“My father isn’t ready to let it go.”
Despite a lifetime of witnessing his parents’ indifference, he was disturbed by how cold-bloodedly they were behaving. It wasn’t that they didn’t believe Sorcha’s claim. They didn’t care. “He wants me to marry Diega regardless of this...” He gestured to the hall. “Hiccup,” he said with disgust at their attitude.
“Obviously,” Sorcha said with a nod at the paper he’d left near her knee.
“Are you going to accept it?” It was a test, he had to admit it. He had long-standing trust issues, and mentally willed her to rip it up. If he knew her as well as he believed he did, she would never consider family a commodity from which she should profit.
She glared at the check for a long moment before her shoulders drooped and she released a defeated sigh. “It would be stupid not to tuck that into an account for emergencies,” she said reluctantly. “Or whatever Enrique might need down the road. I would hate him to think his father hadn’t cared enough to provide for his future. That’s a horrible feeling.”
Cesar turned to face her, startled by what he thought she was saying, but finding himself folding his arms, astonished by the more pertinent revelation. “You think I should marry Diega while you raise my son alone?”
“What other option is there?” She held up a quick finger of warning. “If you suggest taking him to live with you and Diega, there will be blood shed, right here, right now.” The tip of her finger went to the open spot on the floor.
A bitter smile pulled at his lips. Did she really see him as the type to take a baby from a mother who knew how to love and give him to a cold fish like his own?
But if not that kind of man, what kind was he?
He scowled, unsure of his ability to be anything but a peripheral figure the way his own father had been. He hadn’t expected to be so distant from his offspring that he was out of his son’s life completely, however. He’d spent the night running all the scenarios and while he didn’t care that his parents weren’t the most demonstrative people, there was something very alluring about offering his child a more nurturing upbringing.
Then there was the fringe benefit: Sorcha. He wanted her. If he was going to be supporting her and their child, they might as well go all the way.
He met Sorcha’s belligerent gaze, as she waited for him to enlighten her, but how could this be a mystery to her? She knew how he reacted to someone trying to take what was his.
“His parents could raise him together,” he said.
* * *
Sorcha was glad she was sitting because her heart stopped then kicked with a hard beat of shock, making her woozy. As husband and wife?
No. She wasn’t so silly as to hear a proposal in that statement. He might have called off his wedding, but that was just a postponement. Wasn’t it?
“You, um, want to move to Ireland with me?” she asked.
“It’s good you’re keeping your sense of humor,” he said with a faint, patronizing smile. “No. We’ll marry and live in Spain.”
Another breathtaking spasm squeezed and released her heart. She tried to swallow and couldn’t.
“You want to marry me,” she managed to say. “What about—” She waved at the check. “I thought this meant you’re marrying Diega after all. Was it this romantic when you proposed to her, by the way? I’m sorry, that’s cruel. You probably don’t remember because you were in a coma. At least I’m awake. Count your blessings, Sorcha!” she babbled, hysterical laughter rising in her throat.
Cesar didn’t move, his face stony. “There are times, Sorcha, when that runaway tongue of yours really ought to be held firmly between those pretty white teeth.”
“What do you want me to say?” she cried. “Thank you? Apparently your brides are interchangeable. I’ve never felt that way when contemplating my eventual husband.”
“My children are not,” he stated, tone as hard as his expression. “Interchangeable. And he had better be my son, Sorcha. If those tests come back telling me I’ve been had, I won’t be happy.”
“As opposed to now, when you’re ecstatic?”
“Less sarcasm once we’re married, hmm? More sweetness.”
She snorted. “We’re not getting married, Cesar.”
“Sorcha,” he said in that terrible voice he used when he was about to annihilate someone. She had always excused herself from the room so the poor sod wouldn’t have a witness to his or her dressing-down.
Her stomach curdled, but she tightened militant fingers into the blanket across her waist and said, “No.”
He came over to clench his hands around the rail of her bed.
“You know how I feel about thieves,” he said in that deadly tone. “You were going to keep my son from me. You were going to do that to me. I may never forgive you for that.”
I trusted you. That’s what he was saying and now that trust had been impacted.
A sob formed in her diaphragm and sat there as an aching lump. She’d been self-protecting.
How could she explain that she’d grown up tarred by what had been seen as her mother’s failed attempt to better herself in the dirtiest, craftiest way? Sorcha could not bear to be viewed in the same light. Her pride had demanded she take all the responsibility for her actions.
“How could I tell you? You were engaged to the woman you had always planned to marry. This is what I expected.” She flicked the check with her finger, sending it helicoptering off the bed onto the floor. “That’s not who I am. I don’t get pregnant to make money. Or to force men to marry me.”
“Nevertheless, we will marry.” He folded his arms.
“You don’t want to marry me! You don’t love me. You don’t even see me as a friend! You didn’t call after I left Spain. You didn’t care that I was out of your life.”
If she had hoped he would protest that she was wrong and he did care, she was sorely disappointed.
“I don’t love Diega, either,” he asserted. “Love isn’t a requirement for my marriage.”
“It is for mine!”
They battled it out with a silent glare for a few seconds before she tore away her gaze, flinching at what he was offering: a knockoff of the designer marriage she had fantasized. Yes, she had imagined marrying him, but in her vision, love was the stitching that held it together.
“You’re telling me you’re not too proud to accept a onetime slice of my fortune, for the sake of our son, but you’re too proud to marry so Enrique can inherit all of it. Do you really want to raise him in Ireland, away from his birthright? To have him one day discover I have children with another woman and those children are living the life he should have had?”
Sorcha sucked in a breath as though he’d stabbed her. “You do remember,” she said through numb lips, swinging her gaze back to him.
“Remember what?” His face blanked.
“What I told you about my father that day. That I have half siblings who inherited his wealth and we were left with nothing.”
He shook his head, irritation flashing as he said through his teeth, “No. I remember nothing of that day. I never will.” His face spasmed into tortured lines before he shrugged off the dark emotion. “But I’m capable of extrapolating the outcome if I marry another woman. She will expect her children to inherit. That’s all you would ever see.” He pointed to the far side of the bed, where the slip of paper had fallen to the floor.
All those ugly zeroes felt like bullet holes through her heart every time she looked at them.
“You