Читать книгу The Best Of February 2016 - Catherine Mann - Страница 15
ОглавлениеSHE SHOULDN’T HAVE been surprised that Cesar would be so single-minded. Or so possessive. His protocols with intellectual property told their own story about the lengths he would go to ensure he would never be stolen from again.
But could he not see that if she wanted her son to have a father, that meant she expected him to be a father? He disappeared to Spain until she was released, asking her to text a few photos of Enrique, but showing little interest in his son or the final DNA report that proved it.
“Go ahead and forward it. My parents will want that reassurance,” he said like it was a bureaucratic hoop he couldn’t avoid.
“Don’t you want to see it?” she challenged.
“If I thought you were lying, I wouldn’t have upended my life to marry you. Are they releasing the two of you now?”
“Tomorrow,” she replied.
He chivalrously turned up with an infant carrier, carting it out himself after interrogating the nurse about Enrique’s health and schedule for immunizations, but he had yet to properly hold his son.
They went to her modest flat, where she had already been packing to give it up, planning to live with her mother through the birth and her maternity leave.
When he saw the boxes, Cesar gave her a sharp look. “Small wonder you went into labor early.”
She shrugged off that comment and called her landlord to explain the situation. Cesar took over, informing the man that his assistant would have everything shipped to Spain before the lease was up and that they were leaving today.
Today? As much as she wanted to see her mother, Sorcha really wanted a nap.
He packed her case while she sat on the bed and nursed, then she slept on his private plane as they flew to Cork. Her customary seat greeted her like an old friend. The hostess knew how to make her tea just right and brought it without asking.
Sorcha relaxed in a way she never had in the flat she’d just vacated. She felt like she was home.
Because she was going home, she reasoned when she woke, groggy and thinking again that her pregnancy had been a dream. But there was Enrique in the seat next to his father, blinking and alert, thankfully unaware his father was sending him the puzzled look he reserved for unexpected experimentation results.
They drove down the coast to her mother’s village and a warm welcome.
Cesar, being a man who didn’t just know how to disrobe a woman, but could outfit them effortlessly, had flown in a modiste from a Paris boutique. The bridal gown she brought only needed a few nips and tucks and the woman took care of that in her mother’s lounge.
The dress wasn’t something Sorcha would have chosen for herself, but it was incredibly flattering. Its empire waist disguised her recent pregnancy and its seed-pearl-encrusted bodice and off-the-shoulder straps made the most of her chest—currently her best asset. Her hair never held a curl, but the straight, golden strands looked right beneath a crown of pink rosebuds.
She looked like a Celtic goddess, strong and empowered.
Cesar spent the night at the hotel while she stayed with her family and poured out her heart, including her concerns about her marriage.
“I can’t imagine any man not loving you,” her sister said, squeezing her hand.
Sorcha appreciated the sentiment, but half expected to be stood up at the altar. The entire village was holding their breath to see it, she was sure, but she went through the motions of dressing for her wedding.
The morning ceremony was held in the church Sorcha had attended growing up, and was, secretly, her most cherished dream come true.
When she saw Cesar waiting at the altar for her, she felt more than relief. Pride. Joy. The sun came out long enough to splash reds and blues and greens from the stained glass windows onto the worn, golden pews and gray stone floor. Cesar had provided all the women with corsages, which, along with her elegant bouquet, perfumed the air with the scent of lilies and roses. The moment was pure and reverent.
Cesar wore a morning coat and had shaved. He hated shaving, which was why he wore stubble most of the time. He wore stubble really well, truth be told, but with his cheeks clean, his face looked narrow and sharp, his sensual mouth more pronounced.
Perhaps it was a severe mood putting that tautness in his expression, she thought, but as her sister played her down the aisle with a pretty march, he watched her with a gaze that pulled her forward. His eyes had never looked so much like white-hot metal, the green-blue giving way to silvery heat, hammered and binding.
Emotive tears came to her eyes. Was she really marrying her boss?
His hands were reassuringly steady as he held her trembling ones, his voice strong where hers cracked with emotion. She didn’t know if that meant he was more confident in this marriage than she was, or less emotionally invested.
Financially, dear Lord, he appeared more than willing to invest. The platinum band he put on her finger was already soldered to its matching engagement ring. The stone in the one ring was a princess-cut diamond with emerald baguettes on either side, then another pair of smaller princess diamonds. The rest of the setting, like the wedding band, was alternating diamonds and square-cut emeralds.
She could hardly speak as she pushed his simple platinum band with one winking green emerald onto his swarthy hand. Hers. He belonged to her. The knowledge quivered through her like an arrow had lodged in her heart and vibrated with the impact.
Closing her two hands over his, she silently prayed, Let him be mine.
They received their blessing and he kissed her, keeping it chaste in this house of God, but her lips burned, making her press them together to tamp down on the tingle.
They had luncheon at the village’s best hotel. The town’s seaside location meant busy summers, which sustained a few high-end establishments like this one. The rooms weren’t big, but the view overlooked the beach, the decor and amenities were top-notch, and the food and service excellent.
Well, aside from the askance look she caught from a former schoolmate as the woman poured the tea.
Despite the posh atmosphere, Sorcha had to wonder what Cesar thought of the hotel and her mother’s house and her birthplace. They would be sharing his suite as a family tonight and smart as she expected it to be—the suite was called The Royal for a reason—it was still far from the spacious luxury he was used to.
In the past, when Sorcha had indulged in fantasies of bringing him home to meet her family, they’d had time to visit all her favorite haunts: the beach, fudge from the sweet shop... Maybe cycle past the mansion to see how her mother’s roses were doing.
She didn’t know why she did that to herself, but if the weather was fine, she always went past the house where she’d grown up. It was masochistic on some level, but her father was the only member of his family who’d spent any time there. His English family had never used it. After his death, they’d sold it to an American actor, who rarely visited. The house stood empty, which infuriated Sorcha all over again at being evicted.
