adness tugged at the corners of her pretty mouth.
What had it felt like to kiss her? As good as he’d always imagined?
His hand closed into a fist and a fresh wave of feeling cheated gripped him.
“I didn’t expect you could believe me, if the memory was gone. In every scenario, when I imagined convincing you or anyone else that Enrique was yours, I saw myself being paid off. I don’t want your money.” Her eyes met his, as steady and truthful as he’d ever seen her. “The only reason I gave your name on the forms here was because it was an emergency. If I hadn’t made it through the surgery, I didn’t want my mother burdened with the cost of raising Enrique. At that point, yes, I would hope you would open your wallet.”
A chill moved through him at her saying “hadn’t made it through.” He brushed aside the thought of such a disturbing outcome and latched on to her other shocking admission. “So you never would have told me?”
She looked down, chewing the inside of her lip. “Never is a long time.” Her gaze flicked up uncertainly. “Enrique might have had questions. I was going to wait and see.”
He was flabbergasted.
He reminded himself the boy might not be his, but damn it, he’d spent three years entrusting Sorcha with confidential information, decisions that affected stock prices, personal opinions that he hadn’t shared with anyone else... Aside from leaving him when he’d been at his lowest point, she’d never let him down. From their first meeting, she’d been disarmingly frank, in fact.
So had he. She knew exactly how he felt about people who lied and kept secrets and messed with his scrupulously ordered life.
“I’m not ‘waiting to see,’” he growled, aware that despite a lack of hard evidence he did believe her. “I called off my wedding.”
She took that in with a stunned expression, then recovered with a shaken little shrug. “Well, I didn’t ask you to. I don’t have designs on you myself, if that’s what you’re worried about.” She made the claim firmly enough, but her lashes trembled as she flicked another look at him.
Like she was trying not to betray that, on some level, she’d entertained the idea.
That didn’t surprise him. He was a rich, titled, healthy man. All women took his measure and often made a play. According to his sister, it was basic biology. He had the kind of power and resources that appealed to fertile women looking for a mate to provide for her young.
And that was what Sorcha ought to expect if he was indeed the father of her child.
“Really,” he said skeptically, folding his arms, taken aback, but when had Sorcha not surprised him?
“Really,” she affirmed. “If you want to make provisions for your son, that’s your choice, but I will proceed as if I’ll be supporting Enrique alone.”
Of course he would support his child. That wasn’t even something he had to consciously decide, it was such a no-brainer. What kind of man failed to provide the basics of life to his offspring?
The natural progression of that thought—how he would provide for Enrique—was a more complex decision he was holding off contemplating.
All his life, he’d had a perfect defense against ambitious women: he was tied to an arranged marriage of his parents’ choosing. Now, for the first time in his life, he was free of that encumbrance, yet morally bound to at least consider marriage to Sorcha.
If Enrique was his.
That odd rush of longing for the boy to be his rose again, stronger this time, bunching his muscles with anticipation as though he could physically fight for the outcome he wanted.
“I wasn’t trying to trap you that day,” Sorcha continued, brow wrinkling. “We had some champagne and talked about personal things. I felt—” She flushed and swallowed, but forced her chin up to meet his gaze with defiance. “I felt like we were friends. That’s why I slept with you.” Her expression darkened to one of hurt and betrayal. “But when I came to the hospital to see you, Diega told me you called me your last hurrah.”
Sorcha’s gaze took a scathing sweep that sliced across him. Slash, slash, slash, like Zorro’s sword dissecting him into pieces.
“She said I had become a challenge. A conquest—her word—that you couldn’t stand to let get away. I’ve been so comforted all these months, Cesar, knowing you had a good laugh at my expense right before you nearly died.”
CHAPTER THREE
SHE POLITELY KICKED Cesar out after that. Enrique needed to go to bed and so did she. She was exhausted emotionally and physically. Cesar was too much on her best day and she was not at her best.
Still, the fact he hadn’t tried to defend himself before he departed wrenched her soul from her body.
She was hurting. Furious. He wanted to know why she hadn’t told him they’d made a baby? Because it hadn’t meant anything to him. If it had, if she had, he would have called her before now.
She took a shaken breath, wondering if he would come back.
Don’t be stupid, she berated herself. She’d given him a get-out-of-jail-free card. Note to self: don’t gamble unless you’re prepared to lose.