The Consequence He Must Claim

by Dani Collins

  Like she was trying not to betray that, on some level, she’d entertained the idea.

  That didn’t surprise him. He was a rich, titled, healthy man. All women took his measure and often made a play. According to his sister, it was basic biology. He had the kind of power and resources that appealed to fertile women looking for a mate to provide for her young.

  And that was what Sorcha ought to expect if he was indeed the father of her child.

  “Really,” he said skeptically, folding his arms, taken aback, but when had Sorcha not surprised him?

  “Really,” she affirmed. “If you want to make provisions for your son, that’s your choice, but I will proceed as if I’ll be supporting Enrique alone.”

  Of course he would support his child. That wasn’t even something he had to consciously decide, it was such a no-brainer. What kind of man failed to provide the basics of life to his offspring?

  The natural progression of that thought—how he would provide for Enrique—was a more complex decision he was holding off contemplating.

  All his life, he’d had a perfect defense against ambitious women: he was tied to an arranged marriage of his parents’ choosing. Now, for the first time in his life, he was free of that encumbrance, yet morally bound to at least consider marriage to Sorcha.

  If Enrique was his.

  That odd rush of longing for the boy to be his rose again, stronger this time, bunching his muscles with anticipation as though he could physically fight for the outcome he wanted.

  “I wasn’t trying to trap you that day,” Sorcha continued, brow wrinkling. “We had some champagne and talked about personal things. I felt—” She flushed and swallowed, but forced her chin up to meet his gaze with defiance. “I felt like we were friends. That’s why I slept with you.” Her expression darkened to one of hurt and betrayal. “But when I came to the hospital to see you, Diega told me you called me your last hurrah.”

  Sorcha’s gaze took a scathing sweep that sliced across him. Slash, slash, slash, like Zorro’s sword dissecting him into pieces.

  “She said I had become a challenge. A conquest—her word—that you couldn’t stand to let get away. I’ve been so comforted all these months, Cesar, knowing you had a good laugh at my expense right before you nearly died.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  SHE POLITELY KICKED Cesar out after that. Enrique needed to go to bed and so did she. She was exhausted emotionally and physically. Cesar was too much on her best day and she was not at her best.

  Still, the fact he hadn’t tried to defend himself before he departed wrenched her soul from her body.

  She was hurting. Furious. He wanted to know why she hadn’t told him they’d made a baby? Because it hadn’t meant anything to him. If it had, if she had, he would have called her before now.

  She took a shaken breath, wondering if he would come back.

  Don’t be stupid, she berated herself. She’d given him a get-out-of-jail-free card. Note to self: don’t gamble unless you’re prepared to lose.

  Swallowing back her misery, she resigned herself to raising Enrique alone, already missing Cesar. She had missed him all these months, missed his dynamic pursuit of his goals, his easy command of any situation, his bursts of enthusiasm for a fresh project and his nod of satisfaction over a job well done.

  She would keep missing him so much.

  Except...

  He was different. He’d always had that air of contained energy, but there was a higher, colder wall around him, not that he’d ever been the most demonstrative person. His entire family was like that: aloof and reserved. She had always thought it ironic that, despite their Latin roots, the Monteros were devoid of the clichéd warmth and short fuse one was taught to expect from the Spanish.

  Was it the situation? Or had the accident changed him in a fundamental way? Because by the time they’d opened up to each other that day in Valencia, she’d moved from intimidation through hero worship to falling in love with the man she’d come to know. She had thought she’d known him quite well, despite the fact he hadn’t divulged more to her than, she suspected, anyone else he’d ever confided in. She had simply observed.

  Her heart lurched as she settled herself in her bed, thinking of all the small ways he’d proven to be more than a focused businessman governed by logic and the scientific method. In her three years of working for him, he’d revealed himself to be caring enough to catch a loose dog off a highway so it wouldn’t get hit. He’d let her in on his secretive experiments with metallurgy that didn’t always have a practical purpose, he just had to know. He bordered on being a nerd about those things, actually, bemusingly eager to report his findings.

  And even though he had a dry wit, he rarely laughed. Except around her. She actively tried to make him laugh, just to hear his surprised snort.

  Sorcha swallowed, recalling how they’d split that bottle of champagne that day, congratulating each other. That was another thing she adored about him. He acknowledged her contribution, never taking all the glory for himself.

  Tomorrow, she had been thinking as they clinked glasses that afternoon. Tomorrow she would draft up his thank-you letters to the various department heads. He would go through each one, noting specific areas of achievement and offering his appreciation. It wasn’t sentimental, he’d assured her the first time he’d given her the task. “Research shows that positive reinforcement achieves better results than negative feedback. Moving forward, the teams will be doubly motivated to strive for excellence.

  “Nice work with the press,” he’d said to her as they sipped their champagne, adding the warning, “It will get worse.”

  “I know.” His father was moving into politics and every level of media, from serious journalists to paparazzi, was turning over rocks, eager for something to crawl out. But with one verbal pat on the back from her exalted boss, Sorcha mentally dug in, determined to keep earning his approval.