Today the clouds were low and the sky drizzly, so they were staying indoors. She didn’t take the gloom as a bad omen, though. The sun had made another brief appearance as they left the church, casting angelic rays through the clouds so the cobblestones and brightly painted facades along the high street glistened. In the distance, the hills had glowed a verdant jade. The faint tang of salt in the air was brisk and fresh, putting color in all their cheeks. Despite her misgivings, in that moment of leaving the church as Cesar’s wife, her future had looked brilliant.
But she wondered what Cesar was thinking of all this. While she and her sisters talked a mile a minute, Sorcha cast a wary glance toward him—was he really her husband? Was he enjoying his conversation with the one other male in their party, her brother-in-law, Corm?
Corm was usually very closemouthed, if endearingly tolerant of his wife’s family. He had grown up around the bunch of them, since he and her second sister had made Sorcha’s niece before either of them had finished school. They now owned a pub and were doing well enough with their family of four, but their early years had been a terrible struggle.
“Football,” Cesar responded when she asked him later what they’d talked about.
Of course, she thought with a private grin. Both men were fans.
“Your sister didn’t stay long. Do you think—” She didn’t know what she thought he should think. Her own family’s scandal might have been replaced by a dozen others here in the village over the past fifteen years, but her turning up with Cesar’s baby and forcing him to cancel his wedding was a fresh scandal for his.
His sister, Pia, had come with camera in hand. She was a marine biologist, who, apparently, was willing to photograph more than orca fins and sea stars. When Sorcha had thanked her for coming, she’d offered a polite if somewhat inscrutable, “Thank you for including me. The ceremony was very nice.”
Had Cesar invited his entire family and only Pia had shown up?
She realized Cesar was waiting for her to finish what she was saying.
“I don’t know.” She shrugged self-consciously. “It didn’t sound like your family was pleased by our marriage. I’m glad she came, but I was surprised to see her.”
He paced restlessly, no doubt feeling claustrophobic in this narrow sitting room, if not by their shotgun wedding. “She was headed to Iceland for a symposium. It was on the way.”
“Well, it was nice to see her. I’ll have to send a note.” She was babbling, nervous as she changed their son on the sofa, already thinking about how she would undress and share that slant-ceilinged bedroom with Cesar after they went down for dinner.
She was also feeling the pressure of this marriage, perhaps not trapped in it, but surrounded by hazards and obstacles. She was very unsure how her life would proceed.
But it was time to overcome one of her biggest concerns, she decided, as she finished zipping Enrique into his pajamas.
“Here,” she said casually, scooping up the little bug and giving Cesar no choice but to take his son or drop him. He wouldn’t let the baby fall, she knew that, but with that many Kelly women vying for a chance to cuddle their nephew and grandson, and a carrier with a handle making the boy feel more like a suitcase as he was transferred in and out of cars and buildings, Cesar had put off touching his son for long enough.
“What...? Why...?”
“I have to wash my hands,” she said, moving into the powder room, pretending she didn’t notice that the whites of his eyes were showing. “I can’t leave him on the sofa. He might roll off,” she called back, taking her time like she was scrubbing for surgery, glancing in the mirror to ensure her most innocent expression was firmly in place.
Enrique was just over a week old and barely keeping his eyes open for longer than thirty minutes. He wasn’t going to roll anywhere for a while yet.
She came out to see Cesar wearing an uncomfortable expression. He held Enrique cradled in his two big hands, suspended in the air as though the infant was a dripping mess of sod or something equally cold and unpleasant that should be kept at a distance to avoid staining his clothes.
Her heart sank, but she reminded herself that his family wasn’t like hers. His sister had come to their wedding because it was on the way. Had he ever held a baby in his life?
Moving across, she ignored the way he offered the boy to her and gently pressed his hands closer to his own body. “Keep him warm while I change. And watch his neck. He’s holding his head up really well, but just in case. Talk to him.”
“About what?” Now he held Enrique against his shoulder like he’d grabbed one too many items in the grocery store and really wished he’d picked up a handbasket.
“He’s been listening to my voice for nine months and it makes him feel safe when he hears me. He needs to associate your voice with safety, too. Use Valencian. You don’t want me to teach it to him. I have an accent.” She headed for the bedroom.
When she glanced back, he was staring at her the way he looked when she gave him backtalk he didn’t like.
“Pretend he’s Corm. At least he won’t contradict you over who the best goalkeeper really is.”
* * *
Sorcha swung the door mostly closed and Cesar knew she was undressing behind it. That he was willing to help with. This...
He had held kittens as a child, when the mouser in the vineyard had had a litter, but never a human baby. He’d never even picked up a young child and this... This baby was so new and fragile, his skin so delicate, Cesar thought he’d tear him if he moved wrong.
And talk to him? He carefully eased Enrique into a more secure position in the crook of his arm and looked at the boy’s unguarded expression. He hadn’t needed the DNA report to believe this was his son, but he still didn’t see himself in that soft, round face.
“She’s crazy,” he said under his breath, wanting to ignore Sorcha’s ridiculous suggestion, but what she had said about Enrique finding security in the sound of his voice niggled. It’s not as if he wanted the opposite, for Enrique to fear the sound of his voice, but he hadn’t put together that his son would look to him for reassurance or, well, anything but basic needs and material items when he was old enough to ask for them.
What was he supposed to say? The kid was ten days old, barely able to control the wander of his gaze. He wouldn’t understand a word.
Blue eyes the same shade as Sorcha’s searched the ceiling with surprising alertness. So much like Sorcha’s, Cesar noted with fascination. Clear and such an undeniable blue and— Oh, hello. Direct. Enrique’s eyes found Cesar’s and stuck.
Cesar found himself lifting his brows in a silent “what now?”
Enrique’s tiny forehead furrowed with faint lines. His miniature brows climbed, reflecting the same query.
