The Consequence He Must Claim (9 page)

“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 for
ever
?”

“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.