The Consequence He Must Claim

“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.”

“I’m not. Just being honest. Now you be as honest as I know you are. Don’t you wonder what we’d be like together?”

She slid him a glance, astonished that she was having this conversation with her boss. Once he’d hired her, they’d had a tacit agreement to never speak of her vow again. The odd time when a rumor floated that she and Cesar were an item, she quashed it with her I-don’t-have-to-use-those-tactics speech.

They had kept things strictly professional. Occasionally he’d told her she looked nice and once or twice he’d steadied her with a hand under her elbow, when crossing an icy runway or uneven pavement. Even when she’d hugged him after her niece was found, he’d gently but firmly moved her away afterward. Given his seeming indifference to her being female, she had assumed all the sexual awareness was on her side.

“We’re being honest?” she confirmed, wondering if she was tipsy since she was going along with this inappropriate conversation. “Your women always look happy. Of course, I wonder what it’s like to date you,” she said with a blasé tone that was completely manufactured. “But I often wonder what dating is like.”

“Keep trying to make me feel guilty,” he said. “I won’t.”

He was so close, smelling deliciously raw and masculine, so comfortable with his arm across the back of the sofa behind her, his knee hitched up near her hip. This was how she’d seen him with countless women: relaxed, confident in his own skin. Attentive. Like she was the only thing he was thinking about in this moment.

Maybe he was thinking about sex.

With her.

A flutter of excitement contracted her belly, making her feel prickly and sensual. She found herself doing the hair-play thing, tucking a strand behind her ear, subtly flirting under his regard.

A faint smile touched his mouth. He knew. He was too experienced not to read how she was reacting.

Then a shutter came down. He straightened, sitting forward, setting his glass on the table, bracing his elbows on his knees as he released a sigh. “I keep telling myself to take Diega to bed, to be sure we’ll work, but...” He shrugged. “It won’t matter. We still have to marry.”

“But you don’t want to?” She sat forward, too, nearly thigh against thigh, her own glass going onto the table next to his. “Cesar, you’re a grown man.”

“With responsibilities, Sorcha.” He turned his head, shoulders heavy and back bowed by the weight of his obligations.

“Is all of this really going to come crashing down if you don’t marry her?” She waved a hand at the office, beautifully decorated on a budget of over six figures, where deals were cut for tens of millions on a weekly basis.

“My family is building an empire, not a rose garden. I have a role. I agreed to all the conditions.”

“Fine. Go against your gut and live with the consequences.” She threw that out with a shrug.

“Where do you find the gall to talk to me like this? I’ve never understood why I put up with it,” he muttered, but he wasn’t angry. Disgusted with himself maybe. “My gut decisions are always supported by reason. Backing out would have to be driven by logic. There are a hundred solid facts that make marrying Diega a smart choice.”

“And your happiness isn’t reason enough to support a different choice? What would happen if you refused to marry her? No one will be burned at the stake. Surely you’re in a position now to make reparation for whatever they gave you? Or to weather your father disinheriting you? What is the worst that will happen, Cesar?”

His mouth stayed tight for a long moment before he snorted and took up his glass for a quick swallow. “Indeed. Will my mother stop loving me? She never started.” He set down the glass again with a hard clip of glass on glass. “But much of what I now control could move into my brother’s hands.”