The Consequence He Must Claim

by Dani Collins

  Actually, he’d bet any money she would challenge him with “What’s more important than your wedding?” She’d always been quick to push a family-first agenda, teasing him for being a scientist wired for logic. She’d known when she could give him a nudge and when to back off, though, along with how to plow through minutiae so he didn’t get bored and lose patience. Most important, she had been able to make decisions on her own.

  But Sorcha was gone, damn her. Without any notice or explanation. She’d left while he’d still been in the hospital, barely awake from his coma. According to his father, she’d discussed it with Cesar in the week that was missing from his memory. Given that he’d been unconscious in those first weeks after the accident, and his father had his own assistant, he could imagine she had felt redundant, but she must have known he’d be back to work eventually. His father could have found her a temporary position in the organization or simply offered her paid leave. She’d had enough vacation time stockpiled.

  Jumping ship was unacceptable. If his father hadn’t already written her a glowing reference, Cesar would have been reluctant to. He could have used her more than ever in these first months back at work, as he first went into the office on crutches at his own chemical engineering plant, and had more recently begun resuming the takeover from his father on the rest of the family enterprise.

  She was just an employee, he reminded himself, irritated that he was letting her absence rile him. Yes, he missed her efficiency, but he wasn’t a sentimental man. Being friendly with a colleague wasn’t the same as being friends. For all the times she’d been more blunt than he appreciated, their relationship had been a professional one. He directed, she delivered. Sulking because she hadn’t played cards with him in the hospital was not something he would stoop to.

  At least she had understood simple instructions, he thought as he glanced at the watch that had started pulsing on his wrist. Diega noticed and looked at him as if he’d kicked her Siamese cat. His mother caught on and tsked a noise of disappointment at his rudeness.

  “I asked not to be interrupted,” he informed both women, making sure his new assistant heard his displeased tone as he touched the face of his smart watch.

  He automatically adjusted the volume in his earpiece as his assistant said, “They claim it’s an emergency. It’s a hospital in London.”

  His thoughts leaped to Sorcha, even though there was no reason to expect she would be ill or injured, but he had tracked her on social media far enough to know she was working in that city. Still, if she needed medical attention, she wouldn’t list him as a contact. She had family in Ireland. She was off the company benefits, working for someone else.

  He almost refused the call, unable to think of another reason a hospital in London would want to speak to him. He had a vague thought about his siblings’ whereabouts, but neither his brother nor sister was in that city. Hell, he would wind up returning this call later if he didn’t take it now and he would go out of his skull if he didn’t accomplish something constructive with his morning.

  “Un momento,” he said, stepping away from the women. “Cesar Montero,” he stated, accepting the call.

  “Cesar Montero...y Rosales?” a female voice asked.

  “Sí.” He grew more alert at the use of his full name. “Who’s calling?”

  She identified herself as an official for the hospital. “Did Ms. Kelly tell you to expect my call?”

  “No.” He frowned as he absorbed this was about Sorcha.

  “Oh.” She sounded confused. “This is the information she gave on her admittance form. Am I speaking to the correct person? Will you confirm a few details for me?”

  “Sí,” he said and gave her his birth date and residential address as requested. He rubbed where the ache in his brow intensified. “What is this about?”

  “You haven’t spoken to Ms. Kelly today?” She sounded surprised. The silence that followed struck him as a retreat. She was cautious now.

  Instinct made him say carefully, “I’ve been tied up. She left a message, but I haven’t listened to it yet.”

  “But you’re aware she was admitted last night?”

  “Yes,” he lied, while his heart jolted painfully. They’d asked if he’d spoken to her, he reminded himself. That meant she was speaking. “I’ve been anxious for news,” he added. He was a scientist at heart, but he’d studied conversational manipulations at his mother’s knee. “What can you report?”

  “Well, it’s difficult news, I’m afraid. There is a very small possibility the babies have been switched.” She paused, allowing him to react.

  He didn’t have a reaction. A chasm of confusion opened in him, one he didn’t want to betray to the woman on the phone, or the two women behind him. He could hear their silence as they waited for him to wrap up this annoying interruption.

  “Obviously we’ll be running a DNA test, but we’re hoping a blood test can offer some clarity. How soon could you get to a clinic? Our hospital will cover the charges, but we’re anxious for the results.”

  Cesar choked out a laugh. “Are you...?”

  He realized where he was. He jerked around to see both his fiancée and his mother staring at him. His mother waved an impatient hand at the seating plan spread across the dining room table. Diega’s features sharpened with query.

  The air grew too thick for his lungs. In a kind of daze, he held up a staying finger and walked through the French doors onto the small balcony, closing them behind him. With great care, he lowered the voice that had begun to elevate, looking below to ensure there were no listening ears in the courtyard. His gaze blindly scanned the familiar landscape of his youth: immaculate gardens left barren for winter, dormant grapevines across acres of vineyard, the distant sound of waves washing the shoreline of the Med.

  “Are you telling me you want me to provide a sample for a paternity test?” he asked in disbelief.

