by Dani Collins
Today? As much as she wanted to see her mother, Sorcha really wanted a nap.
He packed her case while she sat on the bed and nursed, then she slept on his private plane as they flew to Cork. Her customary seat greeted her like an old friend. The hostess knew how to make her tea just right and brought it without asking.
Sorcha relaxed in a way she never had in the flat she’d just vacated. She felt like she was home.
Because she was going home, she reasoned when she woke, groggy and thinking again that her pregnancy had been a dream. But there was Enrique in the seat next to his father, blinking and alert, thankfully unaware his father was sending him the puzzled look he reserved for unexpected experimentation results.
They drove down the coast to her mother’s village and a warm welcome.
Cesar, being a man who didn’t just know how to disrobe a woman, but could outfit them effortlessly, had flown in a modiste from a Paris boutique. The bridal gown she brought only needed a few nips and tucks and the woman took care of that in her mother’s lounge.
The dress wasn’t something Sorcha would have chosen for herself, but it was incredibly flattering. Its empire waist disguised her recent pregnancy and its seed-pearl-encrusted bodice and off-the-shoulder straps made the most of her chest—currently her best asset. Her hair never held a curl, but the straight, golden strands looked right beneath a crown of pink rosebuds.
She looked like a Celtic goddess, strong and empowered.
Cesar spent the night at the hotel while she stayed with her family and poured out her heart, including her concerns about her marriage.
“I can’t imagine any man not loving you,” her sister said, squeezing her hand.
Sorcha appreciated the sentiment, but half expected to be stood up at the altar. The entire village was holding their breath to see it, she was sure, but she went through the motions of dressing for her wedding.
The morning ceremony was held in the church Sorcha had attended growing up, and was, secretly, her most cherished dream come true.
When she saw Cesar waiting at the altar for her, she felt more than relief. Pride. Joy. The sun came out long enough to splash reds and blues and greens from the stained glass windows onto the worn, golden pews and gray stone floor. Cesar had provided all the women with corsages, which, along with her elegant bouquet, perfumed the air with the scent of lilies and roses. The moment was pure and reverent.
Cesar wore a morning coat and had shaved. He hated shaving, which was why he wore stubble most of the time. He wore stubble really well, truth be told, but with his cheeks clean, his face looked narrow and sharp, his sensual mouth more pronounced.
Perhaps it was a severe mood putting that tautness in his expression, she thought, but as her sister played her down the aisle with a pretty march, he watched her with a gaze that pulled her forward. His eyes had never looked so much like white-hot metal, the green-blue giving way to silvery heat, hammered and binding.
Emotive tears came to her eyes. Was she really marrying her boss?
His hands were reassuringly steady as he held her trembling ones, his voice strong where hers cracked with emotion. She didn’t know if that meant he was more confident in this marriage than she was, or less emotionally invested.
Financially, dear Lord, he appeared more than willing to invest. The platinum band he put on her finger was already soldered to its matching engagement ring. The stone in the one ring was a princess-cut diamond with emerald baguettes on either side, then another pair of smaller princess diamonds. The rest of the setting, like the wedding band, was alternating diamonds and square-cut emeralds.
She could hardly speak as she pushed his simple platinum band with one winking green emerald onto his swarthy hand. Hers. He belonged to her. The knowledge quivered through her like an arrow had lodged in her heart and vibrated with the impact.
Closing her two hands over his, she silently prayed, Let him be mine.
They received their blessing and he kissed her, keeping it chaste in this house of God, but her lips burned, making her press them together to tamp down on the tingle.
They had luncheon at the village’s best hotel. The town’s seaside location meant busy summers, which sustained a few high-end establishments like this one. The rooms weren’t big, but the view overlooked the beach, the decor and amenities were top-notch, and the food and service excellent.
Well, aside from the askance look she caught from a former schoolmate as the woman poured the tea.
Despite the posh atmosphere, Sorcha had to wonder what Cesar thought of the hotel and her mother’s house and her birthplace. They would be sharing his suite as a family tonight and smart as she expected it to be—the suite was called The Royal for a reason—it was still far from the spacious luxury he was used to.
In the past, when Sorcha had indulged in fantasies of bringing him home to meet her family, they’d had time to visit all her favorite haunts: the beach, fudge from the sweet shop... Maybe cycle past the mansion to see how her mother’s roses were doing.
She didn’t know why she did that to herself, but if the weather was fine, she always went past the house where she’d grown up. It was masochistic on some level, but her father was the only member of his family who’d spent any time there. His English family had never used it. After his death, they’d sold it to an American actor, who rarely visited. The house stood empty, which infuriated Sorcha all over again at being evicted.
Today the clouds were low and the sky drizzly, so they were staying indoors. She didn’t take the gloom as a bad omen, though. The sun had made another brief appearance as they left the church, casting angelic rays through the clouds so the cobblestones and brightly painted facades along the high street glistened. In the distance, the hills had glowed a verdant jade. The faint tang of salt in the air was brisk and fresh, putting color in all their cheeks. Despite her misgivings, in that moment of leaving the church as Cesar’s wife, her future had looked brilliant.