  For a moment they’d shared a comfortable silence. The sun had painted muted patches of light on the oriental carpet, shining through the coated glass of the windows. His phone had chimed on his desk and he’d had his guard down enough that he didn’t disguise the twist of dismay that contorted his mouth before he controlled it.

  Only his family had his direct number, but he didn’t rise or ask her to fetch it.

  Oh, right. Diega Fuentes, his soon-to-be fiancée, also had the number.

  Cesar topped up their sparkling glasses, ignoring the call.

  Leaning forward on the sofa, Sorcha set down her glass, taking advantage of Cesar’s attention on his placement of the bottle back into its ice bucket to memorize his profile, so sharp and proud. His big shoulders shrugged briefly as he settled back into his chair. He lifted his feet onto the coffee table and crossed his ankles, releasing a contented sigh.

  This was their private ritual, this brief celebration of closing out a project. In a moment his mind would turn to the stages of all the other projects they were juggling and she would set her phone to record his musings. She might rise to fetch a notebook or search out a file or drawing as they began prioritizing their next series of tasks.

  But not yet. Right now, this was their downtime.

  And she had some business of her own to address.

  “You have something to say,” he noted, watchful beneath those lazily drooped eyelids, making her feel self-conscious. When had he learned to read her?

  She swallowed. This was the moment she’d been waiting for and it was harder than she’d expected. Her throat tightened and the words came up with a little rasp, dragging a barb. “I have to put in my notice.”

  “Did you mishear me? I said you did well with the press.”

  She smiled, but it didn’t stick. I’m serious, she telegraphed.

  He lifted disdainful brows. “You promised me five years.”
<
br />   “I did,” she admitted.

  “Something to do with your family?”

  “No.” His question surprised her. Apart from the incident with her niece, she hadn’t realized he’d noticed how important her family was to her, especially given how indifferent he seemed toward his own. “No, it’s...” She hadn’t figured out how to approach this without coming off as insulting him, his family, his attitude toward marriage and his intended. “You know how sometimes you ask me to tell a white lie to a woman you’re dating, to say you’ve left the building when they drop by unannounced? Or to take the fall if you forget to call? That kind of thing?”

  “I didn’t put that in your job description. You did.” He took a healthy swallow of sparkling wine, expression shuttered, all his attention on her.

  He certainly took advantage of her willingness to send flowers, pay bills, cosset and reassure the revolving door of women he dated.

  “I did,” she agreed. “Because I took a job working as PA to a bachelor and that’s a sort of job hazard. Working for a married man is different.” She looked at her hands to remind herself to keep them still because it made her a little sick to think of him married to that ice queen Diega Fuentes. “You either become friends with his wife, in which case you can’t lie to her for any reason, even if your boss asks you to, or she sees you as an extension of his job—that thing that takes him away from her. And she makes it hard for you to do your work effectively.”

  “You think Diega will make your job hard for you? Because I would never ask you to lie to her.”

  “Wouldn’t you?” Asking the question, especially in that low, quietly challenging tone, was a gamble. It was the same high-stakes candor she’d used to land this job and tried not to overuse. But this was important.

  With trepidation, she lifted her gaze and had to steel herself against stammering out an apology. He was giving her the death glare, the one that made muscled construction workers armed with nail guns take a step back in caution.

  “Keep talking, Sorcha, and the termination will come from this side of the table.”

  “Either way I’m leaving, so I have nothing to lose in speaking my mind, do I?” She picked up her drink and drew deeply on the bubbly liquid that evaporated in her mouth, but she didn’t say anything more, not wanting things to end badly after such a good three years.

  He dropped his feet to the floor and sat forward, taking up his hard-negotiator stance, drink going onto the table with a decisive clink. “Surely you could come up with a better reason if you’re looking for a raise. How much did you have in mind?”

  “I don’t want more money.”

  “Your workload will lighten, you know. She’ll arrange for my dry cleaning to come home. Tell me the real reason we’re having this conversation.”

  As a child, after failing to change minds with unceasing logic or heated emotion, she had learned to keep it simple. Make her statement and dig in. She was probably too stubborn for her own good, but she didn’t backtrack or waffle, never stammered out excuses or defenses. If she messed up, she owned it. If she thought Cesar was making an error in judgment, she told him. Once.

  He valued all of this about her. He’d told her during reviews.

  She also knew how to let silence make a point. She’d learned that from the master sitting across from her.

  “You’re serious?” he demanded after a long, charged minute. “You want to quit because I’m getting engaged? We won’t marry until next year.”

  “I’ll stay through the hiring and training period. Once you’ve set a date, I’ll work until the Friday before your wedding, if you want me to stay that long.”

  “This is unacceptable. You promised me five years.” He picked up his glass and glowered at her. “I’m so tempted to fire you right now, you have no idea.”

  She picked up her own glass and sat back, already melancholy. She prided herself on her reliability and hated to let him down. If she had thought he loved Diega— No, that would be worse. She would quit even faster if he fell in love. She frowned, wishing she wasn’t so infatuated with him. None of this would bother her.