  “Please don’t mistake me. We have no reason to doubt Sorcha Kelly’s identification of you as the father. The issue is whether she is the mother of the baby she is currently nursing. As you can imagine, we’re anxious to have this cleared up.”

  He couldn’t speak. It took him a long moment to realize he wasn’t thinking any thoughts. His mind was completely blank.

  Was he still feeling the effects of the concussion? No. This was the sort of thing no one in the world could make sense of.

  Finally he drew a long ragged breath. “I can clear up my side of things very quickly,” he said, his voice flat and sharp. “I would remember if—” He cut himself off. Swore aloud as his condition struck him like a sledgehammer. Again.

  There was no feeling like opening a door where a memory was stored and finding only an empty shelf. It was beyond frustrating. It was like being robbed and if there was one thing he hated above anything, it was a thief.

  “Mr. Montero?” she prompted in his ear.

  Maybe he didn’t remember sleeping with his secretary, but it didn’t mean he hadn’t.

  At least his damaged brain was still agile enough to deal logically with the present situation. The only way to determine if he’d fathered a child in the mysterious missing week was to provide a blood sample.

  Of course, that flash of logic did nothing to alleviate the fact that his mind was exploding with questions. Sorcha had promised—sworn with as much solemnity as a bride taking her wedding vows—that she would never sleep with him.

  He had believed her. It had taken a long time for him to trust her. He didn’t give his trust easily, not since the industrial espionage that had nearly bankrupted his family. She knew enough about that to know he wouldn’t tolerate lies of any sort.

  But he had wanted to sleep with her.

  So had she broken her promise and slept with him? Or would this test prove she had identified the wrong man as the father of her child? Perhaps she
’d left Spain because she was pregnant and for some reason didn’t want to tell the real father.

  That worried him on a different level. She was a truthful person. A lie like that would only be motivated by a need to protect herself or her family. Had she been attacked or something? Was that why she’d fled?

  And what was this crazy story about switching infants? This entire situation was something from a telenovela. None of it made sense, but he could begin to restore order very swiftly.

  “Of course,” he managed to say. “Where do I have the results sent?”

  * * *

  The administrator returned to the nursery with Octavia’s husband. Something in the grim expression worn by Alessandro made Sorcha close her hands more possessively over Enrique. He had a conversation with his wife that Sorcha couldn’t quite overhear, though she looked up at the mention of her name. She also caught the name Primo. Octavia had told her Primo was the man Sorcha had seen last night, Alessandro’s cousin.

  Then the administrator stole everyone’s attention.

  “We have your blood types.” He glanced over a form on a clipboard, then looked up. “I’d like to give you the results, even though they’re not conclusive. Ironically, we should have labeled the boys A and B, since that is the blood type they’ve come back with.”

  Sorcha listened as Alessandro and Octavia questioned the administrator, confirming their son was type B and Enrique was type A. “If Mr. Montero comes up as an A, we can rule out his fathering this baby.” The man nodded at Lorenzo.

  “Did you call him?” Octavia asked, turning to look at Sorcha.

  Before Sorcha could remind them all that Cesar was an A, the administrator said, “We’ve been in touch with Mr. Montero. He was heading straight to the clinic and his results should be with us shortly.”

  “Wait. What? You called Cesar?” Sorcha screeched, heart dropping so hard and fast it wound up under her feet, squashed by her slippers as her rocking chair came forward.

  Everyone looked at her. She’d confided in Octavia that she and Cesar weren’t together, but hadn’t admitted he didn’t even know he was a father. This was horrible.

  They needed to get to the bottom of how the babies could have been switched, Sorcha knew that. But Cesar didn’t have to know about any of this!

  The nursery cleared out again. Octavia’s husband left with the administrator to further the investigation. Octavia wore a frown as she rocked her sleeping baby, seeming to be trying to comfort herself.

  Sorcha found herself doing the same. Warily she glanced at her mobile. She’d changed her number since leaving his company, but Cesar had messaged.

  I just gave a blood sample. Why?

  She could hear his coolest, sternest, tell-me-now tone in the short message.

  Oh, hell, oh, hell, oh, hell. He was getting married this weekend. Should she have told him? How many times had she gone round this mulberry bush of trying to work out the lesser of all the evils? He didn’t remember what they’d done. He hadn’t called.

  He didn’t care.

  She looked at Enrique’s sleeping features, so endearing. Surely Cesar would fall in love as easily as she had? At least she had known her father loved her, even if he hadn’t made provisions for them after his death. What would Cesar say, though? His family was the complete opposite of hers: perfectly respectable, yet absent of warmth and the urge for attachment. Was Cesar capable of loving his son? Or would he reject both of them? That was what had kept her from calling—not wanting to face his indifference.

  Can I call you? she shakily messaged back.

  I’ll be there in a few hours.

  “No-o-o-o...” Sorcha moaned, drawing Octavia’s startled glance.

  “Is everything all right?” her new friend asked, concerned.

  It was too sordid to reveal. “Lost a game,” Sorcha lied and tucked her phone away.