But she wondered what Cesar was thinking of all this. While she and her sisters talked a mile a minute, Sorcha cast a wary glance toward him—was he really her husband? Was he enjoying his conversation with the one other male in their party, her brother-in-law, Corm?
Corm was usually very closemouthed, if endearingly tolerant of his wife’s family. He had grown up around the bunch of them, since he and her second sister had made Sorcha’s niece before either of them had finished school. They now owned a pub and were doing well enough with their family of four, but their early years had been a terrible struggle.
“Football,” Cesar responded when she asked him later what they’d talked about.
Of course, she thought with a private grin. Both men were fans.
“Your sister didn’t stay long. Do you think—” She didn’t know what she thought he should think. Her own family’s scandal might have been replaced by a dozen others here in the village over the past fifteen years, but her turning up with Cesar’s baby and forcing him to cancel his wedding was a fresh scandal for his.
His sister, Pia, had come with camera in hand. She was a marine biologist, who, apparently, was willing to photograph more than orca fins and sea stars. When Sorcha had thanked her for coming, she’d offered a polite if somewhat inscrutable, “Thank you for including me. The ceremony was very nice.”
Had Cesar invited his entire family and only Pia had shown up?
She realized Cesar was waiting for her to finish what she was saying.
“I don’t know.” She shrugged self-consciously. “It didn’t sound like your family was pleased by our marriage. I’m glad she came, but I was surprised to see her.”
He paced restlessly, no doubt feeling claustrophobic in this narrow sitting room, if not by their shotgun wedding. “She was headed to Iceland for a symposium. It was on the way.”
“Well, it was nice to se
e her. I’ll have to send a note.” She was babbling, nervous as she changed their son on the sofa, already thinking about how she would undress and share that slant-ceilinged bedroom with Cesar after they went down for dinner.
She was also feeling the pressure of this marriage, perhaps not trapped in it, but surrounded by hazards and obstacles. She was very unsure how her life would proceed.
But it was time to overcome one of her biggest concerns, she decided, as she finished zipping Enrique into his pajamas.
“Here,” she said casually, scooping up the little bug and giving Cesar no choice but to take his son or drop him. He wouldn’t let the baby fall, she knew that, but with that many Kelly women vying for a chance to cuddle their nephew and grandson, and a carrier with a handle making the boy feel more like a suitcase as he was transferred in and out of cars and buildings, Cesar had put off touching his son for long enough.
“What...? Why...?”
“I have to wash my hands,” she said, moving into the powder room, pretending she didn’t notice that the whites of his eyes were showing. “I can’t leave him on the sofa. He might roll off,” she called back, taking her time like she was scrubbing for surgery, glancing in the mirror to ensure her most innocent expression was firmly in place.
Enrique was just over a week old and barely keeping his eyes open for longer than thirty minutes. He wasn’t going to roll anywhere for a while yet.
She came out to see Cesar wearing an uncomfortable expression. He held Enrique cradled in his two big hands, suspended in the air as though the infant was a dripping mess of sod or something equally cold and unpleasant that should be kept at a distance to avoid staining his clothes.
Her heart sank, but she reminded herself that his family wasn’t like hers. His sister had come to their wedding because it was on the way. Had he ever held a baby in his life?
Moving across, she ignored the way he offered the boy to her and gently pressed his hands closer to his own body. “Keep him warm while I change. And watch his neck. He’s holding his head up really well, but just in case. Talk to him.”
“About what?” Now he held Enrique against his shoulder like he’d grabbed one too many items in the grocery store and really wished he’d picked up a handbasket.
“He’s been listening to my voice for nine months and it makes him feel safe when he hears me. He needs to associate your voice with safety, too. Use Valencian. You don’t want me to teach it to him. I have an accent.” She headed for the bedroom.
When she glanced back, he was staring at her the way he looked when she gave him backtalk he didn’t like.
“Pretend he’s Corm. At least he won’t contradict you over who the best goalkeeper really is.”
* * *
Sorcha swung the door mostly closed and Cesar knew she was undressing behind it. That he was willing to help with. This...
He had held kittens as a child, when the mouser in the vineyard had had a litter, but never a human baby. He’d never even picked up a young child and this... This baby was so new and fragile, his skin so delicate, Cesar thought he’d tear him if he moved wrong.
And talk to him? He carefully eased Enrique into a more secure position in the crook of his arm and looked at the boy’s unguarded expression. He hadn’t needed the DNA report to believe this was his son, but he still didn’t see himself in that soft, round face.
“She’s crazy,” he said under his breath, wanting to ignore Sorcha’s ridiculous suggestion, but what she had said about Enrique finding security in the sound of his voice niggled. It’s not as if he wanted the opposite, for Enrique to fear the sound of his voice, but he hadn’t put together that his son would look to him for reassurance or, well, anything but basic needs and material items when he was old enough to ask for them.
What was he supposed to say? The kid was ten days old, barely able to control the wander of his gaze. He wouldn’t understand a word.
