His Heir, Her Honor

by Catherine Mann

  His back twinged with a reminder of just how long he’d spent cleaning up bone fragments along the child’s spine, of working to relieve pressure, doing all he could to ensure she had as much use of her arms as possible even though she would almost certainly never walk again. Entering his office, he braced a hand on the door frame, then the sofa, using walls and furniture to steady himself at the end of a long day. His uneven gait contrasted with the efficient click of Lilah’s killer red heels.

  Skimming her fingers along a row of leather-bound medical journals, she stopped in front of a framed oil painting by Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida, a gift from his middle brother, Duarte. The canvas came from Bastida’s Sad Inheritance preparatory pieces, a painting of crippled children bathing in healing waters.

  No matter how much distance Carlos put between himself and his homeland, influences from his heritage called to him. He couldn’t escape the reality of being the oldest son of deposed King Enrique Medina from San Rinaldo, a small island country off the coast of Spain. He couldn’t ignore or forget how his father had fled with his family, relocating to live anonymously off the coast of Florida for decades.

  Only recently had the press picked up the Medina trail. Carlos and his two brothers, all now adults, lived in different locations across the United States. Until four months ago, they’d even managed to fly under the radar with assumed names.

  For most of his adult life he’d been known as Carlos Santiago. Yet in the stroke of a media pen’s exposé, it became impossible for people to think of him as anything other than Carlos Medina, heir to a defunct monarchy.

  Lilah was the one person who hadn’t treated him differently after the news had broken about his Medina heritage. She hadn’t been impressed or even angry over his years of deception. She understood his reasons for keeping his identity hidden.

  The only question she’d asked after the story broke? As the hospital’s administrator, she’d requested verification that all his medical credentials were valid and in order, given his assumed name.

  She was a logical woman to the end.

  So what the hell made a sensible person like Lilah decide to waltz into the men’s locker room and confront him in the shower? A confrontation that still had him imagining scenarios where he pulled her under the spray with him to peel off every stitch of her clothing until she was as naked and hungry as him.

  He closed the door to his office, sealing them inside the sparse space. He kept his world streamlined, only bare essential leather furniture, the painting from his brother and his books.

  Leaning back against the wall to take pressure off his aching spine, he faced Lilah for the first time since she’d stared him down through a thin veil of mist. Her back was still straight but her face was pale. Very pale.

  Worry whispered over him as his doctor senses blared an alert. She was obviously under great stress. Only extreme measures would have driven her to act so rashly. Normally, she calmly presented her case and made her move, with a legal eagle precision that served to make her a top-notch lawyer with a fast-track start to a brilliant career. He should have realized that. He mentally kicked himself for assuming her confrontation had something to do with their encounter two and a half months ago.

  Carlos studied her green eyes, noting the dark circles beneath. “Is it bad news about funding for the new rehab wing?”

  “This isn’t about work….” She hesitated, chewing the red lipstick from her kissably full mouth.

  Concern scratched deeper. He pushed away from the door toward her, drawn by threads of their old friendship and the scent of her perfume. If he whispered in her ear again as he had earlier, he would smell a hint of her body wash along her neck. Not a heavy perfume by any means given the hospital’s fairly strict rules about scented lotions, soaps and colognes. Just enough pure Lilah to send his heart pumping faster.

  Her eyes tracked him and each uneven step, his limp aggravated by the hours he’d spent operating today. Long ago, he’d gotten over any self-consciousness. Life held much more important issues and concerns than whether people noticed the impairment or pitied him. He knew he was damn lucky to be walking at all.

  He closed the space between them. “Then what’s so important that you felt the need to cause a scene big enough to feed hospital cafeteria gossip for at least a month?”

  “It’s about what happened after the Christmas fundraiser.”

  He stopped short. With a few simple words, she filled the room with memories of the night they’d stumbled back here, into his office, then finished the night at his house because it was closer than her condo. The memories were too vivid, so close on the heels of her bold move striding into the shower. Good thing she’d passed him the towel so fast because he’d been damn close to presenting her with an unmistakable visual on how much she still moved him. Turning his back to her under the pretense of gathering his soap had offered him a few seconds to scavenge control of his careening libido.

  He’d been reckless enough to cave into the temptation to sleep with her once before. Every day since then, he’d been tormented by reliving that night and knowing just how easy it would be to succumb to temptation again. Still feeling the near-tangible caress of her eyes on him from earlier, he tried to remember all the reasons he should keep his hands off her.

  Somehow his finger landed on the lone curl teasing around the shell-like curve of her ear. The softness of her skin, the silky texture of her hair wrapping around his touch as if drawing him closer, each nuance of Lilah tapped aside the paper-thin remains of his restraint.

  Awareness glinted in her jewel tone eyes a second before he cupped the back of her neck and stepped toward her, until God help him, every curve of her body pressed to him in a perfect fit. The give of her breasts, the cradle of her hips, the familiar feel of her broadsided his senses with memories of their night together.

  “Carlos,” she whispered, her palms flat against his chest, pressing, “you’re so damn arrogant.”

