by Dani Collins
“I have to.” He frowned as if it was obvious. “I had my parents prepare them for it when they informed them about you and Lily. I’ve stayed to keep things on an even keel, but today I gave them the alternatives for transitioning me out of the chair.”
She could only blink, remembering what he had told her in the solarium the day Faustina had broken his engagement. Poppy hadn’t meant to pry, but she had admitted to not understanding the appeal of an arranged marriage. She had been compelled to ask what he would have gained.
I was to become president of Faustina’s father’s chemical research firm. Cesar and I work very well together, but this would have given me a playground for my personal projects and ambitions. My chance to shine in my own spotlight.
He’d been self-deprecating, but she had sensed a real desire in him to prove something, if only to himself. She completely understood that. It was akin to what drove her interest in photography.
“What will you do?” she asked now.
“Go back to working under Cesar. There’s always room for me there.”
But it wasn’t what he wanted. “You married Faustina so you could move out from his shadow. You have your own ambitions.”
“I’ll find another way to pursue them.” He flicked his hand, dismissing that desire.
“But—” She frowned. “What happens with this company? Do they become your competitors again?”
“One option is to leave this enterprise under Cesar’s direction. Another would be for us to sell this back to them at a discounted price. They’d be gaining a much more lucrative business than when I took over.” He muttered into his glass. “So I think that’s what they’ll choose.”
“How much would it impact you if they do? Financially, I mean?” Her blood was congealing in her veins. They’d just bought a house. Not a cute bungalow in a small prairie town that a union wage could pay off in twenty years, but a mansion with acres of grapes and the sort of view that cost more than the house. Her palms were sweating. “Why didn’t you tell me this was happening?”
“Because it doesn’t affect you. The sting in the pocketbook will be short-lived, some legal fees and a return of some stocks and other holdings. I’ll have to restructure my personal portfolio, but our family has weathered worse. Things will balance out.”
She could only sit there with a knot of culpability in her middle.
“Rico, I hate that I brought nothing to this marriage. I didn’t know I was going to cost you. Not like this.” Her eyes grew hot and she braced her elbows on her knees to cover her eyes with her palms. “I’ve been spending like a drunken sailor. I just ordered equipment for—I’ll call them. Cancel it.” She looked for her purse.
“Poppy.” He leaned forward and caught her wrist. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but a few thousand euros on photography equipment isn’t going to make a dent in what’s about to change hands. Cesar and I have discussed how to finance this. You and I are perfectly fine.”
“But this is my fault! Now he’s going to hate me, too. Sorcha will stop being my friend. I’m sorry, Rico. I’m so sorry I slept with you and ruined everything.”
* * *
Her words hit his ears in a crash, like the avalanche of rocks off a cliff that continued roaring and tumbling long after the first crack of thunder, leaving a whiff of acrid dust in the air.
They came on top of words spoken by Señora Cabrera that had made him see red. A bastard conceived in adultery.
That was not what Lily was. Their attack against Poppy had been equally blood boiling and now Poppy was expressing regret over their daughter’s conception?
“Don’t you dare say that.”
Maybe it was the alcohol hitting his system, maybe it was the pent-up tension from his meeting releasing in a snap. Maybe it was simply that he was confronted with Poppy’s emotions so often, he was beginning to tap into his own, but rather than suppress his anger, he let himself feel it. It raged through him because her words hurt.
“I told you I will never regard Lily as a mistake and don’t you ever do it, either.” He threw himself to his feet, trying to pace away from the burn of scorn that chased him. “I would give up every last penny I possess so long as I can have her in my life.”
Damn, that admission made him uncomfortable. He shot her a look and saw her sit back, hand over her chest, tears in her eyes. She was biting her lips together, chin crinkling.
Was he scaring her? He swore and pushed a hand into his hair, clenching hard enough to feel the pain of it, trying to grapple himself back under control.
“Thank you, Rico,” she said in a voice that scraped. “I hope you know that’s all I’ve ever wanted for her. Parents who love her. Not all of this.” She flicked a hand around the room.
“I do know that.” He swallowed a lump from his throat, but it remained lodged sideways in his chest. He felt pried open and stood there fighting the sensation.
“But I’m starting to see that you and your family support a lot more people than just me and Lily. It shouldn’t be such a revelation to me. When I needed a job, your mother gave me one and I was grateful. Now I can see that this lifestyle you’re protecting has value to more people than just you. That’s why it’s upsetting to me that I’m undermining it. I think I’d feel better about it if you’d at least yell at me.”
“I’m not going to yell at you.” Was he angry? Yes. About many things, but none that mattered as much as his daughter. “My career ambitions and the bearing our marriage has had on them are insignificant next to what I’ve gained through this marriage. You brought our child. There’s nothing else you could have brought that comes close to how important she is to me.”
There was a flash of something like yearning in her eyes before she screened them with her lashes. She reached to pluck a tissue from the box and pressed it under each eye.
