“So my made-for-and-from-love flower can be deadly when defending and avenging the innocent.”
The flames in her eyes licked his every nerve. “You bet.”
He cocked an eyebrow at her, wanting to see how far she’d go. “So you condone anything I choose to do to that man?”
Her lush lips hardened. “He’s no man. He’s a monster. And you and your brothers are monster slayers. I know whatever you choose to do to him will be the right thing to do.”
Joy swelled inside him as he pulled her closer again. “Have you told Teo our news?”
Her eyes drained of righteous wrath, flooded with shyness. “I didn’t ask if you wanted to let anyone know.”
Throwing his head back, he guffawed. “‘Anyone’ didn’t include those six huge pains who’ve been teasing the hell out of me all day with parenting jokes, huh?”
A fiery flush spread across her exquisite cheekbones. “I sort of let it slip to your trio of terror while I was milking them for info.” She mumbled something about poking his blabbing brothers with sharp objects when next she saw them. “And they ran with the news to the rest of the roster!”
“You’re pregnant?”
Teo’s explosive exclamation snapped their eyes to him, and he threw an arm around each of them, exalting, “I’m going to be a grandfather!”
Eliana kissed him soundly. “I know you’ve given up on the others and think I’m your only chance at grandbabies. But you’re not going to have only one grandchild, but two.”
Surprise was now Teo’s only expression. “You’re having twins? Is it even possible to know that early?”
Eliana got Rafael’s silent consent before turning to her father. “We’re going to adopt Diego.”
Teo slumped back. “Any more monumental, life-changing surprises? Just pour them down on me all at once.”
Rafael chuckled again. “That’s enough for now.”
“More than enough for a lifetime.” Teo’s eyes filled. “If I die right this moment, I’ll be the happiest man on earth.”
Rafael gave him a mock-stern look. “Now, Teo, let’s not restart our relationship on the wrong foot. The happiest man on earth is me. Got that?”
“If you say so.” Teo gave the acquiescing sigh of a man who was letting a younger man think he had his way.
Laughing outright this time, Rafael swept his hugely grinning, teary-eyed bride up in his arms. “I do. Oh, how I do.”
* * *
“I certainly don’t!”
Ellie laughed as her eldest half brother, Leonardo, vehemently denied that he liked having those seminaked photos of him leaked online. They’d gone viral with half the globe’s females drooling over him and captioning them no end.
“All those straining muscles and the pouring sweat and provocative poses?” Santiago winked at them. Her middle half brother relished how his looks affected anything that moved, not like Leonardo, the scientist who wanted his brains to be his prominent feature. “No way those masterpieces were without your consent.”
“I was exercising,” Leonardo growled. “And since when are chest flies, squats and one-armed push-ups provocative poses?”
“Have you seen the photos, Leo?” Ellie giggled.
Leonardo harrumphed. “Phones with cameras and the internet will bring civilization to an end.”
“Just enjoy the notoriety, Leonardo. It’s harmless.” Rafael’s lips twisted. “I hope.”
Leonardo looked at him gratefully. “Thank you for recognizing the world is full of nuts.”
Suddenly worried, Ellie caught Leonardo’s forearm. “Did anyone do anything nutty?”
Leonardo rolled his eyes. “Apart from walking into the lecture hall and finding hearts and chocolate all over the counter or the collection of panties spirited into my briefcase with photos and phone numbers stuck on them? No.”
As they all laughed, Carlos, her youngest half brother, and her closest sibling slapped him on the back. “And you didn’t share your crop of panties with your brothers?”
Leonardo scowled at him. “Shouldn’t you be exporting panties, given the way women throw themselves at you?”
Carlos shuddered. “Not when I’ve perfected the art of dodging feminine missiles. Unlike you, I don’t stand still long enough for them to stuff panties in my personal effects.”
As everyone laughed again, Ellie felt euphoric.
After treating the news of Rafael’s real identity and his history with due gravity, her half brothers had proceeded to seamlessly treat him as an old childhood friend, and their very welcome new brother-in-law.
Suddenly, she felt Rafael tense. After looking at his phone, he made their excuses to her brothers.
Heart thudding, she turned away with him and crossed the garden overlooking the ocean where they would have their ceremony. As they rushed, she was again thankful for her both functional and pretty wedding dress—white as snow, embroidered in pearls and sequins, chiffon and satin with a strapless, pleated bodice and a flowing, easy-to-run-in skirt.
Not that she could run. “Easy, amor.”
At her wince, Rafael slowed down at once. They’d ended the previous night by going to bed. After the two weeks of turmoil and alienation, the discharge of passion had been cataclysmic. She was deliciously sore after he’d ravished her again and again, as she’d pleaded for him to, and had spent the day struggling to walk straight.
They reentered the mansion from its western entrance, and her pulse raced with anticipation as they neared the man and woman who stood rooted in the middle of the foyer.
His parents.
She’d begged him to contact them, to let them know that the son they thought they’d lost was alive and well and incredibly happy. She couldn’t bear knowing they existed, had that permanent scar of his loss and would not be given the choice to reconnect with him. He’d finally succumbed to her wishes and called them.
His parents, especially his father, had been distraught.
Asking them not to tell anyone until they figured out a safe way to introduce him to his siblings, he’d asked them to attend their wedding. Both he and Numair had sent their private jets to fetch them from their homes in Fortaleza and Belém. They’d postponed the ceremony to around sunset until his parents could arrive.
Now Rafael was face-to-face with them. Though they’d both known Rafael for the past two years, they’d only known him as his new persona. Now they saw him as their long-lost son come back to life.
It felt surreal to Ellie, meeting his father, Andrés Ríos Navarro, who was also her father’s once-best friend. Bianca Franco Molena, his mother, had once been her mother’s friend, too.
“I’m so sorry...” Andrés blurted out, swallowed, then he burst into tears. Rafael’s mother followed suit.
Rafael pulled his father into a fierce hug. “I’m the one who’s sorry I didn’t tell you before.” He dragged his mother into the hug, and let them weep for all the years of helplessness, dread and heartache as he enclosed them in his power and protection.
When their emotional storm abated, Rafael reached out to Ellie. She rushed to join them in his all-encompassing embrace.
Kissing them all, he smiled gently at his parents, and adoringly at her. “You owe my coming to my senses to my bride, the one who put everything in my life right.”
And