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.
“I’ve also dated stockbrokers. You’ve had one serious relationship since I’ve known you and it’s the most impractical man you could find.”
“He’s nice,” she explained on a shrug. If absentminded. She’d only accepted his invitation to cook her dinner because she’d been wallowing in self-pity at being devoid of a social life. Cesar found out when he’d called her in the middle of their date. She’d had to explain why she couldn’t run to her computer to transfer a file.
“You’re already sending money home, Sorcha. Don’t take on another dependent for the sake of feeling ‘loved.’” The emotion was an unviable fantasy, he seemed to say.
“I wasn’t in love with him. And we’re no longer seeing each other. The demands of my job make dating impossible,” she added pointedly.
“Good. He struck me as too sensitive and probably insecure in bed. You need a man with the confidence to take control so you can finally give it up.”
She blushed. “We are getting personal today, aren’t we? Are you drunk?”
“You started it,” he admonished. “And no, I’m not. But I’m in a mood to drink myself blind now. You’ve ruined what started out as a very good day.” He chucked back the contents of his champagne glass and rose to move to the bar, taking out the Irish whiskey she’d turned him onto drinking.
“Do you want the truth, Cesar?” She bent her knees as she twisted on the sofa, bringing her feet off the floor and hooking her elbow over the sofa back to face him.
“Probably not,” he muttered, not looking up from pouring.
“I...care for you.” It was as much of an admission to the depth of her feelings as she was willing to risk. “I don’t want to watch you live with a bad decision.”
His gaze came up. “You said you’d never get jealous.” Rather than annoyed, he sounded smug.
“Hardly. I just don’t want to watch you make a mistake. So I’m leaving.”
“Do you want the truth, Sorcha?” He came back with two wide-bottom glasses, both neat, offering one to her as he settled onto the sofa beside her, angled to face her.
“Probably not,” she muttered.
“I always thought that if you left before the five years were up, it would be because we slept together. The fact my mother and Diega have pushed this marriage into our time line annoys me. I was counting on sleeping with you in seven hundred and fifty days or so.”
She almost dropped her glass. “You are drunk.”