“No,” she had said, stunned. “Why on earth would you do that?” She’d met him several times while working for Cesar, but had rarely exchanged more than appointment details or an offer to fetch him coffee. With Cesar firmly holding her interest from the first, she’d never seen Rico as anything but one of her boss’s high-level associates, never a romantic prospect.
“You’re smart, pleasant and attractive. It was a practical solution. Enrique would have had our name and a proper share in the family fortunes. Diega would have had the title she wanted,” Rico said with a diffident shrug. “You could have relayed the offer,” he added, speaking to Cesar now. “She might have preferred a lower profile. Did you think of that?”
He wasn’t joking.
Neither was Cesar when he said a clear and flinty “No.”
“It’s moot now,” their father said, and the men began discussing the technical properties of new alloy.
“Tell me about the house,” La Reina prompted Sorcha.
She gave a short rundown, carefully filtering everything she said, determined to leave the right impression. “Cesar said I should hire an assistant, but I’ve been interviewing staff for the house and the idea of going through the process for yet one more position right now... I can’t face it. What are your thoughts? Do I need one?”
She mentally laughed at how pretentious she sounded.
“I’ll have mine do the preliminary screening. You’re right, it’s too much when you’ve just had a baby. You have just the one nanny?”
Their nanny was the most underworked caregiver in continental Europe, considering how enamored Sorcha and Cesar were of their son, but Sorcha only said, “For now.”
The small talk wrapped up and they now stood in the foyer of the family mansion, greeting all of Spain as far as Sorcha could estimate.
She might not have been raised in high society, but her father had been titled, educated at Cambridge and a member of the House of Lords. She knew what good manners looked like and had learned early to adopt his posh accent for job interviews, especially in London. Cesar had been taken aback the first time he’d overheard her talking to her mother, falling into their broad Irish accent as she did. Already firmly entrenched as his PA, she had had a moment of insecurity as she danced around explaining that she was actually peasant stock, not the snobby aristocrat she mimicked.
Tonight she was pretending to be exactly that, determined to make Cesar and his family proud to call her a member of their family. At least not ashamed.
It was all going well until, quite suddenly, the Marques de los Jardines de Las Salinas was in front of her, congratulating her on her marriage. He was Diega’s father. Then her mother was in front of her, also offering a distant smile.
“Querido,” Diega said to Cesar, her smile wide and avaricious as she arrived with her parents. She paused to kiss both his cheeks. “I brought an old friend of yours. I hope you don’t mind. As I said to your mother when I called, perhaps we can make a match for Pia.” She sent a moue down the line, winking at Cesar’s sister before bringing her gaze back to catch at Sorcha’s. Her smile hardened. “Cesar was at school with him,” Diega explained. “Thomas Shelby. The Duke of Tenderhurst. Do you know him?”
Sorcha’s heart stopped. The Duke of— Her half brother?
“Tom,” Cesar was saying. “Nice to see you.”
Sorcha couldn’t bring herself to look. Her gaze locked to Diega’s triumphant one as Diega moved along to Rico.
Sorcha told herself to breathe, but she was turning to stone, like a spell had been cast, filling her insides with gravel and earth and hardening agents. Clay. Gummy, suffocating sludge.
“Meet my wife, Sorcha,” Cesar said, oblivious.
Her half brother showed not a hint of recognition as he took her limp hand and claimed it was nice to meet her.
His smile faltered until she found a stiff one, then he shook her hand and said something about how happy he was for her and Cesar. He wished them a long life and moved along the line.
Get through this, Sorcha told herself, grappling for composure.
The worst part was, he looked just like her da.
* * *
Cesar wouldn’t call himself intuitive, but spending time with a baby developed a few skills for reading a mood. He knew what the dismayed precursor to an emotional meltdown looked like and Sorcha teetered for a millisecond on that bubble, obviously knocked off-kilter by Diega’s arrival.
After their stolen moment of passion earlier, he was in a state of sustained tension not unlike the final moments before climax, when his control wanted to unravel. He’d been thinking they were both standing in the fire of sexual awareness, burning with anticipation, but she was no longer with him.
What could he say about Diega being here? He’d forewarned her. He’d chosen Sorcha and his son over her. That ought to count for something.
Sorcha recovered quickly, making him almost doubt he’d seen anything. She now held a smile on her face, greeting people and exchanging pleasantries, but he could tell she wasn’t herself. And her behavior was odd because she had disguised her falter well. He was surprised with himself for noticing the change in her. He hadn’t realized how attuned he’d become to her.
What she looked like, he realized with a hard shock, was like one of them. The natural warmth he took for granted, in the same way he expected her blond hair or blue eyes, was extinguished. It had been replaced by a facade of forced good manners.