“Are you mocking me?” Cesar asked, astonished. A grin tugged at his mouth.
Enrique’s little mouth pulled in what looked a lot like a wavering attempt at a smile.
What the hell? Cesar looked up, something rising in him that was not unlike an unexpected discovery in the lab. Sorcha was still in the bedroom. It was just him and...
There was a word...
He searched for it and found it. Anthropomorphic. The attribution of human qualities to an animal or object. But that’s not what this was, he acknowledged as he waited with held breath for Enrique’s gaze to find his again. There was a person in there, he saw, as they looked into each other’s eyes. A brand-new mind trying to make sense of the world. Cesar saw beyond the lack of cognition in Enrique’s gaze to the desire to get there and an unexpected thump of empathy squeezed his heart.
“I know exactly how you feel,” he muttered, recalling his own awakening in the hospital to a world he didn’t recognize.
He found himself touching the boy’s closed fist, amused to see he was already a fighter.
Enrique opened his hand and grasped Cesar’s finger in a firm grip. He might as well have closed his tiny fist around Cesar’s lungs. Something happened in that moment, something uncomfortable. Cesar trusted no one, never left himself open, never gave his loyalty without a thousand tests. Yet this boy waltzed straight inside him and left a vulnerable opening behind.
At the same time, on the flip side of that vulnerability was a powerful, primal surge of protectiveness.
Cesar wasn’t the biologist his sister was, but he understood on an intellectual level that parents were supposed to feel a willingness to fight to the death for their offspring. It was all part of nature’s plan.
He still wasn’t prepared for the rush of protective instinct that came over him, filling him with the power and imperative to ensure this boy’s well-being. In that instant, he knew he could, and would, conquer anything for this boy.
Trying to ignore how shaken he was by the strange crumbling and rebuilding inside him, he lightly stroked the pad of his thumb across minuscule knuckles.
“I have your back,” he promised his son, then took note of the intense stare that failed to understand the depth of what he’d just vowed. “Maybe don’t wear the exact blank stare I give my own parents when I’m pretending to listen, hmm?”
* * *
Enrique was down for the night in the lounge. Cesar was glancing at the sports highlights on mute and Sorcha was staring at the bed they would share.
Actually, she glared at what had been left for her by the modiste. She had come back while they were at dinner to take the wedding gown back to Paris. She would mend any damage before she worked some kind of magic so the dress wouldn’t discolor in storage.
Was this sexy peignoir her idea? Or Cesar’s?
Either way, it was gorgeous, but a complete waste.
Sorcha folded her arms, staring holes into it, trying to justify starting her marriage in flannel pajama bottoms and an oversize T-shirt. But her husband had already reacted with a sideways look at what she’d worn to dinner: perfectly respectable black maternity dress pants and a white knit pullover with a cowl neck.
She heard the rattle of the remote onto a table and tensed as he came into the room. His gaze took in her disgruntled expression, then drifted to the silvery silk with blue lace poured across the fluffy white coverlet.
This was awful. She just blurted it out. “You know I can’t make love, right?”
“I was there when the doctor looked at me and said we should wait six weeks, yes,” he said drily, mostly closing the door so they could hear Enrique, but talk without disturbing him.
“Is this...?” She waved at the sexy lingerie. “Are you expecting me to do something tonight?” She was dying a death by a thousand blushes, voice thinning with how uncomfortable she was. Part of her wanted to touch him, give him pleasure. It was their wedding night, for heaven’s sake, but another part...
She tried to swallow the lump in her throat.
“Do you want to do something?” he asked, arms folded, rocking back on his heels. He sounded convinced that she didn’t.
“I don’t know,” she grumbled, crossing her own arms.
She wasn’t a prude, but she wasn’t terribly experienced. With her mother’s reputation hanging over them, then her sister’s teen pregnancy, the rest of them had tried to keep a low profile. The workplace hadn’t been much better. If Sorcha had wanted to be taken seriously, she had had to avoid flirting or dating coworkers. She’d had a couple of longer relationships, but her focus had always been on developing her career, not her bedroom skills.
She’d been starkly aware of the differences in their confidence levels that day in Valencia, but had thought Cesar had enjoyed himself as much as she had. Then she’d woken alone. Everything that had followed hadn’t exactly reassured her that he’d been fully satisfied by her efforts.
“She asked me if she should include a nightgown. I said yes.” He dismissed the conversation with a hitch of his shoulder. “It wasn’t meant as a demand to be serviced.” Insult underpinned his tone.
She scowled. “Don’t make me feel callow.”
“Callow?” he repeated.
“Green. Inexperienced. Virginal,” she explained.
“Do not tell me you were a virgin that day.” He froze, his gaze piercing hers.
“No. Of course not. I—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” he interrupted with a sweep of his hand.
“Excuse me?”
“I don’t want to hear how many lovers you’ve had. This conversation ends here.”
She blinked at him. “You,” she said, “don’t want to know how many lovers I have had. When you’ve had—”
“Not talking about it,” he said, flat and decisive. “We’re married now and exclusive to each other.”
“Really,” she said, heart fluttering with hope. “Mr. Variety Pack is willing to be abstinent for six weeks then restrict himself to me for the rest of his life.”
He looked about to say something then changed his mind, saying after a pause, “Do you have a problem with that?”
“No,” she said, but her voice wavered. In theory it was exactly what she wanted. In reality, she doubted it would happen.
He narrowed his eyes. “That didn’t sound very convincing. Do you have a problem with limiting yourself to me, Sorcha?”
That was his what-do-you-mean-it-didn’t-arrive-and-we’re-on-the-hook-for-millions-if-we-miss-this-deadline? voice.
She set her jaw, found her spine and looked him right in the eye. “What makes you think I’ll hold your interest forever?”
“What makes you think you won’t?” he growled.
“You left.”
