Page 45 of Knotty New Year

Up until now.

I felt like a fool. By not taking the time to explain exactly what was going on, by acting like my life hadn’t changed utterly the moment she’d stumbled in my front door, I’d hurt the woman I’d sworn to love forever.

I slipped my phone in my pocket, sighing at Teddy’s last text, letting me know Candy was finally okay. Or at least, she’d gone skiing.

I’d shared the details about the problems at Paxson Pharma with my siblings since they all had a major stake in the company as well. But after Victoria had sent me a sweetly worded death threat, telling me she suspected my fiancée didn’t know what was going on, I realized I had never really spoken to her about it. Or even spoken to her at all, since Christmas.

I didn’t even know some of the small things about her, the sort any casual boyfriend would. Sven, the flight attendant who’d accompanied her to Telluride had sent a very polite text making sure I knew she’d had a slight allergic reaction to the flowers my PA had delivered to the plane. He’d reassured me that she was fine, but seemed concerned that I hadn’t been aware of her allergy.

Texts had been bubbling up every few minutes for the past two days from my sisters, who all had plans to murder me in my sleep, or skin me alive for sending Candy on alone.

I’d called Valentine to check on Candy. Valentine had always been the most soft-hearted of my sisters. But she had said, almost without any of her usual stutter, “She’s f-fine, no thanks to you. I’m ashamed of you, N-Nicky.”

And then she’d hung up.

At least Candy wasn’t sitting around the lodge, moping, or coming up with ways to kill me, or break up with me. And as soon as I had Victor on my plane, I would be by her side.

And I wouldn’t leave it again. Not for anything.

I thought about telling Teddy or Kati what had sent me to Dallas airport, waiting for a private jet to arrive from Santiago. But I couldn’t tell my siblings about Victor yet. I didn’t want to get their hopes up again… and I wasn’t certain who would be stepping off that plane.

Would it be my oldest brother, who’d helped me raise our younger sisters, and been my co-CEO at Paxson Pharma until a year before?

Or would it be some broken version of him?

Or a stranger?

Victor’s shout, from the opened door of the plane, had me squinting against the cold wind that blew from the deep gray clouds on the horizon. “What the fuck are you doing here, Nicky? You’re supposed to be in Telluride with your woman.”

My heart leaped. He sounded like his old self.

I shouted back, “You asshole, I should be. But the PI I’ve had tracking you all over the fucking world called me and told me you were returning to America.”

“You weren’t supposed to know I was coming. I was planning to surprise you. Valentine knew I was coming.”

I paused. “Valentine?”

“Yes. She’s the one who ordered me back before New Year’s, to meet your omega.”

Valentine had known where he was all along? How to reach him? I wanted to wring her neck. I’d poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into tracking him down.

Victor started down the airstair, and I managed a grin. What was done was done.

My brother looked like a shell of his former self. If I hadn’t known it was his flight, I might not have recognized him. His dark hair was the same, but the beard from the photo had filled out, and the lines of strain around his eyes were far more pronounced than they had been when he left the US. But they eased when he looked down at what he was holding.

Holy shit.

At thebabyhe was holding.

“Victor?” I managed to say as he turned and handed the baby to the elderly woman who’d followed him down the steps. The flight attendant carried out a car seat and handed it to my brother.Finally, I remembered how to speak. “How… Whose?”

Victor smiled down at the infant, peeling back a corner of the blanket swaddling it, and showed me. “This is Señora Vazquez, my newest employee. And this is Paloma, my daughter.”

A thousand questions filled my mind. Only one came out. “How?”

His smile vanished. “I needed a reason to live. I found one.” I could tell I wasn’t getting any more, so I accepted it and escorted them back to my car. My plane was waiting on the other side of the corporate aviation terminal, and it should have been a matter of minutes to be on board and flying to Telluride.

But lightning struck two miles from the airport before we could make it to my plane. The airport staff sent us back into the terminal, to the executive lounge, to wait. While I paced, Victor sent lounge staff to buy enough infant supplies and formula for the baby, and got the older woman and the baby settled in a private room with a bed and a small crib. The lightning stopped an hour later.

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