Claiming His Secret Son(49)

Mauricio eyed his drawing suspiciously. “Really?”

“Really. Draw a lot, draw everything, and you’ll be superlative, if you want to be.”

“Oh, I want!”

“Then, you will be. Trust me.”

“I trust you.”

A jolt shook Richard’s heart. Hearing Mauricio say that again, with such conviction, made him want to go all out to deserve that faith and adulation.

Should he be feeling this way? Was it wise? Could he stop it or had he put in motion an unstoppable chain reaction?

“I want you to teach me everything you know.”

Richard laughed. The boy kept squeezing reactions of him that he didn’t know he was capable of. “I doubt you’d want to learn most of the things I do.”

“I do!”

He slanted a glance at Isabella. “I don’t think your mother would appreciate it, either.”

“Because it’s dangerous stuff?”

“To say the least.” Before Isabella burst with frustration he looked at his watch. “And that’s a discussion for another day, young man. We agreed we’d do this until your bedtime. Now you need to go to sleep and I need to get going.”

Without trying to bargain for more time, Mauricio stood and gathered his things, looking like a stoic knight’s apprentice. He had an acute sense of dignity and honor. Once he gave his word, he kept it. It made Richard...proud?

Before he could examine his feelings, Marta came to take Mauricio to bed. Handing his grandmother his things, he came back to say good-night. After he hugged his mother, he threw himself at Richard, clung around his neck.

“Will you come again?”

Feeling the boy’s life-filled body against him, the tremor of entreaty in his voice, was like a fist closing over his heart.

Richard looked over the boy’s head at Isabella. Her eyes were twin storms. She was terrified. Of where this might lead. Truth be told, he had no idea where it would. And was just as afraid.

But he had only one answer. “Yes, I will.”

Planting a noisy kiss on Richard’s cheek, Mauricio slipped free, flashing him a huge grin before skipping off.

The moment she could, Isabella hit him with the burning question she’d postponed for the past hour. “Do you intend to tell Mauri the truth?”

There was only one answer to that, too.

“No. Not yet.”





Nine

Not yet.

Every time those two words reverberated in Isabella’s mind, which was all the time, it made her even more agitated.

Not yet implied he would tell Mauri the truth eventually.

But he’d also implied that even if he did, it wouldn’t mean anything would change. Mauri would only know he had a father, and would get the benefit of all his wealth and power.

As if that wouldn’t change everything.

Before he’d left that night, he’d confessed he hadn’t thought this through, didn’t know what to expect himself. But the fact remained that Mauri had a right to everything he had as his only heir. While he...he only wanted to know his son. Only time would tell how that would translate into daily life or in the long term. They’d just have to wait and see how things worked out.

She had no other choice but to do just that. Now that he’d expressed the wish to know his son so unequivocally, she’d been unable to deny him his desire.

Ever since that day three weeks ago, she’d succumbed and gone along for the roller-coaster ride of having Richard in her family’s everyday life. And he’d been with them every possible minute. After their workdays, from early evenings to past the children’s bedtime, he’d been there. And he’d shocked her more with each passing minute.

His unstoppable charm continued on full-blast. But she could no longer believe it to be anything but genuine. Though he dazzled them all, she was now certain it wasn’t premeditated. He clearly liked being with her family. He really was interested in all of their concerns and indulgent of all their quirks.

But with Mauri, he was something she’d never seen a man being toward a child, not even her own loving father.

That almost tangible affinity they shared had disturbed her, worried her from that first day. It shook her to her core to see it growing every day, in Richard’s eyes, in his vibe. Such absolute focus, such a heart-snatching level of emotion.

What shook her as much was seeing him through new eyes. There was far more to him than the lethal seducer who’d taken her heart and body by storm, or the merciless void who’d taken Burton apart, or the ruthless manipulator who’d threatened to tear her life apart when he’d first returned. There were depths and passions in him she doubted even he knew he possessed. And no one seemed more surprised to discover these hidden qualities than Richard himself.