The aggression that had been bunching his muscles eased back a notch and his scowl went from challenge to caution. “What do you mean?”
“After we made love that day. You left.” She flung a hand in the air, trying not to grow strident, but she was hurt, damn it. Scorned. “You didn’t wake me. You texted me that you were seeing the woman you were supposed to marry. According to her, you said you were ashamed that you’d touched me. I can’t assume you enjoyed yourself, can I? More like you couldn’t wait to get away.”
And now her eyes were growing damp. Damn it.
She looked to the curtained window. Swallowed hard. “Forget it. You’re right. Let’s not talk about this.”
“Sorcha, I don’t remember—”
“It doesn’t change the fact that you did it,” she said, managing to make it a steady, firm statement, but her fist knocked into the side of her thigh. “So go ahead and hate me for hiding your son, but you made me feel—”
No. She wasn’t doing this.
Snatching up her flannel pants and shirt, she started for the bathroom.
“Sorcha.” His voice was a whip that made her flinch and flex her back.
She stopped with her hand on the door latch.
“Look at me.”
No. She kept her hand on the latch, her back to him.
He waited.
“What?” she prompted, refusing to turn.
“For what it’s worth, I haven’t slept with Diega.”
Did that mean... She turned and tried to read beyond his begrudging expression.
“Really.” She tucked the folded clothes under her elbow as she crossed her arms again. “You told me that day you wouldn’t cheat on her—”
“I haven’t,” he groaned. “I haven’t been with anyone. That’s what I’m saying.”
“Since me?” That couldn’t be right. She was standing on solid wood flooring, but it felt like a bouncy castle.
“Since you.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Are you being straight with me? She must have thought that was weird.”
“She asked if everything was in working order. It is,” he assured her, tone pithy. “I’ve checked.”
For some reason she wanted to laugh. She ducked her head and pressed the back of her hand to her mouth.
He scooped up the peignoir in one motion, the silk so fine his fist easily closed over the bunched fabric. He brought it to her like a handful of Christmas tinsel. “I would prefer you wore this. If I wanted to sleep with a farm boy, I would have married one.”
* * *
Cesar had expected to wake exhausted and stiff on his first morning of marriage, but had imagined it would have been from another cause, not walking a baby half the night.
Sorcha wore a wan expression as she bustled around in her efficient way, moving well enough, but she had to be just as tired.
He gave himself a mental kick, dismayed that he wasn’t giving her more time to recover, but he wanted to get them to Spain. He had planned to be on his honeymoon with Diega right now, so work shouldn’t be an issue, but it was. A lot of wheels had been in motion and now needed braking and reversing.
His father was refusing to step in and help him “incinerate a lifetime of planning out of sentiment” and Cesar didn’t want him to. He was going to dig deep and prove this was merely a detour, not a disaster.
Still, it was his honeymoon and he was so sexually frustrated he could barely speak. For three long years, he’d ignored the pull Sorcha had on him. Waking to her back and butt curled into his chest and lap hadn’t alleviated the ache at all. Her legs had followed the bend of his knees and the bottoms of her feet had rested on his toes, while her hair had tickled under his jaw.
She’d been cold when she’d come back after feeding Enrique so he’d pulled her into his front to warm her. He’d woken hotter than a stuffed pepper, not just from their combined body heat, but from desire.
Need.
What she’d said last night about his leaving after he’d made love to her in his office... He couldn’t believe things between them had been anything less than spectacular. He hated himself for damaging her self-esteem. Men had egos in bed, but women were sensitive and physically vulnerable. As a man who had always been up-front about his inability to commit, he’d nevertheless tried to ensure his lovers felt wanted and appreciated. It didn’t make sense that he would have discarded Sorcha so callously.
This damned broken brain of his.
“I’ll do it,” he muttered, brushing her aside as she closed her suitcase and tried to heft it off the bed.
She flashed him a look and took the baby from him to put him in his carrier.
Had he planned to return to her with news of calling off his marriage? Delaying it? He eyed her as if she somehow knew any better than he did what had been in his mind. But despite his reluctance to marry last year, he’d always been resigned to making his life with Diega. Calling things off because he’d discovered he had a son had been difficult enough. He couldn’t imagine he’d intended to break things off just because he’d had sex with Sorcha.
Diega’s version, that he’d had his fill of Sorcha from one tumble in his office, didn’t ring true, either. How many times had he fantasized about making love to his PA? He’d been so peeved when he woke in the hospital “engaged,” and believed that he’d missed his chance with Sorcha altogether, he’d behaved like a passive-aggressive ass.
He hadn’t wanted to admit last night how long he’d gone without sex. Not for any macho reasons, either. No, it just seemed too revelatory.
What he hadn’t said was that Diega had made advances and he’d kissed her, but hadn’t wanted to bed her. He’d been punishing her in a very puerile way for being an obstacle between him and the woman he’d still wanted, even though Sorcha had disappeared from his life.
“You don’t have to get that,” he told Sorcha as she picked up the envelope that had been slipped under the door in the night, thinking she shouldn’t be bending like that.
“It’s fine,” she muttered, hair falling around her flushed face, but her expression was tight.
The F word. He narrowed his eyes, but the bellman had arrived to collect their cases and they went downstairs.
While he went to the exit, Sorcha crossed to the front desk.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Checking out.” She opened her handbag.
“They have my credit card on file.” He held the door and jerked his head at where their car had been pulled up. He wanted her off her feet.
Sorcha wavered briefly, glancing at the woman behind the desk as though confirming everything was in order.
The woman gave Sorcha a brow raise and a smile that was more of a sneer. “Thank you for your patronage,” she said with snide sweetness. Her disparaging gaze flicked from Sorcha to the baby carrier and finally up to him.
He met the woman’s cynical look and stared her down, waiting until he was behind the wheel and pulling away to ask, “What the hell was that?”