“It means a lot that you would say that. I struggle with exactly what they said. Every day.” Her mouth pulled down at the corners. “Feeling like I snuck in through a side door, using my daughter as a ticket. I feel like such an imposter.” She sniffed.
“Stop feeling that way,” he ordered, coming over to sit beside her, facing her. “It’s a terrible thing to say, but I can’t imagine Faustina showing our baby the same sort of love that you show Lily. I’m lucky my child has you as her mother.”
Her eyes grew even bigger and swam with even more tears. Her mouth trembled in earnest.
“Please don’t cry. You’re making me feel like a jerk.”
“You’re being the opposite of a jerk. That’s why I’m crying.”
She had worn her hair in a low ponytail today and half of it was coming loose around her face. He wound a tendril around his finger, thinking of how often he saw her wince and pry Lily’s fist from the mass, never scolding her for it.
How could anyone resist this mass, though? He dipped his head to rub the ribbon of silk against his lips. Watched her gaze drop to his mouth and tried not to get distracted.
“There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you,” Rico began.
Her gaze flashed upward, brimming with inquisitive light. “Yes?”
Unnatural, fearful hope filled him even as he second-guessed what was on his tongue. He couldn’t believe these words were forming inside him. Not as the next strategic move in the building of the Montero empire, either. Not in reaction to what outsiders said about their marriage. No, this was something that had been bubbling in him from the earliest days of their marriage, something he didn’t want to examine too closely because it occupied such a deep cavern inside him.
“Rico?” she prompted.
“With the house almost ready, I keep thinking we should talk about filling more of those rooms.”
Her pupils threatened to swallow her face. “Another baby?”
“I know you wanted to wait.” He let go of her hair and covered th
e hand that went limp against his thigh. He pressed his lips together, bracing himself for rebuff. “If you’re not ready, we can table it, but I wanted to mention it. My relationship with Pia and Cesar—we’re not as close as some, but I value them. I realize many things contribute to the distance between you and your half-siblings, but the age gap is a factor. That’s why I thought sooner than later would benefit Lily.”
He heard his upbringing in the logic of his argument and recognized it as the defense tactic it was. If he kept his feelings firmly out of the discussion, there was no chance they would get trampled on.
Poppy blinked and a fresh tear hit her cheek, diamond bright. “Are you being serious? You want to make a baby with me on purpose?”
The magnitude wasn’t lost on him. Marriages could be undone. Property could be split. The entanglement of a child—children, if he had any say in it—was a far bigger and more permanent commitment.
“I do.”
* * *
“You didn’t tell me there’s such a thing as a babymoon,” Rico said a month later as they toured the empty rooms of their villa, inspecting freshly painted walls, window treatments and light fixtures. Furniture delivery would start next week.
“You’d have seen one by now if you had ever changed a diaper,” she teased. “Instead of handing Lily off to the nanny.”
Rico’s mouth twitched, but he only drew her onto the private balcony off their master bedroom. It made her feel like the queen of the world to stand there looking so far out on the Mediterranean she was sure she glimpsed the cowboy boot of Italy.
“Besides, we’re not there yet.”
After a visit to the doctor a couple of weeks ago, they were officially “trying.” Today, Rico had asked the designer about setting up a nursery when the time comes. The woman had cheerfully promised a quick turnaround on redecorating the room of their choice. “Most couples take a babymoon for a few weeks so we aren’t disrupting their daily life,” the woman had added, then had to explain to Rico what it was.
“We never even had a honeymoon,” he pointed out now.
“There’s been a lot going on. A lot for Lily to adjust to. I wouldn’t want to leave her even now, when we’re about to move into this house and change everything again.”
“We could take her with us.”
“I think that’s called a family vacation, not a honeymoon.”
“You’re full of cheek today, aren’t you?” He gave one of her lower ones a friendly squeeze. “We could take the nanny so we get our alone time. Really put our back into the honeymoon effort. See if we can’t earn ourselves a babymoon.”
She chuckled. “So romantic.” But she kissed him under his chin, ridiculously in love when he was playful like this—
Oh. There it was. The acknowledgment she’d been avoiding. Because if she admitted to herself that she was fully head over heels, she had to face that he wasn’t.
“Romance is not my strong point, but sound logic is.”
He gathered her so her arms were folded against his chest, fingertips grazing his open collar, but his words echoed through the hollow spaces growing wider in her chest.
“The transition is almost finished with the Cabreras,” he continued. “Cesar has some projects he wants me to take the lead on in a couple of months. I won’t have much downtime once I’m knee-deep. This is our window for a getaway. Let’s take it.”
“If you want to,” she murmured, thinking she ought to feel happy. Excited. But she only felt sad. She felt the way she had as a child, wishing her mother and father wanted her. It shouldn’t have mattered. She’d been loved by her grandparents.
But she’d still felt the absence of it from people she thought should love her.
And she felt it again now.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she lied, conjuring a smile. “Where...? Um...where would you want to go?”
“I don’t know. Somewhere that Lily would enjoy and you could play with your new camera. Maybe we could tie in a visit to your grandmother at the end. I know you’re missing her.”
