The Best Of February 2016. Catherine Mann
with his.
This was what he meant by her needing a man who could take control. As the oldest of four in a single-parent home, she’d been an adult from an early age, taking care of her siblings, then helping with the breadwinning. She easily shouldered responsibility—even for her own pleasure—but from the first touch, Cesar let her know he was more than willing to give her anything she desired.
There was no hesitation in his kiss, only command. He didn’t overwhelm, wasn’t forceful, but his kiss had the same quality as his voice or his directing hand. We’re going here and this is how we’ll get there. Come with me. I’ll show you.
She softened under his thorough kiss, liking the light abrasion of his stubble. Her lips clung to his and her hand climbed his arm and found his shoulder. She tried to maintain her balance as they sat there, side by side, quietly devouring each other.
He shifted, gathered her and drew her into his lap. Just like that. Strong and sure, making his intention clear, right down to the bulge pressed against the cheek of her bottom.
They broke off their kiss, looked into each other’s eyes. This was the point when she was supposed to remind him they had an agreement. He was her boss—if he was serious about refusing to marry Diega.
You would be surprised what I would do for that privilege.
His neck was hot against her palm and the trace of his fingers against her thigh triggered a rush of tingling need into her loins. She had imagined making love with him so many times, had longed for it in the dead of night, tossing and turning while he made love to other women.
This time he would make love to her. She would know what it felt like to feel his touch, to bask in his attention. Her sex life was dismal, she’d reasoned. She hadn’t gone all the way with that dumb artist. Their bit of fooling around had been great for him and left her feeling nothing. She ached for a good experience.
She wanted sex, wanted Cesar, yearned to feel even closer to him than she already did. She wanted to make love with him.
Stay with him.
She moved her hand to the back of his head and lifted her mouth to meet his kiss.
CESAR DIDN’T GET back to the hospital until late the next morning. By then he’d had a number of tablet conversations with his mother and brother—you know she’ll tell me to marry Diega if you don’t—and finally, the unsurprising arrival of his father.
The consensus seemed to be that the situation did not warrant calling off a wedding, even if he could be sure the baby was his.
Their attitude was almost as frustrating as Sorcha’s accusation yesterday, when she’d called him out for using her, then asked him to leave. She’d been pale with dark circles under her eyes, the nurse standing by with one of those paper cups full of pain pills. He’d had to give her the opportunity to rest that she needed.
And he hadn’t known how to counter her accusations. He didn’t remember what he’d said to Diega about her, but he’d obviously confessed that they’d slept together.
It was all such a frustrating mess, but the signpost for the way forward hinged on whether Enrique was his.
He returned to the hospital in a driven state of mind, going directly to the nursery for a long, proper look at the boy, determined to find proof.
Sorcha was there, putting the baby down, her expression relaxed and tender until she glanced up and saw him. Her smile fell away. “I assumed you’d jetted back to Spain.”
One sharp look had her sealing her lips, but her chin went up. She wasn’t cowed. He’d always found her inability to be intimidated refreshing—it allowed him to be who he was without signing up for sensitivity training—but engaging in battle with him at this precise moment was not her best move.
He came across and slid his attention to the baby, determined that if there was something of himself in the boy, he’d see it.
Sorcha’s hands curled into loose, pale fists against the glass over the tiny bed as she waited out his study in silence. Were those miniature brows similarly shaped to the rest of the males’ in his family? That button nose and those round cheeks were too soft to bear any resemblance to anyone but another baby. That mouth was Sorcha’s. Hair? Similar in color to his own, he supposed, but inconclusive. Ears?
Finding visible proof of paternity was like trying to locate the memory of having conceived him—it wasn’t there. He’d spent the night trying to recall making love to her, driving himself crazy, coming up empty.
He was a scientific man, never one to accept anything less than factual evidence. He certainly didn’t take anyone at his word. He’d been burned by that when his “friend,” the abrasive specialist, had hacked into his network and stolen a year’s worth of experimental data and testing results.
Since the crash, however, since losing a vital piece of his memory, he had to take certain things on faith. He had no choice but to believe what people told him he had said or done during that time. There was nothing to counter it but gut instinct.
His gut was telling him to trust the PA who’d never let him down.
“If you have another story, Sorcha, now is the time to tell it,” he said, lifting his gaze from the baby. He stood at a cliff face, ready to step off of it. On her word.
She stilled, face solemn. For all her natural beauty, her intelligence was really one of her best features. A flicker of despondency moved across her expression. “I imagine I’ll wish I did, but I don’t.” A spasm of hurt tightened her expression. “Why? What are you going to do?”
“Let’s take this to your room, where we’ll have some privacy.”
They were speaking Valencian and there was only the one nurse in here, but Sorcha nodded. He held the door for her and paced slowly alongside her as she leaned on the wall all the way to her room.
Her IV was gone and she was moving better, standing straighter, but was still pale. She sighed with relief as she settled on the bed and he brought the blanket up over her legs. A big arrangement of flowers had arrived to give her windowsill a splash of color.
He frowned, mind jumping to that artist of hers.
“Octavia’s mother sent it to her. She already had one from her husband and knew I told my mother to save her money for baby clothes, so she gave that one to me.”
Right. Some grandparents sent flowers to congratulate a new mother when she delivered an heir into the family.
What did Enrique’s grandfather send? Cesar reached into his shirt pocket.
“From my father,” he said, offering it.
She didn’t take it, only looked at the amount. “My, he does value Señorita Fuentes, doesn’t he?” She turned away to reach for her glass on her side table and sipped from the straw. The color in her high cheekbones was the only indication of her reaction.
He’d always liked that collected demeanor of hers. He’d liked far too many things about her, and even today, mind dull and body aching from not sleeping, when he was trying to recover from having his mind blown apart, there was a piece of him that just wanted to crawl into that bed with her and have her.
It struck him that he hadn’t felt a rush of attraction like this since before his crash. Desire for sexual release was always there, like hunger or thirst. But last night, as he’d tried to manifest an image of having Sorcha, he’d mentally ridden her hard. He never had those sorts of fantasies about Diega. In fact, since waking up “engaged,” he’d more or less put his inner sex animal into a kennel and told him to shut up.
The beast was snarling to life now, pouring predatory heat through Cesar’s veins. Desire gathered in painful pools at his groin. He was having enough trouble working through the facts without trying to