  But she swayed into him anyway. His brain shut down a second before he sealed his mouth to hers.

  Need knifed through him with surgical precision, sharp and inescapable. She tensed slightly before gripping the front of his scrubs, her fists tight, insistent and more than a little angry as she hauled him closer. The taste of her, the sweep of her tongue meeting his stroke for stroke reminded him of how quickly they could combust. Keeping his distance the past weeks had been necessary and futile all at once.

  This was inevitable. Spearing his fingers into her hair, he loosened the tight roll until silken strands cascaded over his skin. How easy it would be to sweep aside her suit and ditch his surgical scrubs. His leather sofa beckoned from across the room.

  His desk was closer.

  Sweeping his hand along smooth mahogany, he cleared a penholder, calendar and notepad in one efficient swipe that sent the lot clattering to the floor. He angled her back, cupped her bottom, hitched her up onto the edge. He released the top button on her suit jacket, a satiny camisole of some sort gliding over the backs of his knuckles.

  Writhing, she moaned encouragement against his mouth and he made quick work of the fastenings, one after the other until he stroked aside the suit coat to reveal her silver, body-hugging shell. He kissed and nipped along her jaw, down her neck, trekking his way to the generous swell of her breasts. His memory hadn’t done her justice. As he nuzzled the scented valley, her head lolled back. He tugged her camisole from her skirt and tucked his hand into the waistband, palming the slight curve of her stomach.

  Lilah froze in his arms.

  The chill radiating off her brought him back to earth like a shower turned icy cold. Months of restraint had gone down the drain in one impulsive moment. He pulled himself from her and leaned against the desk beside her, dragging in air as she yanked her jacket back on with shaky hands, her hair trapped inside.

  He needed to fix this mess of his own making. “Lilah, clearly I have made an error in attempting to ignore what happened between us after
the Christmas fundraiser. We need to figure out a way to deal with it so we can regain a level working environment.”

  “Damn straight, it happened.” She thrust the buttons through openings with fierce speed, the fabric flower pin on her shoulder nearly quivering from her barely contained energy. “Believe me, I’m not likely to forget.”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration as the only answer pounded through his brain. “My life is complicated in so many ways by virtue of the Medina name. I wish, for your sake, things could be simpler, but they’re not.” Committed to his new course of action, he skimmed her hair free of her jacket. “I think we should consider an intimate friendship.”

  Her eyes went wide and unblinking. She sagged back against the desk again, her mouth opening and closing twice before a burst of laughter sliced the air. Wrapping an arm around her stomach, she laughed harder. Her eyes squeezed shut as she shook her head from side to side in obvious disbelief.

  “Lilah?” He tucked a knuckle under her chin and turned her face toward him. “This really will be the best option for us to work through this attraction until our lives return to normal.”

  Her laughter faded, eyes turning somber. “At one time, I may have agreed with you. But it’s too late for that now, Carlos.”

  Disappointment surged through him with more force than he would have expected for his ill-advised plan. He should have approached her sooner. Perhaps she held a grudge that he’d stayed away from her for so long.

  Well then, he would dismantle her objections one by one. “I don’t agree.”

  “You don’t have all the pertinent information.” She straightened to her full height, all of about five feet six inches, bringing her to his shoulder even in her heels. “I’m pregnant. Nearly three months along. And you’re the father.”

  Pregnant?

  Shock hit him square in the solar plexus. Followed by disbelief. Then jaded acceptance of her betrayal.

  Just when he’d thought he couldn’t be any more disillusioned by how easily people could deceive others. A bitter laugh rolled around in his gut and burned a bilious path up his throat.

  She crossed her arms under her breasts defensively. “If this is some kind of payback for my laughter earlier, I don’t appreciate it. I don’t find this in the least amusing.”

  “Believe me, neither do I.” The scars on his back throbbed with a reminder of all he’d lost over twenty-five years ago during his family’s escape from San Rinaldo. He told the world the scars had come from a teenage riding accident. That lie was so much more palatable than the truth.

  Her mouth went tight, her anger palpable. “This isn’t going to make much of a story to tell our child some day.”

  “Our child? I think not.” If anyone had cause to be angry, it was him. “I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you’re just mistaken about which guy fathered your baby, because I would hate to think you would deliberately try to pass off some other man’s kid as mine.”

  She slapped him, sharp, fast and stingingly hard. “You jackass.”

  “Excuse me?” he asked, working his jaw from side to side to give himself a chance to weigh his words and tamp down his temper.

  “You heard what I said. Believe me, that was the most benign word on my list right now. We may not be…friends…anymore, but I expected better from you than this.” She waved her hand through the air as if that could somehow sum up what had transpired between them a minute earlier. “You may be cold, but I thought you were a man of honor.”

  Scrubbing a hand over his face, he held back the urge to call her on the accusation. She was pregnant—even if it wasn’t his. God, the thought rattled him, especially with the leftover surge of hunger for her still cooling in his veins. So much for friends with benefits.

  He forced himself to reign in his anger. “Lilah, I’m sorry. But it is not my kid.”