* * *
“What was what?” Sorcha was realizing rather belatedly that her entire life had been overturned not by one male, but two. She had had months to mentally prepare for Enrique, though. She’d watched her sister adapt to motherhood and had had an idea what she would be up against.
Now she had Cesar dominating her life all over again and she wasn’t sure how to handle it.
“At the desk,” he elaborated.
“I thought you wanted me to pay. I always used to check us out. You paid for everything else on this trip. I thought I should pick up the room cost.”
He glanced at her. “Are you serious?”
She let out her frustration in a long breath. “I don’t know what you’re thinking! You’ve been glaring at me all morning, like I wasn’t moving fast enough. I feel like I’m back in my first week of work, when I couldn’t make a move without getting yelled at.”
A beat of silence, then he asked, “When have I ever raised my voice at you?”
“Okay, I’m afraid of hearing that tone. The one that suggests I’m the stupidest person who ever breathed. I don’t work for you anymore, you know. I work for him.” She thumbed to where Enrique’s seat was strapped in behind them.
His hands massaged the wheel.
“I didn’t realize that’s why you were running around like it was a fire drill. I was thinking about other things, not impatient with you. I know you don’t work for me. Believe me, I know. If you could come into the office and turn the new PA into half what you were, I might still have hair when I’m forty.”
Sorcha looked at her nails, shaped and polished by her sister for her wedding, trying not to be smug that she was missed.
She sighed. “I liked being your assistant. You were a bear sometimes, but I knew who I was. My role was clearly defined and I had independence away from you.” She lifted her gaze to the gloomy gray sky. “I realized this morning that everything is blurred now. All the decisions I make now have to be sifted through their effect on you and Enrique. Our relationship has to be reconfigured and I don’t know what that will look like. It’s bothering me.”
“It is strange,” he agreed. “I keep thinking I’m supposed to avoid touching you, because you’re my employee. Then I remind myself you’re my wife, but you’re still off-limits. My libido is very confused, guapa.”
“Being ninety percent libido, I can only assume you’re extremely confused.”
“There’s the woman I thought twice about hiring,” he said drily. “Listen. Two things. You’re my wife. I will always pay and you will always expect me to.”
“That’s not—”
“Always. We’re not negotiating. Anything I’m not present to pay for will go on the cards waiting for you in Spain.”
“And if I want to earn my own money and spend it?” she challenged. Her mother’s fatal error had been trusting her husband to leave her something. According to the prenup Sorcha had signed, Cesar had already arranged an income for her, but...
“We’ll discuss your working when the time comes,” he said in a tone that promised he would object and win. “My mother is a busy woman, Sorcha. Don’t underestimate the demands of being a society wife. It is a job in itself.”
She pursed her lips, agreeing that there wasn’t much use arguing this issue before its time, but she had always enjoyed working. On the other hand, his mother did seem to keep busy, always organizing some charity function or other. As long as she felt as if she was making a contribution, she might be okay with letting him support her.
“You said two things,” she prompted.
“Last night you said you don’t want a nanny, but I want you to rethink it. I’ll try to work from home while you’re recovering, but I’ll have to go into the office at least once a week. We’ll have invitations as word gets out that I’m married—”
“Your role hasn’t changed then?”
“What do you mean?”
“I thought marrying Diega was a condition to being put in charge of the family holdings. I’ve been worrying that marrying me had, um, impacted that?” She knotted her hands in her lap.
“My father tried that,” he said dismissively. “I pointed out that whether he left me in the role of president or not—and whether my brother marries Diega or not—I still inherit the title and the family home. He’s practical enough to see more work in changing course than staying it. Rico prefers research anyway and doesn’t want to lead the charge. My mother sees the scandal of disinheriting an errant son greater than his marrying against her wishes, so she’s resigned herself.”
“That’s comforting,” Sorcha snorted.
He shrugged. “My father’s handoff of the corporation was set back half a year by my crash so I still have a lot of work in the next two years on that. It will include some travel. If nothing else, I want you to have someone in during the day for the next few weeks so you can rest if you need to.”
“I don’t want our son raised by a stranger,” she said, repeating what she’d told him when the topic had come up over dinner. She was heartened by his getting up with Enrique last night and his talk of working from home. Surely they could manage.
“If we lived near your mother,” he said, his expression reflecting zero emotion, “and I knew you were able to leave him for an hour to get some rest, that would be different. My mother is never going to offer that sort of respite.”
She supposed she ought to feel scorned, but she just felt sorry for Cesar and his siblings.
“I’ll think about it,” she murmured. Then she said absently, “Octavia has one.” And Octavia was every bit as devoted to Lorenzo as Sorcha felt to Enrique, so maybe she shouldn’t worry that hiring a nanny would break the mother-baby attachment. “I’ll ask her for the name of the agency they used.”
“Octavia?” Cesar prompted.
“The mother of the other boy at the hospital.” Sorcha had texted her friend a selfie in her wedding dress saying, I’m getting married.
Octavia had responded with I’m going to marry my nanny. She’s listening for L while I have a bath.
“Another reason for a nanny,” Cesar said darkly. “We’ll be in legal meetings a dozen times over the next few years.”
They were quiet a few minutes, then he said, “I meant why was that woman at the hotel so nasty?”
Her heart tripped. “Pardon?”
“When we left the hotel, the woman behind the desk was very snotty. Do you know her?”
“Kind of.” She probably should have been more up-front about how the Kellys were viewed by the village, but she preferred him to believe he’d married his working class secretary, not the bastard of a whore—which was what people had called her more than once.
It was so painful she hated to even reference it obliquely, but he was waiting.
“I told you how my father had a legitimate family in England?” She scratched her eyebrow. “We were quite notorious after he died. Treated like... Well, people felt Mum got what she deserved, carrying on with a married man. We were all punished. I went to school with that woman and she was letting me know she hadn’t forgotten where I came from.”
