The Best Of February 2016. Catherine Mann

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СКАЧАТЬ he’d ever seen her. “The only reason I gave your name on the forms here was because it was an emergency. If I hadn’t made it through the surgery, I didn’t want my mother burdened with the cost of raising Enrique. At that point, yes, I would hope you would open your wallet.”

      A chill moved through him at her saying “hadn’t made it through.” He brushed aside the thought of such a disturbing outcome and latched on to her other shocking admission. “So you never would have told me?”

      She looked down, chewing the inside of her lip. “Never is a long time.” Her gaze flicked up uncertainly. “Enrique might have had questions. I was going to wait and see.”

      He was flabbergasted.

      He reminded himself the boy might not be his, but damn it, he’d spent three years entrusting Sorcha with confidential information, decisions that affected stock prices, personal opinions that he hadn’t shared with anyone else... Aside from leaving him when he’d been at his lowest point, she’d never let him down. From their first meeting, she’d been disarmingly frank, in fact.

      So had he. She knew exactly how he felt about people who lied and kept secrets and messed with his scrupulously ordered life.

      “I’m not ‘waiting to see,’” he growled, aware that despite a lack of hard evidence he did believe her. “I called off my wedding.”

      She took that in with a stunned expression, then recovered with a shaken little shrug. “Well, I didn’t ask you to. I don’t have designs on you myself, if that’s what you’re worried about.” She made the claim firmly enough, but her lashes trembled as she flicked another look at him.

      Like she was trying not to betray that, on some level, she’d entertained the idea.

      That didn’t surprise him. He was a rich, titled, healthy man. All women took his measure and often made a play. According to his sister, it was basic biology. He had the kind of power and resources that appealed to fertile women looking for a mate to provide for her young.

      And that was what Sorcha ought to expect if he was indeed the father of her child.

      “Really,” he said skeptically, folding his arms, taken aback, but when had Sorcha not surprised him?

      “Really,” she affirmed. “If you want to make provisions for your son, that’s your choice, but I will proceed as if I’ll be supporting Enrique alone.”

      Of course he would support his child. That wasn’t even something he had to consciously decide, it was such a no-brainer. What kind of man failed to provide the basics of life to his offspring?

      The natural progression of that thought—how he would provide for Enrique—was a more complex decision he was holding off contemplating.

      All his life, he’d had a perfect defense against ambitious women: he was tied to an arranged marriage of his parents’ choosing. Now, for the first time in his life, he was free of that encumbrance, yet morally bound to at least consider marriage to Sorcha.

      If Enrique was his.

      That odd rush of longing for the boy to be his rose again, stronger this time, bunching his muscles with anticipation as though he could physically fight for the outcome he wanted.

      “I wasn’t trying to trap you that day,” Sorcha continued, brow wrinkling. “We had some champagne and talked about personal things. I felt—” She flushed and swallowed, but forced her chin up to meet his gaze with defiance. “I felt like we were friends. That’s why I slept with you.” Her expression darkened to one of hurt and betrayal. “But when I came to the hospital to see you, Diega told me you called me your last hurrah.”

      Sorcha’s gaze took a scathing sweep that sliced across him. Slash, slash, slash, like Zorro’s sword dissecting him into pieces.

      “She said I had become a challenge. A conquest—her word—that you couldn’t stand to let get away. I’ve been so comforted all these months, Cesar, knowing you had a good laugh at my expense right before you nearly died.”

CHAPTER THREE

      SHE POLITELY KICKED Cesar out after that. Enrique needed to go to bed and so did she. She was exhausted emotionally and physically. Cesar was too much on her best day and she was not at her best.

      Still, the fact he hadn’t tried to defend himself before he departed wrenched her soul from her body.

      She was hurting. Furious. He wanted to know why she hadn’t told him they’d made a baby? Because it hadn’t meant anything to him. If it had, if she had, he would have called her before now.

      She took a shaken breath, wondering if he would come back.

      Don’t be stupid, she berated herself. She’d given him a get-out-of-jail-free card. Note to self: don’t gamble unless you’re prepared to lose.

      Swallowing back her misery, she resigned herself to raising Enrique alone, already missing Cesar. She had missed him all these months, missed his dynamic pursuit of his goals, his easy command of any situation, his bursts of enthusiasm for a fresh project and his nod of satisfaction over a job well done.

      She would keep missing him so much.

      Except...

      He was different. He’d always had that air of contained energy, but there was a higher, colder wall around him, not that he’d ever been the most demonstrative person. His entire family was like that: aloof and reserved. She had always thought it ironic that, despite their Latin roots, the Monteros were devoid of the clichéd warmth and short fuse one was taught to expect from the Spanish.

      Was it the situation? Or had the accident changed him in a fundamental way? Because by the time they’d opened up to each other that day in Valencia, she’d moved from intimidation through hero worship to falling in love with the man she’d come to know. She had thought she’d known him quite well, despite the fact he hadn’t divulged more to her than, she suspected, anyone else he’d ever confided in. She had simply observed.

      Her heart lurched as she settled herself in her bed, thinking of all the small ways he’d proven to be more than a focused businessman governed by logic and the scientific method. In her three years of working for him, he’d revealed himself to be caring enough to catch a loose dog off a highway so it wouldn’t get hit. He’d let her in on his secretive experiments with metallurgy that didn’t always have a practical purpose, he just had to know. He bordered on being a nerd about those things, actually, bemusingly eager to report his findings.

      And even though he had a dry wit, he rarely laughed. Except around her. She actively tried to make him laugh, just to hear his surprised snort.

      Sorcha swallowed, recalling how they’d split that bottle of champagne that day, congratulating each other. That was another thing she adored about him. He acknowledged her contribution, never taking all the glory for himself.

      Tomorrow, she had been thinking as they clinked glasses that afternoon. Tomorrow she would draft up his thank-you letters to the various department heads. He would go through each one, noting specific areas of achievement and offering his appreciation. It wasn’t sentimental, he’d assured her the first time he’d given her the task. “Research shows that positive reinforcement achieves better results than negative feedback. СКАЧАТЬ