The Consequence He Must Claim (The Montero Baby Scandals 1)

As he pressed the door closed and threw the key on the side table, she said, “Do I finally get to ask what you’re doing here?”

She was shaking and hoped he put it down to shivers at wearing damp clothes.

“Where should I be? Sitting in our empty house, waiting for you?” He threw off his wet jacket and moved to fetch a pair of towels from the powder room, handing one to her. “I had the feeling you weren’t planning on coming back for a while. Is that true?”

She opened her mouth, but wasn’t sure what to say. “I wanted to be sure things with Tom were okay,” she lied. “These are the first contracts and legal briefs Mum’s ever read. I want to go over them with her so I know she understands what she’s signing.”

“And then you were going to come home?” Cesar persisted.

Home. Her heartstrings plucked. This village where her family lived had always been home. That house on the hill had been home and could be again.

But home was a villa in Spain. Her heart knew that.

“Sorcha—”

“Don’t be angry with me!” she said, pressing her towel to her face, then opening it across her shoulders and hugging it around her wet shirt and over her damp hair. “I know you weren’t raised with love. To love. I know it’s a foreign concept to you, but I hoped, okay? I hoped for three years that you would fall in love with me and you didn’t. In fact, you were going to marry someone else and I couldn’t watch it. So I tried to leave and—”

“You’ve always loved me,” he said, tossing his towel after his jacket and folding his arms. “Did you tell me that day? In Valencia?”

“Maybe,” she mumbled. “I might have whispered it after we made love and I thought you were asleep.”

He was looking at her like he always did when the topic of That Day came up. Like he wanted to drill inside her head and take possession of the memories she held just beyond his reach.

“And you haven’t said anything all this time because...?”

“Because of this!” She waved between them. “If you had ever loved anyone, Cesar, you would know how painful this is. To love someone and feel like you can’t have them is excruciating!” She threw the towel away and hugged herself, cold and miserable and feeling pitiful.

“Would it feel anything like waking in a hospital and knowing there was one person you wanted to see, only one person who could possibly ground you, one person who would act like they gave a serious damn about you almost dying, then hear that she had quit and left the country? Would it feel something like that, Sorcha?”

She eyed him. Was this a trick?

“Did you really feel like that?” she asked faintly. “Because I kept telling myself you’d call if...” She shrugged. “Diega chased me off, you know that.”

“I didn’t then. All I knew was that you were gone and I was so angry...” He shook his head as if just the memory of how incensed he had been still had the power to steal his speech.

“I’m sorry,” she said sincerely. “I wanted to be there.”

He shrugged, both acceptance and dismissal in the gesture. “I didn’t think you would come because you loved me. I thought you would come because you’re Sorcha.”

She had to smile at that, thinking there was a compliment buried in there even though she wasn’t sure exactly what it was.

“You’re right about love being foreign to me. My parents are...the way they are. Mother came from a title without money. She had to marry well and bring her family back into the class she thought she belonged in. My father? Honestly, I suspect he’s one of those genius savants who doesn’t feel emotions like the average person. The one time I let myself grow fond of someone, to trust in friendship—not love, but friendship—I was kicked in the face. Do you know when I finally began to understand what love looked like? What it was?”

She shook her head.

“The day your niece went missing. You were upset beyond anything I’ve ever witnessed. I get it now, of course. If Enrique somehow disappeared... I can’t even say the words without my heart rate climbing. But that day I understood that you loved that little girl and I could see what it would cost you if she didn’t turn up. It was not a good advertisement for love. It was a terrifying caution against it.”

“But you love Enrique, don’t you?” she asked anxiously. That much she needed to hear.

“So much.” His breath left him and his shoulders slumped in a kind of bemused defeat. “I can’t imagine if the baby swap had happened and we didn’t have him. Or if it hadn’t happened and I didn’t know about him at all. I should have said this sooner, Sorcha, but thank you. Thank you for having my son and bringing him into my life. He is, well, Rico said it best the other day. Enrique is the most important thing I have ever made. Thank you for making him with me.”

A rush of emotion filled her eyes and made her sniff. At the same time, she had to wonder, if he loved his son... What about her? Could he not love her a little?

> “I feel that way about him, too,” she began, voice tight. “And I can’t deny him his father or his birthright, but I don’t know what to do about us. I’ll come back to Spain, I will, but I’m going to need time.”

“Sorcha.” He came forward to take her hands. His were warm and hers chilly. He frowned at her cool fingers and pressed her hands between his own. “I’ll never know what I said to Diega or why I crashed, but I am convinced that I went to tell her I couldn’t marry her. I think I realized that day that I loved you, too.”

“You don’t have to say that,” she said in a husky voice. “I already said I’d come back.”