  What would it do to her to see him again? These months without Cesar had been like a drought, her chest heavy and her limbs weighted as she yearned for him. He hadn’t contacted her, though. He didn’t feel any of the same pangs.

  Hugging their baby, she wished she could spirit her mother across the water to stand by her here in London as effortlessly as Cesar could pilot his own jet from Spain. She desperately needed support to face him.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE SKY WAS pewter and drizzling when Cesar parked his car outside the hospital. His phone buzzed again, coming up to twenty messages from his parents. Now his brother was on the trail.

  Call me. I want to discuss options.

  Cesar dismissed it and thumbed through the rest, marking them to trash.

  He’d gone to the clinic with only an abrupt apology, but it had given him time to come to some decisions. On his return, he’d taken Diega aside and explained what had happened.

  “We can’t marry before the paternity results are in. I’m sorry. Obviously I don’t remember doing it, but it’s within the realm of possibility that I slept with her. I have to go to London. See her and sort this out.”

  The concept of having fathered a child was something he was holding at bay, finding it more than he could take in until the tests confirmed it. However, as much as he wanted to be suspicious of Sorcha’s claim, he couldn’t discount it. If it turned out he had a son, and he was already married to Diega...

  Well, he didn’t know how he would react to being a father, but he knew in his gut he didn’t want to be married to another woman while he processed something like that.

  Disturbingly, Diega hadn’t been terribly shocked. She’d tried to talk him out of going. “Querido, this isn’t a deal-breaker for me. I knew that day that you had had an affair with her. We don’t have to put off the wedding because of it.”

  That had taken him aback. “You said I came to ask if our marriage was really what you wanted,” he said. “That I gave you the chance to back out and you didn’t have any doubts.”

  That was why she was calling herself his fiancée even though the banquet and formal announcement had never happened. He hadn’t questioned her claim that he’d gone to her for a final, private affirmation that she wanted to move forward. Given all the conflict he’d been feeling in recent months, he had easily seen himself driving out to Diega’s home days before they locked themselves into this arrangement, secretly hoping she would call it off.

  This sudden new information, that he had confessed to having an affair and had “begged her forgiveness” for it, didn’t ring as true.

  “She was planning to stay until we married,” Diega said. “You didn’t want me finding out at some awkward moment in your office, having doubts about your fidelity. I said I would prefer she wasn’t lingering in our lives through our engagement and you left to terminate her so we could start our life together without her presence clouding things.”

  None of that sounded like him, especially the groveling. While he hadn’t planned to sleep with anyone else once he and Diega were engaged, he hadn’t expected either of them would apologize for anything they’d done previous to their union. Why then, would he have felt such a burning need to go to her after sleeping with Sorcha? Since when did he run from any woman’s bed? Lingering and keeping things friendly, leaving on good terms, was his signature move.

  If he had stayed with Sorcha, he would remember that day.

  Sitting in the parked car, he pinched the bridge of his nose, reminding himself to stop trying to go back in time and change what had happened. He needed to deal with the reality he faced.

  But what was that reality?

  If Diega had been so offended by his affair with Sorcha, why hadn’t that shone through when they’d spoken of it today? She’d been trying to placate him, encouraging him to believe their wedding could go ahead.

  “I understand you might have to take certain measures if t
he baby proves to be yours, but none of that has to affect plans that have been in the works for years.”

  Her tone had been persuasive, which set off all his inner lie detectors.

  He just didn’t see himself sleeping with Sorcha after three years of anticipating it, then firing her within hours. He wouldn’t do that to her. Over the years, when he had contemplated becoming sexually involved with her, he’d expected it would put an end to her employment with him, but via a lengthy affair that involved cruising on his yacht. Perhaps a visit to his place in Majorca.

  Despite entertaining that fantasy more or less daily, he hadn’t wanted to lose her at work. She was the best damned PA he’d ever had. So he’d fought his attraction and kept his hands off her for three long, interminable years.

  It had been a delicate balance.

  And with that much sexual tension built up, it was no surprise he had eagerly pounced if she had proved agreeable, but it didn’t make this situation any easier to understand or navigate.

  Especially when his phone was blowing up with messages from his family that he didn’t have to cancel his wedding.

  Damn it, it was done. Perhaps too summarily, and with too much relief, but it was done.

  Pocketing keys and phone, he left the car and strode single-mindedly into the hospital—and recoiled at the smell.

  It was dinner hour. He’d had enough of that generic hospital-food aroma while recovering from his crash, but determination to get to the bottom of things propelled him through his repulsion to ask for Sorcha’s room number.

  Seconds later he took the stairs in swift leaps, paced quickly down the hall, had to identify himself to a guard—what the hell was that?—and finally pushed through her door.

  To find her sleeping.

  The rush of adrenaline that had been coursing through his arteries since he’d taken the call from the hospital pooled into a full body burn. It wasn’t so much the angelic look of her that brought him up short, although that had always fascinated him when she’d fallen asleep on planes and curled up in break rooms. She wasn’t wearing makeup, which was an oddly vulnerable look for her, blond lashes and brows barely visible, lips a pale pink, translucent skin the color of freshly poured cream.