brought a hot flush to her cheeks. She had slept with this man, had come apart in his arms, yet their affair hadn’t really gotten under way until after Stud had put her through her bedroom window and in danger of losing her eye and her right breast.
He came around and faced her. “Well?”
The heat from her cheeks spread over her face