The Consequence He Must Claim

by Dani Collins

  No, the intravenous tube attached to her wrist and the wheelchair next to the bed stunned him. A prickling uneasiness stung his back and gut and limbs.

  He had visited a woman in hospital after childbirth exactly once: when his sister had been born. His mother had sat on the bed looking as flawless as she had on every other occasion of his life. His six-year-old brain hadn’t computed that the baby in the tiny bed on wheels beside her would turn into a child like himself. The room had smelled of flowers and he had not been allowed to take one of the colorful balloons suspended above them. They were just for looks. His parents had been as calmly satisfied as they were capable of being, having produced a third child as scheduled and without setbacks.

  There was no baby in Sorcha’s clinically barren room, however. No flowers. No balloons.

  His heart lurched. He stepped closer to read the labels on the IV bags, one saline, the other an antibiotic. A breast pump had been unpacked from its box and the instructions left on her food tray. She’d been given consommé and gelatin for dinner. Liquids after surgery, he distantly computed, tempted to brush that strand of blond hair from where it slashed in stark contrast across the shadow beneath her eye.

  Sorcha had had a baby.

  Despite all that had happened, his brain was still trying to absorb that much and couldn’t make sense of the rest. Paternity test? Him? A father?

  Three years ago, she had landed her position as his PA with a claim that should have made his fathering her baby impossible.

  He’d wanted her from the moment she’d entered his office wearing a pencil skirt and a fitted jacket, both moving like a caress on her slender curves as she walked toward him. She’d had just enough of her throat exposed to avoid being either prudish or inviting. Her blond hair had been held in a simple clip at her nape, her makeup subtly highlighting her pure features. Her smile had only faltered for one blink before it became pleasant and confident. She’d shaken his hand as though they were equals, smoothly pretending her tiny start of sexual awareness hadn’t happened.

  He’d seen it, however. After a lifetime of always seeing it, he was far more surprised if a glimmer of attraction didn’t happen in a woman’s face. He was marginally surprised that Sorcha suppressed and set aside her response so well. In his experience, women were either disconcerted by his male energy and became flustered, or quickly tried to find an answering reaction in him by flirting and growing supple with their body language.

  Adept at compartmentalizing his own rise of attraction, particularly in the workplace, he’d taken her hand and invited her to sit, ignoring the sizzle in his blood. But the fact it was there, and so strong, had him deciding against her before she’d bent her narrow waist and pressed her delightfully flared hips into the leather of the interview chair. As much as he preferred his surroundings to be aesthetically pleasing, he’d learned beautiful women could be a detriment in the office, creating politics and causing colleagues to behave badly.

  He’d gone through the process of listening to her pitch, however, since he’d promised he would, and she had captured his attention with her wrap-up.

  “Finally, I have a solution to a problem that has impacted your productivity for several years.”

  “What problem is that?” he’d asked with forced patience, thinking drily, Dazzle me. He knew all the challenges he faced as he expanded from running his own chemical engineering firm into heading the Montero conglomerate. He’d already made plans for every single pothole in the road.

  “You’ve been running through personal assistants at three and four a year,” she said matter-of-factly. “Stability at your base will be paramount as you pick up and run with all your added responsibilities. I’m prepared to offer you a five-year commitment and a promise that I won’t sleep with you.”

  He’d leaned into the backrest of his executive chair to take a fresh assessment of the admittedly competent PA from his father’s London office whose brazenness was astonishing. He incinerated powerful men in seconds with this battle-ready stare, but if she was shaking under its laser heat, she was remarkably good at maintaining her demeanor.

  “Please take that as a statement of my suitability, not a challenge,” she added with a tight smile.

  “‘Excellent communication skills’ also means knowing what not to say, Ms. Kelly.” He flicked his we’re-done glance from her to the door and tapped his keyboard to bring up the next applicant’s file.

  “Whether you actually slept with your PAs isn’t the issue. The perception that you do is an image problem and will persist if you hire one of my older, male competitors.” She thumbed toward the roomful of hopefuls beyond his office door. “Hire me, and I’ll actively put rumors to rest. Furthermore, I won’t throw myself at you or pitch a jealous fit at having to pamper the women who are in your life. I won’t hit on them, either. Or on any of your associates.”

  She was well-informed. The previous male assistants he’d tried had done exactly that, offering “consolation” to the women he’d broken off with. The married women hadn’t been able to keep up with the demands of his travel schedule while the one matronly woman he’d tried had brought a lot of judgment with her. The rest had been a mix of what Sorcha had just described: women given to flirting or openly inviting him or his fellow executives into their beds, searching for a more comfortable situation than working for a living. Even if they hadn’t gone that far, they’d too often grown possessive and resentful of his dates.

  As for sleeping with any of his PAs, it had happened once in his early years, before he had realized such mistakes could leave him with exactly what Sorcha had just called it: an image problem.

  She hadn’t won him over that quickly, however.