  She tugged her jacket into place again. “I won’t force you to love or acknowledge your child. This baby deserves better than that. He or she deserves better than you. I’ve completed my duty in doing the right thing and letting you know. Now you can go straight to hell.”

  Something in her voice, the intensity of her anger set off warning bells in his brain. She truly thought the child was his when he knew that couldn’t be true. If she had the due date wrong by even a couple of weeks, he could see how she might draw that conclusion. Not that he could think of any other man she’d been seeing, but then he’d made a point of avoiding her since their night together.

  “Listen closely.” He gestured toward her stomach. “That is not my baby, which means you do need to speak to the real father.”

  A surprise bolt of jealousy shot through him as he fully grasped for the first time the fact she’d slept with someone else close to the time they’d been together. His mind scanned the hospital roster for… Damn it, no. He couldn’t go down that path right now.

  He forced himself to continue speaking, to make her understand. “You’re right that the man deserves to know. And that man can’t possibly be me.” Not after what had happened to him that night on the run in San Rinaldo. Rebel bullets had killed his mother and nearly killed him while he tried to protect her. Tried. And failed.

  He held up a hand to keep her from interrupting—or leaving. “The accident that caused my limp had other physical ramifications as well.” Carlos forced himself to say the words he hadn’t shared with anyone. “Lilah, I’m sterile.”

  Two

  Lilah had faced her fair share of shockers in her years as a city prosecutor and then administrator at the Tacoma hospital. Certainly learning Dr. Carlos Medina had been hiding his royal lineage had stunned her silly. But his words now beat all other surprising revelations, hands down.

  Gripping the edge of the mahogany desk to steady her shaky world, she searched Carlos’s face for some sign of what possessed the innately honorable man to deny his own child.

  Her hand still stung from her impulsive slap when he’d called her a liar. She hated the momentary loss of control then…and during his kiss earlier. No man affected her this way. She’d fought too long and hard not to be won over so easily like her mother. Yet a simple brush of Carlos’s mouth against hers and she’d almost ditched her panties again with this man.

  A very virile man who now seemed intent on denying the consequences of their encounter.

  “You’re sterile?” she repeated, wondering if perhaps she’d heard wrong. She must have heard wrong because she carried the living proof of his virility inside her. So either he was wrong or he was a coldhearted liar.

  “That’s what I said.” He shifted his weight to one foot in a manner that to most would look casual. But after years of knowing him, she recognized the subtle way he favored his aching leg and injured back, something he inevitably did when he was under stress.

  Carlos Medina was one of those docs with a godlike status around the E.R., the surgeon most likely to pull off a miracle when a gurney wheeled in the impossible. She’d noticed that most people only saw that glow of success and intelligence around him—when they weren’t noticing his obvious good looks. Not many people saw past that to detect the fallout of the intense pressure he put on himself. The shifting feet. The tendency to plant his spine against any vertical surface.

  Except she could not think of that now. She had too much at stake to get sucked in by all the things she found compelling about this man, not the least of which were these small signs that he was human underneath all that cool professional brilliance.

  “Why didn’t you say something when we were together that night?” she asked skeptically.

  “I didn’t see the information as relevant since procreation wasn’t on our agenda.” His sardonic tone needled at her already tender nerves.

  “But you used condoms…even if one failed in the hot tub.”

  Just thinking of the combustible connection, their total loss of control threatened her balance even now. They’d started in his office, then rac
ed to his home to spend the rest of the night together, awake and making the most of every moonlit minute.

  “Safe sex has to do with more than pregnancy,” he pointed out practically.

  Of course she knew that. She’d freaked when the condom broke, only partially calming down once he’d reassured her he was disease free. Yet in the back of her mind she’d heard the haunting sound of her mother’s sobs behind a closed bedroom door. Lilah had been a preteen at the time, but old enough to understand the gist of her parents’ fight.

  Her father’s latest reckless affair had passed along a disease to his wife.

  The STD had been treatable, thank heavens, but Lilah had been stunned by how quickly her mother forgave her husband for his infidelity. Again. And again.

  Rather than forcing back the memories of her mom, Lilah embraced them for motivation to stand firm now. To push for answers. And to hold Carlos accountable. “This is your child. I don’t want money from you and I certainly have no interest in the whole royalty thing. I only want my baby to know his or her father.”

  “That isn’t my baby.” His voice echoed with a surety she couldn’t miss.

  His denial of his own child infuriated her all over again.

  “All because of a riding accident when you were a teenager?” She wasn’t a doctor but something sounded off in his explanation, in spite of his utter confidence. Still, she couldn’t ignore the gravity in his voice, the set serious lines on his aristocratic face.

  “The trauma from the accident, coupled with a postsurgical infection, left me sterile. I’m a doctor, in case you’ve forgotten.” He pulled a leather-bound book from the shelves and dropped it on the desk with a resounding thud. “But if you’re still in doubt, there’s a full chapter in here that discusses such complications. I’ll be more than glad to mark the pages for you. The fact remains, though, that your child must have been fathered by someone else.”