Sorcha looked out the window onto her beautiful country, but felt sick. With one snarky look and a handful of words, she’d been reminded what a pretender she was.
“Your mother is a very warm person. If that’s where you came from, you have nothing to be ashamed of.”
She smiled, touched that he would say something so nice about her mum, but he was missing the point. “Maybe I didn’t get pregnant on purpose, and maybe the father married me, but I still got my husband ‘that way.’”
He sent her a blistering look. “I’ll cancel payment.”
“Please don’t. It would start something that Mum would have to finish. I’ll pay it if you don’t want to. It was enough for me to stand there and let her know I had the means, to be honest.”
His mouth twitched and he growled, “Leave it. If you want it paid, I’ll pay it, but that won’t happen again.”
They didn’t talk any more until they were on the plane.
“Go have a proper sleep in the cabin,” Cesar told her once they’d been cleared to move around. “I’ll let you know if he needs you.” He nodded at Enrique.
And there it was again: evidence of how things had changed. Sleep in my bed.
By the time they landed, the question of where their bed would be located arose.
“Does he know where we’re going?” Sorcha asked, still befuddled by her heavy nap, but certain the driver had turned the wrong direction from the airport.
“We’re running up the coast to look at a house. We’ll stay in a hotel overnight if we decide we like it, and sign the papers in the morning.”
“Out of the city?” Her heart sank. She would have preferred to stay in Ireland if he wanted her out of the way.
“Do you mind? Diega had the same reaction, but I’ve always wanted a vineyard and this place just came on the market.”
She swung her head around. “A vineyard? Really?”
He shrugged, showing a hint of self-consciousness. “I grew up spending time with my father’s vintner. It’s a fascinating process. Probably the reason I went into chemistry. Jorge wasn’t book-educated, so he couldn’t tell me why certain reactions happened, but he was an artist for getting the results he wanted. He let me experiment. I had some successes. A few disasters,” he said wryly. “I enjoyed it. Enrique might, too, when he’s old enough to get his hands dirty.”
She almost left it at that. If he’d still been her boss, she would have, but they were married. She took a risk. “Was? He’s no longer alive? It sounds like you would steal him from your father if you could.”
“He passed away four years ago. My parents didn’t tell me or I would have gone to his funeral.” Cesar turned his head to look out his side window, but she saw his hand close into a fist on his thigh.
Oh, Cesar. She reached to cover his hand.
He looked down at her small hand over his for a long moment, then removed his own from under it. He gave her a faintly disdainful smile. “It’s fine.”
She swallowed, looking out her own window, stung. Apparently it didn’t matter if she was his wife. There were still lines she wasn’t allowed to cross.
The villa was stunning, sprawled across a hillside with an infinity pool that overlooked the lower bench of the vineyard and the blue-green horizon of the Mediterranean.
The interior was absent of furniture and Sorcha wasn’t sure about the chartreuse in the dining room—a space that could easily seat thirty—but as they moved through the arched doorways from room to room, she mostly goggled. Ten bedrooms? Six with their own sitting rooms and baths? Plus a nursery with a nanny suite?
This was not her life. She subtly pinched herself as she stood in the huge master suite, slowly pivoting to take in the three walls of windows, plus the terrace overlooking the pool and sea. It didn’t matter how big a bed they put in here, there would still be room to play tennis. The tub in the attached bathroom was its own lap pool.
Apparently the owners had run out of money after choosing to build a new villa rather than renovating the one that had been here for a century.
“What do you think?” Cesar asked when they returned downstairs and stood in the third lounge, this one an indoor-outdoor space with removable walls, a fireplace and a wet bar. “It only has a six-car garage and I don’t see a space to expand it. The beach is quite a hike, but at least it’s private.”
Only six cars. Forty stairs to the private beach. Such hardship.
“Do you realize what it will take to furnish this place?” she murmured as the agent gave them a moment of privacy. Sorcha was talking about the cost, but Cesar gave her a sharp look, taking Enrique from her as she shifted the baby to her other shoulder. Their son was growing every minute and surprisingly heavy.
“I don’t expect you to source everything yourself,” Cesar said. “Hire a decorator so you just have to make the decisions. Paint first. That green in the dining room is hideous.”
That streak of artistry in him always surprised her. He was such a man of logic and facts, but aesthetics were as important to him as function. He would have made a terrific architect.
They signed the papers the next day. Sorcha’s hand trembled as she wrote her name. How did she own half of such a property? The prenup gave her their principal residence, but she felt like the biggest fraudster alive putting her name to a house like that.
Fortunately, babies had a way of narrowing one’s focus down to the most immediate priorities and she didn’t have time to worry about it. The next few weeks passed in a blur of meetings with decorators, interviewing nannies among staff needed for the new house, enduring fittings for a new wardrobe for herself—Cesar gave her an obscenely high budget and told her to use it—choosing baby clothes and other nursery items and occasionally being woken by her husband with “He won’t settle. He must be hungry.”
If she had thought it would be a time of growing closer to her husband, she was both right and wrong. They often talked as they always had. He shared work details; she gave him updates on the house. They marveled at Enrique and laughed at themselves as new parents.
Where their son was concerned, they grew very close. If Sorcha had dreamed of watching Cesar fall in love someday, her wish was granted. He stole time with Enrique every chance he could, walked him at night, changed him when he needed it, even came back to her one time with his sleeves rolled up and the front of his shirt wet, Enrique smelling fresh and damp, wearing a different outfit.
“That turned into a bath. But he’s clean and dry now. And hungry.”
Sometimes they watched a movie in the evenings and when she started joining him in his gym, where she walked the tread while he did his weight routine, he only asked, “Did the doctor say you’re allowed?”
They slept together, often with their bodies touching. She knew he was hard every morning, but they kept their hands to themselves and their kisses tended to be pecks of greeting and departure. The domestic kind. A brief touch on her shoulder or waist, an even briefer touch of his mouth to hers on his way out the door.