  “Why do you think I’ll ask you to lie to her?” he demanded in a low growl.

  She took heart from his question. Sometimes she let herself believe they were friends, especially when he did this, asked for her thoughts. He might not be in love, but talking about his forthcoming marriage still seemed profoundly personal. She couldn’t help but read in to it, believing he valued her opinion.

  “The thing that strikes me,” she said carefully, “is how different you are with her. I’ve seen you with women, Cesar.” She offered a tolerant smile. Did she resent those women? Hell, yes, but she’d known he was a playboy before she’d interviewed for the job. “I can make all the judgments I want about the quantity of women you date, but you always appear to like them. To be genuinely attracted. When you see Señorita Fuentes coming, you give her the same look you wear when greeting a tax auditor.”

  “I don’t lie to tax auditors, either,” he said flatly, looking away, mouth twisting with disgust. “Most people tell me I’m difficult to read, you know.”

  “You are. But I know you.”

  “Do you.” His gaze swung back to hers and something in the sudden connection made her heart skip.

  “I like to think so,” she disclosed.

  “Then you know this is how my life must go. You know about the industrial spying?”

  “Yes.” She’d read what she could find online about it. The court case had gone on for years, but the intellectual property that had been stolen hadn’t been something that could be reclaimed. Once Pandora’s box had been opened, there was no restitution.

  “It was my fault. I was using my father’s money, gambling that my work would pay back the coffers with interest. The work was stolen, the investment went bust and the legal bills were horrendous. Yes, we eventually retrieved a fraction of that in the settlement, but it was a pittance against the fortune that we should have had. We could have faced bankruptcy if not for Diega’s family helping us refinance. They stepped up because we’ve always had this understanding between our families that we would be joining forces when the time was right.”

  Sorcha couldn’t remember him ever directly referencing the espionage. The closest he’d come was mentioning the name of his first company, “the one that was lost.” Each word of what he’d just said had been bitten off with a gnash of his teeth, bitter and filled with self-recrimination.

  “If I’ve taken advantage of my freedom, enjoyed a ‘quantity’ of women,” he said, quoting her pithily, “it’s because I’ve always known my opportunity to do so was finite. I don’t intend to cheat on her, Sorcha. You won’t be expected to lie.”

  She smiled. His tenacity was so predictable. “My notice still stands.”

  “Because you think she’ll make it hard for you to do your job.” He shook his head. “If this was a love match, perhaps, but our marrying is a business decision. She knows my work is my priority. My life.”

  That statement struck her as alarmingly hollow. Sorcha gleaned a lot of satisfaction from her work, but a huge part of that satisfaction came from providing for the people she loved. Her life was her family. And Cesar, she added silently. Her heart was so misguided.

  “Cesar, my father married for those sorts of practical reasons,” she confided, clearing her throat because her soul was still pulled and frayed by the circumstances after his death. He’d failed them, not just financially, but by leaving them humiliated. She still nursed a deep hurt over that. “He needed the money to keep his family’s estate intact. Then he fell in love with my mother.”

  Cesar sat arrested for a moment. “I didn’t know that about you.”

  “That I’m illegitimate? The product of infidelity? I don’t advertise it.” She actively tried to hide it, in
fact, but for his greater good she would reveal a little of her deepest shame. “I’m saying there are pitfalls to what you’re contemplating.”

  “Love?” He finished his drink and set down his glass, then pulled the dripping bottle from the ice bucket and motioned for her to lean forward with her half-empty glass. “Not something my family subscribes to. You must have noticed?”

  This was the most intimate conversation they’d ever had, which was why Sorcha held her glass to be refilled and sat back to let it continue.

  “I’ve noticed. I wasn’t sure you had. Noticed, I mean.” He definitely didn’t subscribe to love. Women were for entertainment and he did his best to make that a two-way transaction, but emotions were not on the invoice.

  He didn’t flinch, but there was a flash of...she wasn’t sure what.

  “The way you talk about your family.” His face smoothed to hide his thoughts, but there was still something watchful beneath his neutral expression. “Our family is a business. I prefer it, but I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be close like that.”

  “It’s nice,” she informed him, feeling a sudden, misguided urge to convert him. Occasionally there were birthday wishes that required her to take a moment from her busy schedule. He had walked in on her chatting over her tablet a time or two, when she was supposed to be off the clock but they were both working late. She’d flown her sister to Paris on points, as a graduation gift, when she and Cesar had been there for meetings. He’d personally paid for their dinner, but had gone on his own date without so much as laying eyes on her sister. If anything, she had imagined he found her tight relationship with her mother and sisters an annoying distraction from her work.

  “Some of us could probably do with thinking more practically in our choices with mates,” she added, thinking of her mother’s involvement with her father.

  “You certainly could. How is your artist?” he asked, surprising her.

  “Why do you say it like that? Your artist. Like it’s a joke. You’ve dated a painter, too,” she reminded him.