  “I might be inclined to accept your word, Ms. Kelly, if you hadn’t slept your way into being granted this interview.” Barton Angsley, the middle-aged CEO running the London office, had given her a very glowing reference and pressed hard for her to be considered for this promotion. Despite her solid qualifications, this was an enormous step up in salary and responsibility.

  “I don’t sleep with anyone to advance my career, Señor Montero. I don’t have to,” she dismissed without batting an eye.

  He had to admit she was solid under pressure.

  “Angsley is taking a stress leave because he’s in the middle of an ugly divorce. Infidelity is usually the source of that kind of ugliness, Ms. Kelly. Did you threaten to give his wife the details? Is that why he’s so eager to send you to Spain?”

  “I don’t talk about my employer, ever.” Her face became a haughty mask. “As evidenced by the fact you only found out about his divorce when he requested his leave and asked you to interview me. You’ll recall that he said they’d been in trouble for nearly a year. I was in the room when he was speaking to you or I wouldn’t repeat that much.”

  Perhaps she’d covered up Angsley’s infidelity. Maybe that’s why he was so eager to recommend her. Maybe she’d covered his job. Cesar recalled a brief comment by his father, as they were discussing possible replacements for Angsley, that the man’s work had been exemplary the past few months, despite his personal issues.

  Sorcha could be using that as a lever, but she didn’t seem prepared to throw her employer under a bus for any reason, even to advance herself.

  He’d closed their interview with an assurance that he would give her application due consideration, which had been a lie. He’d had no intention of hiring her, but as her older, male competitors had failed to impress him, he’d found himself thinking about her. Sorcha was the kind of woman he wined and dined. He didn’t need the distraction of sexual attraction as he began taking on the role he’d been working toward all his life.

  When the time came to make his final decision, however, he’d found himself placing a fresh call to Angsley. He’d learned she had not only rescued some important deadlines on Angsley’s last pro
ject, avoiding millions in overruns, but she’d also put in her notice once she realized Angsley was using her to cover his cheating.

  A few minutes later, he’d found himself dialing her number. “I understand you’ve been asked to stay on to transition Angsley’s replacement, but are working out your notice anyway. Frankly, I would expect more loyalty from an employee seeking to climb our corporate ladder.”

  A surprised pause, then she said, “Pay me what the position earns and I’d be happy to show his replacement how to do his job. Frankly, given the loyalty I have demonstrated, I’d expect not to be overlooked for a promotion just because I’m a woman.”

  Astute, tough, competent, devoted. Beautiful.

  “Five years, no sex,” he heard himself say.

  “Not with you,” she confirmed.

  “You’re underestimating your workload if you think you’ll have time for sex with anyone, Ms. Kelly. Be here Monday.”

  So he found her attractive, he’d mentally scoffed. He knew how to keep his hands to himself. Nothing would happen between them.

  * * *

  A tickle on her cheek pulled Sorcha from sleep. She brushed at it, bumping against a warm hand that moved away as she opened her eyes.

  Cesar.

  A sensation of falling hit her, like the mattress was gone and she was falling, falling, falling into an abyss.

  While his aqua eyes stayed on her, like he was falling with her as she plummeted, a bird of prey pursuing her, taking his time about snatching her out of the air, letting her feel the tension between temporary avoidance and anticipated capture.

  She had expected, if she ever saw him again, that it would be a sweet dawn of sunlit warmth, angels singing and flowers opening. There was none of that. Oh, she was happy, so happy to see him well and strong and looking as fit and commanding as ever. She wanted to smile.

  But this man was far too impactful for something so fairy-tale and romantic as merely “happy” feelings. He was a manifestation of a crash of thunder and a streak of lightning, his wide forehead and dark brows stern over those intense eyes that always met hers with such force. His cheeks wore his customary groomed stubble, framing an upper lip that was whimsically drawn and a thickly drawn lower one that had been a sensual delight to suck.

  Sex. Oh, this man oozed sex.

  She automatically closed her eyes, trying to fight the swell of attraction that lit in her nerves, firing through her system, but it had been far easier to control this response in those three years when she hadn’t known how he smelled and tasted. The pattern of hair on his chest flashed into her mind’s eye, arrowing a path down his sculpted abdomen to the turgid organ that had speared out shamelessly, thighs tense as he’d stood over her.

  Then he’d covered her, powerful arms gathering her beneath his heat as he’d thrust deep, that erotic mouth making love to hers—

  “Sorcha.” Even his voice made love to her all over again, suffusing her with remembered pleasure.

  I’m not ready for this!

  She looked through her lashes at him, trying to form some defenses against his effect while searching his expression for the languid, satisfied, tender man who’d kissed her before she’d snuggled against his nudity and fallen asleep.

  She closed her eyes again, telling herself she’d fallen asleep in Valencia, had a long, fraught dream and was now waking to...

