Chapter One
“I think you’ve misplaced your hand, Catarina.”
Gavin Binyamin settled a stony gaze at the woman whose hand was currently groping a path to his groin. Catarina d’Antonio batted her eyelashes and smiled sultrily. “Oh my, Gavin,” she purred. “How silly of me.”
Gavin narrowed his eyes and ordered under his breath, “Remove it.” Catarina’s milky white skin flushed at his tone. She shook her curtain of blonde hair over her shoulder before placing her hand back on the long dinner table. Gavin rolled his eyes, thinking. Once upon a time, he’d been infatuated with the sophisticated older woman, but a taste of d’Antonio family psychosis via her brother, Felipe, had been enough to cure Gavin for life. Now her attention just grated!
Speaking of family, he thought as he looked around his surroundings, it was yet another Santo Antonio slash Montenegro occasion. A christening. Jeremias and Zara’s firstborn, little Ambrosio Jeremias Santo Antonio–Thorne III, had just been baptized in the church of Saint Anthony of Padua on the Portuguese Riviera. The robust three-month-old boy with streaked coal-black hair had wailed loudly as the priest splashed holy water and welcomed him into the Roman Catholic faith. Now, the select group of close friends and family gathered for dinner in the old Santo Antonio manor's dining room.
Jeremias sat holding a very fussy Ambrosio while his wife, Zara, chatted with her mother-in-law, Amirah.
Amirah’s husband, Rocco Montenegro, eyed Jeremias sideways before finally blurting out, “Dios Mio, Jeremias! You need to hold that boy properly! What if he crawls off and cracks his skull?” Jeremias said nothing and sighed with great patience at the grandfather’s over-protectiveness.
“Rocco, we’ve talked about this.” Jeremias gave a benign smile. “I know how to properly hold Ambrosio, bathe Ambrosio, feed Ambrosio—it’s almost like we’re father and son.”
Two chairs down, Elio Montenegro was sitting with his wife, Sonia. He sniggered. “I think, brother,” he said to Jeremias, “that it’ll be a while before Sonia and I have any children of our own. We wouldn’t want anything to disturb this special, er, rapport that you have with our father.”
Jeremias glared at Elio, who winked.
“Everyone, we have an announcement to make,” Esme shouted. Stefano, her husband and Jeremias’ older brother, stood beside her. Both his arms were occupied with his children, Rafael and Celina, who were two and three respectively.
“Esme and I are going to have another baby,” Stefano announced, as Esme beamed and cradled her stomach.
Their parents were the first to congratulate them; Amirah gushed, gasped and hugged her son and Esme, while Rocco slapped Stefano’s back.
Gavin grinned, happy for his long-time friend, as he watched Jeremias then Elio congratulate them before he made his way up to Stefano and Esme.
“Congratulations,” he said as he hugged first Esme, then Stefano. “I see that good, old-fashioned Catholic birth control is working just right.”
“Idiot,” Stefano said, grinning at the playful ribbing.
“I wonder, Esme,” Zara spoke up, “are you and Stefano planning to single-handedly carry on the family name?”
They all laughed and returned to their seats, Jeremias raising a toast to the unborn child. Gavin watched all this, silent and thoughtful. The Santo Antonio–Montenegro family was a complete antithesis of his own, which was almost pitiful in comparison.
As the only child of a Swedish diplomat and a Jordanian shipping tycoon, who had divorced before he was even two years old, there hadn’t been many family dinners and sit-downs in his childhood. Gavin’s mother, Inge, had been a beauty with her silvery blonde hair and slate grey eyes, and he had inherited her coloring to a tee. He liked to think it was why he and his stoic father, Tariq bin Hashem Binyamin, didn’t get along, but Gavin knew deep down it was more that he and Tariq were too alike.
Newly divorced from his Scandinavian wife, Tariq hadn’t seen much use for domesticity, to say nothing of a child. Gavin had quickly learned to adapt to the revolving door of hotel concierges, maids, nannies, and when Tariq cared to remember, his aunt, Amirah Santo Antonio. Gavin found the surrogate family he’d never known that he needed, and by extension, brothers.
Stefano, Jeremias, and later Elio became his brothers, and they had all navigated childhood and their lives together. The lonely ten-year-old boy he had been had always thought he and his brothers would still be together forever. Lately, Gavin was starting to see that forever was an awfully long time.
Stefano had met his love, Esme, on one of their continent-hopping sprees. After a tumultuous start, they were married and had wasted no time in starting a family. They seemed to be quite good at it too, Gavin mused, given the announcement that evening. Young Jeremias, not so young anymore, had married childhood sweetheart, Zara Thorne, and Ambrosio Santo Antonio III was the apple of their eyes. Elio, the man of mystery that he was, had reconnected with Sonia, an old flame of his, and judging by the way the both of them could barely keep their hands and mouths off each other, it wouldn’t be long before their offspring joined the roster.
One by one, his brothers were all making lives for themselves and leaving him behind. It hurt. Of course, Gavin wished them all the happiness in the world, but it still hurt.
The thought of settling down with someone had never once crossed his mind, not seriously at least. Not when there was an infinite number of sensations and experiences to be had. Gavin loved all people, women and men alike, and never missed a chance to indulge his senses. His parents didn’t understand it, his father especially, but Gavin didn’t care. Life was to be lived and enjoyed, and he planned to enjoy it.
Even though it was slowly losing its luster.
Somehow, everything was beginning to blur together, experiences, people and places, and Gavin did not like what it foreboded. He looked around the people congratulating Esme and Stefano and decided to slip outside to the garden for some quiet.
“Hey there, Little Boy,” a low, all-too-familiar voice called out. Gavin sat up immediately from where he was lying amidst rose bushes to find his father, Tariq Binyamin.
“Father…” He got to his feet immediately, feeling a little embarrassed. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”
Tariq shrugged. He was considerably shorter than his son, but Gavin always felt like a little boy in his presence. “I thought I’d drop by. No kiss for your Baba?” Gavin bent to place a dutiful kiss on both his father’s cheeks. Tariq smiled, patted both his cheeks, and ruffled his hair, making Gavin blush.
“Your hair’s longer,” he remarked. “Might want to cut it. You look well, son.” They stood in silence, before Tariq grinned at his son. “So, are you and Catarina d’Antonio planning on adding more blond babies to the family gene pool?”