Sorcha had pressed her sons onto him over the years, which had achieved her goal of provoking feelings of affection in him, but, like his parents, he viewed children as something between a duty and a social experiment. Even when he had briefly believed Faustina had been carrying his heir, the idea of being a father had only been that—an idea. Not a concept he had fully internalized or a role he understood how to fulfill effectively. Fatherhood hadn’t been something he had viewed with anticipation the way other creative projects had inspired him.
But here he sat, watching eyes the same color as his own track to the doorway where Poppy had disappeared. A wet finger pointed. “Mama.”
“She’ll be right back.” He imagined Poppy would actually spend a few minutes talking to her grandmother in private.
Lily smiled before she leaned forward, mouth open.
Damn, she was beautiful. It wasn’t bias, either. Or his fondness for the nephews she resembled. She had her mother’s fresh snowy skin and red-gold lashes, healthy round cheeks and a chin that suggested she had his stubbornness along with his eyes.
A ridiculous swell of pride went through him even as he reminded himself that he didn’t know conclusively that she was his. The DNA test off the cup had been a long shot and hadn’t proved paternity either way.
Nevertheless, he’d been propelled as much by the absence of truth as he would have been by the presence of it. From the time Sorcha had revealed her suspicion, a ferocious fire had begun to burn in him, one stoked by yet another female keeping secrets from him. Huge, life-altering secrets.
He hadn’t wanted to wait for more tests, or hire lawyers, or even pick up the phone and ask. He had needed to see for himself.
Who? a voice asked in the back of his head.
Both, he acknowledged darkly. He had needed to set eyes on the baby, whom he recognized on a deeply biological level, and on the woman who haunted his memories.
Poppy had seemed so guileless. So refreshingly honest and real.
He thought back to that day, searching for the moment where he’d been tricked into making a baby with a woman who had then kept her pregnancy a secret.
He remembered thinking his mother wouldn’t appreciate him popping a bottle of the wedding champagne—even though she’d procured a hundred cases that had been superfluous because the wedding had been called off.
Rico had helped himself to his father’s scotch in the billiards room instead. He had taken it through to the solarium, planning to bum a cigarette from the gardener. It was a weakness he had kicked years ago, but the craving still hit sometimes, when his life went sideways.
It was the end of the day, though
. The sun-warmed room was packed to the gills with lilies brought in to replace the ones damaged by a late frost. The solarium was deserted and the worktable in the back held a dirty ashtray and a cigarette pack that was empty.
“Oh! I’m so sorry.”
The woman spoke in English, sounding American, maybe. He turned to see the redheaded maid who’d been on the stairs an hour earlier, when Faustina had been throwing a tantrum that had included one of his mother’s Wedgwoods, punctuating the end of their engagement. He would come to understand much later what sort of pressure Faustina had been under, but at the time, she’d been an unreasonable, clichéd diva of a bride by whom he’d been relieved to have been jilted.
And the interruption by the fresh-faced maid had been a welcome distraction.
Her name was Poppy. He knew that without looking at the embroidered tag on her uniform. She stared with wide doe eyes, the proverbial deer in headlights, startled to come upon him pilfering smokes as though he was thirteen again.
“I mean...um...perdón.” She pivoted to go back the way she’d come.
“Wait. Do you have a cigarette?” he asked in English.
“Me? No.” She swung back around. “Do I look like a smoker?”
Her horror at resembling such a thing amused him.
“Do I?” he drawled. “What do we look like? The patriarchy?”
“I don’t know.” She chuckled and blushed slightly, her clear skin glowing pink beneath the gold of filtered sunlight, like late afternoon on untouched ski slopes. “I, um, didn’t know you smoked.” She swallowed and linked her hands shyly before her.
Ah. She’d been watching him, too, had she?
His mother’s staff had been off-limits since his brother’s first kiss with a maid before Rico had even had a shot at one. He didn’t usually notice one from another, but Poppy had snagged his attention with her vibrant red hair. Curls were springing free of the bundle she’d scraped it into, teasing him with fantasies of releasing the rest and digging his hands into the kinky mass.
The rest of her was cute as hell, too, if a bit skinny and young. Maybe it was her lack of makeup. That mouth, unpainted, but with a plump bottom lip and a playful top was all woman. Her brows were so light, they were almost blond, her chin pert, her eyes a gentle yet very direct dark ale-brown.
No, he reminded himself. He was engaged.