The Consequence He Must Claim

She wasn’t mentally prepared to face him, though. She had married him in a state of delusion, believing she could somehow reach his heart, but she didn’t know how to resume their marriage now that the reality of his locked heart had been shown to her so bluntly.

Enrique squawked and Cesar dragged his gaze from predatory fixation on her to soften as he looked at his son. He took the boy from his auntie’s lap and gave him a little toss into the air, kissing his cheek, then winked one eye against the baby’s happy tap of his open hands against his face.

“I’m excited to see you, too. But I need to talk to your mother. Angela, would you mind?” He handed Enrique to Sorcha’s mum, who agreed to take custody of her grandson with the special adoring blink she reserved for Cesar.

Then he held out a hand in Sorcha’s direction. And because he was that arrogant and she was that obedient, she got to her feet on his wordless command.

He said to Tom in a very ominous tone, “You know, of course, that nothing said at this table has any legal bearing?”

“I do know that,” Tom said with a faint, dry smile. “Your wife said the exact same thing the moment I arrived.”

Cesar looked at her. “I’ve always taken you for a soft touch.”

“I can be cold-blooded and practical when necessary,” she said, adding in a joke that fell flat, “I learned it from the best.”

Cesar’s eyes narrowed in a look he might give a mortal adversary. “I’ve booked us into the hotel. Call if he needs us,” he said with a nod at Enrique and pulled her away without even her purse.

The hotel was down the block and across the street, just far enough to keep them from talking as they ran through the rain, trying not to get soaked. At the desk, the same woman who’d given Sorcha the dirty look last time lifted supercilious brows as Cesar told her he had a room reserved.

As he took the key, he said to the woman, “My father is Javiero Montero y Salazar, el Excelentísimo Señor Grandeza de España. I’m his eldest son. That means I and my wife will be the Duke and Duchess of Castellon one day. That sort of thing seems to impress your management, given that we’re in the suite you reserve for royalty and you hang photos of titled guests on the wall.” He pointed at the framed and signed snapshot of an actor who’d been knighted. “Your bad manners reflect on you, not us. Do I need to have this conversation with your employer?”

“No, sir,” the woman said, eyes wide, voice mousy.

He didn’t say another word, just tugged Sorcha up to their room.

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.