“You wouldn’t mind?”
“Of course not. I wish she would agree to come live with us here. You know you can visit her anytime. I’ll come with you as often as I can.”
“Thank you.” A tiny spark of hope returned. Whenever he doted on her, she thought maybe he was coming to love her. Tentative light crept through her. “Okay. Let’s do it.”
* * *
Two weeks later, they were riding elephants through the rainforests of Thailand.
“This is not camping,” she told him when they arrived at the hidden grotto where sleep pods were suspended in the trees. “Camping is digging a trench around your tent in a downpour at midnight so you don’t drown in your sleep.”
“I think this is ‘glamping,’” the nanny murmured in an aside as the pod she would share with Lily was pointed out to her. “And thank you.”
They dined on rare mushrooms and wild boar, coconut curry soup and tropical fruit with cashews. When they fell asleep, replete from lovemaking, the wind rocked their pod and the frogs crooned a lullaby. They woke to strange birdcalls and the excited trumpet of a baby elephant as it trampled into a mud pool.
Poppy caught some of the elephant’s antics with her new toy, a Leica M6. She switched out to her new digital camera to catch some shots of Lily to send to Gran then held her as she fed the baby elephant, chuckling as Lily squealed in delight.
A click made her look up and she found Rico capturing them on his phone.
“New screen saver,” he said as he tucked it away.
Poppy flushed with pleasure, in absolute heaven. She began to think she really was living happily-ever-after, cherished by her husband, making a family with him. Her life couldn’t be more ideal.
Then, as they came off their last day in the forest to stay a few days at a luxury beach resort on the coast, she discovered that, for all their success the first time, they weren’t so lucky this time. She wasn’t one-and-done pregnant.
It wasn’t even the light spotting that had fooled her with Lily. She had a backache and a heavier than normal case of the blues.
Plenty of women didn’t conceive right away. There was no reason she should take it this hard. She knew that in her head, but her heart was lying there in two jagged pieces anyway.
Rico came into the bedroom of their suite as she was coming out of the bathroom.
“I sent the nanny to the beach with Lily. We—” He took off his sunglasses and frowned. “What’s wrong?”
He wore a T-shirt and shorts better than any man she’d ever met. The shirt clung to his sculpted shoulders and chest and his legs were tanned and muscled. One of her favorite things in the world was the scrape of his fine hair when she ran the inside of her thigh against his iron-hard ones.
Everything about him was perfect.
And she wasn’t. She hadn’t even gotten this right.
“It’s not working. I’m not pregnant.”
“Oh.” He was visibly taken aback. “You’re sure?”
She bit back a tense, Of course I’m sure, and only said, “Yes.” She turned her back and threw sunscreen and a few other things into a beach bag.
“But it only took once last time.”
“I know that.” She drew a patience-gathering breath. “I don’t know why it didn’t happen.” She blinked, fighting tears. “But it didn’t and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Poppy.” He touched her arm. “It’s fine. We’re having fun trying, right? Next time.”
She didn’t want him to be disappointed. That would make her feel worse. But it didn’t help to hear him brush it off, either. She dug through her bag, unable to remember if she’d thrown her book in there.
“You go. I’ll catch up.”
“Poppy. Come on. Don’t be u
pset. This isn’t a test that we have to pass or fail.”
“Not for you it isn’t. For me? Yes it is. Every single day! Either I bring value to this marriage or I’m just a hanger-on.”
“I have never meant to make you feel like that.”
“I feel like that because that’s what I am.” The rope handle of her bag began to cut into her shoulder. She threw the whole works onto the floor, standing outside herself and knowing this was toddler-level behavior, but there was poison sitting deep inside her. The kind that had to come out before it turned her completely septic. “At least when I was looking after my grandparents, I was contributing. You don’t need me to look after Lily. The nanny does most of the work.”
“You love Lily. I told you that’s all—”
“Yes! I love her. That’s what I bring. The ability to give you babies and love them. Except now there’s no baby.” She flung out a hand.
“We’ve just started trying! Look.” He attempted to take her by the shoulders, but she brushed him off and backed away. “Poppy. I don’t know much about this process, but I do know it takes some couples a while. There is no need to be this upset.”
“I want to be upset!” She hated how backed into a corner she felt. She pushed past him and strode to the middle of the room only to spin around and confront. “But I’m not allowed to be upset, am I? There’s no such thing as emotion in your world, is there? I’m supposed to fit into a tiny little box labeled Wife and Mother.” She made a square with her hands. “And uphold the family image, except I’ll never be able to do that because I’m forever going to be a blotch.”
“Calm down,” he ordered.
She flung out a hand in a silent, There it is.
He heard it, too, and sighed. He gave her a stern look. “You’re not a blotch. We’ve been over all of this. You contribute. I don’t know why you struggle to believe that.”
“Because I’ve been a burden my entire life, Rico. My grandparents were planning to do things in their retirement. Take bus tours and travel and see things. Instead, they were stuck raising me.”