Blue eyes the same shade as Sorcha’s searched the ceiling with surprising alertness. So much like Sorcha’s, Cesar noted with fascination. Clear and such an undeniable blue and— Oh, hello. Direct. Enrique’s eyes found Cesar’s and stuck.
Cesar found himself lifting his brows in a silent “what now?”
Enrique’s tiny forehead furrowed with faint lines. His miniature brows climbed, reflecting the same query.
“Are you mocking me?” Cesar asked, astonished. A grin tugged at his mouth.
Enrique’s little mouth pulled in what looked a lot like a wavering attempt at a smile.
What the hell? Cesar looked up, something rising in him that was not unlike an unexpected discovery in the lab. Sorcha was still in the bedroom. It was just him and...
There was a word...
He searched for it and found it. Anthropomorphic. The attribution of human qualities to an animal or object. But that’s not what this was, he acknowledged as he waited with held breath for Enrique’s gaze to find his again. There was a person in there, he saw, as they looked into each other’s eyes. A brand-new mind trying to make sense of the world. Cesar saw beyond the lack of cognition in Enrique’s gaze to the desire to get there and an unexpected thump of empathy squeezed his heart.
“I know exactly how you feel,” he muttered, recalling his own awakening in the hospital to a world he didn’t recognize.
He found himself touching the boy’s closed fist, amused to see he was already a fighter.
Enrique opened his hand and grasped Cesar’s finger in a firm grip. He might as well have closed his tiny fist around Cesar’s lungs. Something happened in that moment, something uncomfortable. Cesar trusted no one, never left himself open, never gave his loyalty without a thousand tests. Yet this boy waltzed straight inside him and left a vulnerable opening behind.
At the same time, on the flip side of that vulnerability was a powerful, primal surge of protectiveness.
Cesar wasn’t the biologist his sister was, but he understood on an intellectual level that parents were supposed to feel a willingness to fight to the death for their offspring. It was all part of nature’s plan.
He still wasn’t prepared for the rush of protective instinct that came over him, filling him with the power and imperative to ensure this boy’s well-being. In that instant, he knew he could, and would, conquer anything for this boy.
Trying to ignore how shaken he was by the strange crumbling and rebuilding inside him, he lightly stroked the pad of his thumb across minuscule knuckles.
“I have your back,” he promised his son, then took note of the intense stare that failed to understand the depth of what he’d just vowed. “Maybe don’t wear the exact blank stare I give my own parents when I’m pretending to listen, hmm?”
* * *
Enrique was down for the night in the lounge. Cesar was glancing at the sports highlights on mute and Sorcha was staring at the bed they would share.
Actually, she glared at what had been left for her by the modiste. She had come back while they were at dinner to take the wedding gown back to Paris. She would mend any damage before she worked some kind of magic so the dress wouldn’t discolor in storage.
Was this sexy peignoir her idea? Or Cesar’s?
Either way, it was gorgeous, but a complete waste.
Sorcha folded her arms, staring holes into it, trying to justify starting her marriage in flannel pajama bottoms and an oversize T-shirt. But her husband had already reacted with a sideways look at what she’d worn to dinner: perfectly respectable black maternity dress pants and a white knit pullover with a cowl neck.
She heard the rattle of the remote onto a table and tensed as he came into the room. His gaze took in her disgruntled expression, then drifted to the silvery silk with blue lace poured across the fluffy white coverlet.
This was awful. She just blurted it out. “You know I can’t make love, right?”
“I was there when the doctor looked at me and said we should wait six weeks, yes,” he said drily, mostly closing the door so they could hear Enrique, but talk without disturbing him.
“Is this...?” She waved at the sexy lingerie. “Are you expecting me to do something tonight?” She was dying a death by a thousand blushes, voice thinning with how uncomfortable she was. Part of her wanted to touch him, give him pleasure. It was their wedding night, for heaven’s sake, but another part...
She tried to swallow the lump in her throat.
“Do you want to do something?” he asked, arms folded, rocking back on his heels. He sounded convinced that she didn’t.
“I don’t know,” she grumbled, crossing her own arms.
She wasn’t a prude, but she wasn’t terribly experienced. With her mother’s reputation hanging over them, then her sister’s teen pregnancy, the rest of them had tried to keep a low profile. The workplace hadn’t been much better. If Sorcha had wanted to be taken seriously, she had had to avoid flirting or dating coworkers. She’d had a couple of longer relationships, but her focus had always been on developing her career, not her bedroom skills.
She’d been starkly aware of the differences in their confidence levels that day in Valencia, but had thought Cesar had enjoyed himself as much as she had. Then she’d woken alone. Everything that had followed hadn’t exactly reassured her that he’d been fully satisfied by her efforts.
“She asked me if she should include a nightgown. I said yes.” He dismissed the conversation with a hitch of his shoulder. “It wasn’t meant as a demand to be serviced.” Insult underpinned his tone.
She scowled. “Don’t make me feel callow.”
“Callow?” he repeated.
“Green. Inexperienced. Virginal,” she explained.
“Do not tell me you were a virgin that day.” He froze, his gaze piercing hers.
“No. Of course not. I—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” he interrupted with a sweep of his hand.