Was he still getting used to the idea that he could kiss her? Was he showing restraint because she hadn’t been cleared for sex yet? Or did he simply not want anything more from her?
If she didn’t have a baby to show for it, she would think that passionate man who had seemed so driven by lust and determined to elicit the same in her had been a hot dream by a wicked mind.
So she was doubly anxious when she came home from the doctor the day they were supposed to go to his mother’s for the evening. Part of her had been wishing for weeks that they could make love and get the suspense over with. Now the moment was at hand and she found herself swallowing her tongue.
She hadn’t reminded him she was seeing the doctor today. He wound up running late, arriving home as she was finishing her makeup. Leaving the ivory tower of his penthouse was enough to deal with, she decided. Aside from her doctor appointments, she had been enjoying this time of seclusion, cocooned with her baby, visiting with her family over the tablet so she didn’t feel isolated.
The thought of fully assuming the title of Señora Montero publicly was intimidating the heck out of her.
Fortunately, she had Octavia. She often texted her new friend at odd hours. It wasn’t unusual to find Octavia giving Lorenzo a midnight feed when she rose to nurse Enrique. Octavia was also riding the ups and downs of new motherhood and she was a terrific resource when it came to living the lifestyle to which Sorcha had socially clambered. Best of all, she made no judgment about Sorcha being a newbie to this stratosphere.
Sorcha texted her:
I need to buy some gowns. The stylist says I need at least ten. That seems excessive.
Octavia texted back:
Conservative. I bought two dozen when I married. I just bought twelve more—thanks, Lorenzo, for the ample hips and bust.
Two dozen? The gowns were four figures each!
This first event was Cesar’s mother’s reception for her new daughter-in-law, however. La Reina Montero was hosting a very civilized affair to introduce her eldest son’s new wife to five hundred of her closest friends and relatives. In a month, La Reina would do it all again when her second son’s engagement to Diega Fuentes was formally announced. One would think Señora Montero had a reduce-reuse-recycle zero-waste attitude, if not for her willingness to feed the same crowd twice.
Sorcha glanced at Cesar, glad he couldn’t read her thoughts.
She had glimpsed these sorts of events from afar as his PA, and had usually been the one to arrange tuxedos to come back from the cleaners and drivers to arrive at the door. When she had asked if those sorts of duties fell to her as his wife, he’d asked, “Do you want them to?”
Much discussion had ensued about her role in organizing his private life—which harkened back to her claim that she might want an outside job again, eventually, but the truth was she was already overwhelmed. Readying their new home was a job in itself and mothering was nonstop. She liked the idea of taking charge of his personal calendar, but wasn’t sure if she could handle it yet.
He wound up suggesting she needed a personal assistant, which had made her laugh outright.
“My mother has one,” he’d said with a negligent shrug. Like it was a handy app you downloaded onto your tablet.
“I’m not on your mother’s level,” she had protested.
“You’re not the Duquesa yet, but you will be. She’ll judge you far more harshly for not wearing the affectations befitting your station than for acting the part out of the gate.”
No pressure to be her absolute highest self tonight or anything.
They arrived earlier than the rest of the guests so they could form part of the receiving line. Sorcha felt as though invisible eyes were on her as she walked up the front steps in her heels, green-and-gold skirt caressing her thighs while she resisted the urge to tug on the strapless bodice to ensure her breasts didn’t make an appearance.
She’d been to this house exactly once, in the days after Cesar’s crash, when she’d brought some things from his office to his father. She’d used the service entrance and had been shown into his office for twenty minutes. She had spent nineteen of those minutes memorizing Cesar’s boyhood face in a family portrait over the fireplace.
Tonight, she was a member of his family. Cesar led her without hesitation up the stairs into the private domain where he had grown up, seeking out his parents in their personal lounge. He made a point of calling them by name when he greeted them. “Sorcha, you remember my parents, Javiero and La Reina.”
“Of course.” Sorcha smiled. As his PA, she had used their titles when speaking to them and their greetings had been touchless. They both held her hands and kissed her cheeks today.
“Welcome.” Javiero was an older version of Cesar, very handsome and still with a full head of dark hair. He stood tall in his tuxedo, jacket not yet on, and moved with economy. He never wasted a word, much like his son. Working closely with him in those first days after Cesar’s crash, doing everything she could to ensure the impact to the corporation was minimized, she had thought Javiero respected and valued her. This evening, he was inscrutable as he glanced at his sleeping grandson.
Sorcha had mostly spoken to La Reina on the telephone, ingratiating herself shamelessly in the first year of her employment. Mothers were worse than wives if you got on their bad side as a man’s assistant. She figured she had one chance as his wife.
“So lovely to have you back with us,” La Reina said, proving she could lie as elegantly as she could dress. “And a son. Such a delightful surprise. I’ve been tied up with planning this party or I would have come to see him. I thought when you’d moved into the new house would be convenient, so I could see both at once.”
Tonight was not, apparently, a convenient time to view her grandson.
“I’m nursing,” Sorcha said, pretending the payoff check hadn’t happened. Or the generous but ironclad prenup. This was how his family did things, right? All business, purely practical, no emotion. “We couldn’t leave him home.”
“Oh, yes. I always thought breastfeeding sounded like such a nuisance,” La Reina murmured.
Sorcha bit her tongue.
“The nanny will watch him in my suite,” Cesar said. “But we won’t stay the night.”
“When you have him settled, join us for cocktails. Rico and Pia are here. They might be downstairs already,” she added.
They left for Cesar’s suite and Sorcha felt as if she could breathe again. At least it hadn’t been ugly. Maybe she could get through this after all.
Thirty minutes later, she accompanied Cesar toward the stairs. He offered a hand as they began to descend and she gratefully took it, even though she kept the other on the rail. It would be just like her to go headfirst, she was so sick with nerves right now.