  She opened her eyes to a gaze that had grown steely, absent of humor or warmth. His jaw was clenched. They weren’t even back to his customary good-morning, let’s-get-started, businesslike demeanor. This was the man who had dismissed the idea of hiring her at all before he’d even shaken her hand.

  “Hello, Cesar,” she managed to say, voice husked by sleep and emotion. “It’s good to see you’ve recovered.”

  “I assumed you expected the worst, given you quit before your contract was up.”

  A strangled laugh cut her throat, but she was grateful to him for going on the attack. Nothing gave her the ire to fight like being accused of behaving with anything less than integrity.

  “I gave you my reasons and you accepted them,” she said, reaching for the button to bring up her bed, then wincing as her abdomen protested. She fought not sliding into the footboard as the mattress rose behind her and used one hand to keep the blanket over her chest. “Do you really not remember that week?”

  His expression flattened, like a visor had come down to disguise his thoughts and feelings. She had spent three years earning his trust and wasn’t used to being shut out like that. Not anymore.

  “No. I don’t.” And he hated it. That much she could tell as she searched his expression.

  She didn’t know if she was relieved or crushed. The idea that he might remember their intimacy and hadn’t bothered to call had tortured her at her lowest points. His not remembering exonerated him to some extent, but it told her the closeness she’d felt, the connection, was all in her mind. Her memories. As far as he was concerned, they’d never progressed past the incidental touch of fingertips when passing a pen back and forth.

  And despite spending way too much time running through the million potential conversations she would have if she ever met him again, she didn’t know how to proceed. Especially when, in all of her imagined scenarios, she had at least washed her hair and worn real clothes.

  “Are you recovered otherwise?” she asked.

  “Completely. What was this reason you gave me for quitting?” he asked with brisk aggression, like his patience had been tested too long. “That you were pregnant?”

  She flashed a glance upward. “How would that be possible?” He’d gotten her pregnant after she put in her notice.

  “I’m no midwife, but it’s been eight months since my accident, not nine. You were dating that artist. Is it his?”

  Three dates with the painter nearly two years ago, thanks very much to her work schedule, and he still thought it was a thing.

  “I went into labor early.” She shifted to alleviate the pain in her torso. It was coming from his reaction, though, not her recent surgery. His lack of reaction. She’d always thought there was a hint of attraction on his side. He’d said that day that he’d always felt some, but maybe that had been a line.

  This was too incredible, not just having to convince a man that he was a father, but that they had had the sex that conceived his son.

  “I explained my reasons for quitting and then, um, we slept together. You really don’t remember that day?” she persisted.

  He stood with his arms folded and his gaze never wavering, but revealed a barely perceptible flinch. “No.”

  The way he was looking at her, like he was waiting for her to expound on the slept-together details made the pain squeezing her lungs rise to pinch her cheeks. A mix of indignation and agony and plain old shyness burned her alive.

  She glanced at the clock, recalling that the nurse had said she’d wake her when Enrique needed to be fed, but that they wouldn’t let him go more than four hours. It had been three since he’d last been placed in the incubator.

  “When I committed to five years, I didn’t know you’d be marrying before that.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Well, as I explained that day...” Oh, that day had been bittersweet, starting with their customary champagne toast to a project completed. She always loved that time. They so rarely relaxed together, but that was typically when they were both in good spirits. A real conversation about personal things might arise. She’d always felt close to him, then. Valued.

  She cleared her throat.

  “I realize one of the conditions of your taking over from your father was that you would marry the woman your parents chose for you. I just didn’t realize, when you hired me, how the timing would work. That you would get engaged before the five years of transitioning into the presidency were up.�
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  “So you gave notice because I was getting engaged. What did you think was going to happen between us, Sorcha?”

  “Nothing!”

  “And yet I’ve been named the father of your newborn. Keep talking.”

  Pity he’d lost a week’s worth of memories instead of that habit of demanding his time not be wasted.

  She dragged her gaze off his folded arms and the line of his shoulders. His nostrils were flared. He never lost his temper, but that contained anger was worse. She knew him. She knew with a roiling dread in her belly exactly how much he hated learning of any sort of perfidy. Keeping her pregnancy from him had been a massive act of self-preservation, but there was no way to protect herself now.

  “Wives are different from girlfriends.” She licked her lips, aware that his sharp gaze followed the action. An internal flutter started up under his attention, but she ignored it. “I wanted to work for you, not her.”

  “How were you working for her?”

  “Little things.” She shrugged. “If she wanted tickets for the theater, she asked me to buy them.”

  “That happened once! You bought them for me all the time.”

  “Exactly. For you.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “So when you told me in your interview that you would never become possessive, that was a lie?”

  “I wasn’t being possessive,” she insisted. Okay, she’d been a little bit possessive. Maybe. “It wasn’t just buying the tickets. It meant I was expected to put that event into your schedule regardless of anything else you might have planned.”

  “You rearranged my calendar a hundred times a day anyway. Did you need a raise for this extra responsibility?” That was pretty much what he’d said that day, right down to the facetious tone.