“Your hand is freezing,” he said, closing his warm one more tightly over hers.
“I’m terrified,” she muttered. “What are people going to say?”
“Congratulations,” he replied. “What else can they say?”
“I suppose,” she mumbled, and told herself to quit frowning, but couldn’t shake her worry. “Are you sure I look all right?”
He was exceptionally handsome in his tuxedo, wearing it like old jeans. He’d shaved and wore the bored expression of a man who’d done this too many times to count.
“I told you before we left that you look beautiful, but Enrique started crying. You might not have heard me.”
“No, I did. I just—” Didn’t believe it. She’d seen him with his lovers in the past. He’d always been so attentive and indulgent, performing foreplay with light fingers on a woman’s skin and nuzzles of his lips against her cheek.
She was his wife and while his compliment had sounded sincere, he’d also seemed stiff when he’d said it. Standoffish. He wasn’t flirty and affectionate with her.
They reached the bottom of the stairs and she let go of his hand, turned to face him and made herself confront her worst fear. She had always felt attractive, if wary of her own allure, but the changes of pregnancy had her confidence faltering.
“Be honest. Is the baby weight turning you off? Because I’m trying to drop it as fast as I can, but it’s hard.”
“Sorcha.” He looked genuinely shocked and confused. “What gave you the idea...? Even if you were still out to here—” he stuck his hand in the air at his middle “—it wouldn’t matter. You always look flawless. You’re the most naturally beautiful woman I know.”
“I’m sorry. I’m just really nervous and—” She was such an idiot. She shouldn’t have started this here, now, but this party felt like the official beginning of their marriage and she wouldn’t relax until she at least knew... “I went to the doctor today. She said we could, um...” She looked around. “You know,” she said in an undertone. “If we use, um,” she swallowed and mouthed, condoms.
He stared.
She felt as though she grew transparent, skin thinning with heat, clothes incinerating until they flaked off her body in papery curls and she stood naked before him. She had just handed him the power to accept or reject her, leaving her self-worth hanging in the balance. She wished he would—
“You tell me that now? Here?”
“Where else—”
“The shower? An hour ago?” An avid light fired his gaze and his hand wrapped firmly around her arm. He steered her down the hall, but rather than taking her toward the main area of the house, he tugged her past the office she’d seen last time, then into a billiards room.
She scuffled along, fearful she’d be pulled off her heels. “Cesar, you’re scaring me.”
“I wait three damned years, then you disappear for eight months. I marry you and still have to wait six weeks...”
He pushed through a frosted door into a humid solarium. The scents of oranges and earth, lilies and herbs, were so pungent, it was almost overwhelming. The room was dark, lit only by the lights surrounding the tents erected outside. The glow filtered through small panes of glass, most of the light kept out by the abundance of greenery growing upward and dangling from hooks.
It was enchanting, but... “You want to, um, here—?”
“I want,” he growled, pulling her into his arms and pressing a hot, openmouthed kiss against her neck. His hand slid low, taking firm possession of her bottom to press her into the hardness of his unquestionable erection.
“Oh!” she cried, clutching at his shoulders for balance.
“I have been wanting and waiting and you finally tell me I can have you, but that I have to wait a little longer? I never took you for cruel, Sorcha.” His breath moved the tiny hairs along the edges of her updo, tickling and stimulating her sensitive nape, sending shivery waves of pleasure through her whole body. Gooseflesh rose on her arms.
She had wondered what had happened to the unabashedly sexual playboy she used to work for and here he was, flicking his tongue against her earlobe before he caught it in his teeth. He was moving his hands all over her waist and hips, sliding the silk against her skin, learning the shape of her thighs and buttocks. It was a disconcertingly familiar touch, kind of shocking in its level of ownership, but it sent tingles of anticipation and excitement through her. It felt really good to be touched. By him. So greedily.
Heat suffused her as she arched her neck and found herself turning her face, seeking his mouth with her own.
A sound tore out of him and he covered her lips with his own, full and knowledgeable. The sweet, occasionally lingering kisses of the past six weeks were gone. This was raw, undeniable passion. His tongue pierced unapologetically and searched for hers. Her abdomen contracted with excitement.
A deeper moan escaped her and she crowded closer to him, loins flooding with a hot ache, dampening with excitement. They stood there barely moving but for caressing each other in erotic pulses of their bodies against each other, mouths mimicking the thrust and reception they both craved.
With a little sob, she tore her lips from his, panting as she said, “I didn’t bring any condoms with me. I left them in the table by the bed. Do you have one?”
He drew back and even in the shadowed light, she could tell he was glaring.
“You had one that day,” she protested. “I thought it was something you always carry, like a credit card.”
“No,” he growled. “I don’t have one and I’m not about to consummate our marriage on a potting table in my parents’ garden shed.”
“Save it for our anniversary?” she suggested.
He looked to the glass panes of the ceiling, shaking his head. His hands were still flexing on her. “This is going to be a very hard, hard evening to get through.”
She ducked her head against his chest, sheepishly delighted. The evening ahead began to feel more like a date.
“Thank you,” she murmured. “I feel pretty now.”
“You are more than pretty. You’re radiant,” he said, sounding as if he meant it. They exchanged another kiss that promised a “to be continued.”
A moment later, drunk with arousal, she let him lead her back into the billiards room. They would make love later. The knowledge whispered and sang inside her, like a delicious secret. Like Christmas was coming.
He followed her into the powder room and stood next to her in front of the mirror, swiping her color off his mouth, then expertly refolding his kerchief to hide the stain before replacing it in his jacket pocket.
She eyed the maneuver.
“I won’t ask how many women you’ve dragged into that solarium,” she said as she reapplied fresh lipstick to her tingling mouth. She really didn’t want to know.
“I’ve never fooled around with anyone in there during a party,” he said. “Too much chance of running into my brother.”
