“So you’ve been letting everyone think—How do you know the baby wasn’t yours?”
“I had the coroner run tests.”
“You told me that day you two weren’t sleeping together.” She twitched in his grip.
He released her. His palm felt cold, even inside his glove. He was solid ice, all the way to his core, still playing what-ifs in his head.
“Do you think she knew it wasn’t yours?” she asked tentatively.
“Of course she knew,” he spat with the contempt he felt for himself as much as for Faustina. “I had already begun to suspect. As soon as they found her, I knew what she had done. We weren’t sleeping together. We made love once during our engagement. Faustina insisted. Said she wanted to be sure we’d be a good fit. After that, there were excuses. Headaches. Finally she said we should wait until the ceremony, to make our wedding night more exciting.”
He hadn’t argued. The first experience had barely moved him, certainly hadn’t rocked his world the way another very memorable experience had. He skimmed his gaze over Poppy’s face, so ghostly in the moonlight.
He’d told himself things would improve with Faustina once they got to know one another. He hadn’t realized yet that it was possible to fall into immersive pleasure so profound he could be transported from the world around him. So much so that he made love with a woman he barely knew in the near-public solarium and had thought about her every day since.
He ran his gloved hand over his face. The seam in his palm scraped his skin, allowing him to focus on the rest of the ugly story.
“I believe she learned she was pregnant and slept with me so she could pass the baby off as mine.”
“When?”
He knew what she was asking. “A few weeks before she broke things off with me on the day you and I were together.”
Poppy rubbed her arm where he’d held her elbow.
“I’ve since learned that when she left my parents’ house, she went straight to her own and told them she had called off the wedding. Her father threatened to disinherit her. They’re very faithful and strict, demanded she abide by the agreement. They would have fired the driver if they’d had any inkling of her reason. Maybe even sued him for damages or destroyed him in some other way. Faustina’s choice was to live destitute with her lover or crawl back to me.”
It was the only explanation for how a stable, well-bred, otherwise honest woman could have behaved in such an underhanded way.
“A week before they died, she used her settlement from our marriage to close on a small house in the north of Spain, near his relatives. That’s where they were headed.”
“That’s so...sad.”
“Sad and sordid and I torture myself every day wondering if she would be alive if I’d refused to marry her that next morning.”
“Why did you agree? The presidency?” Her voice panged in a way that grated against his conscience. The opportunity to run Faustina’s father’s company, proving himself in his own arena away from Cesar’s shadow, had been the carrot that drew him into the engagement, but it wouldn’t have enticed him to go through with the wedding the second time.
“She said she’d just found out she was pregnant, that it was the reason she’d been so emotional the day before. She said the baby was from that one time—when I used a condom, by the way. I should have suspected she was lying, but...” Here were the what-ifs. What if he had asked more questions, balked, told her he’d slept with the maid? That he’d liked it.
He hadn’t done any of that. He’d done his duty by his family. He had done what was expected because, “I thought the baby was mine.”
“When did you start to suspect it wasn’t?”
“The wedding night. She didn’t want to have sex. Said the pregnancy was turning her off.” Rico had been nursing his own regrets and hadn’t pressed her. “She was very moody. Conflicted, obviously. And putting her ducks in a row to leave me. We never did sleep together again. Things grew strained as I realized she was keeping something from me. I put off a confrontation, but it was coming. Then I got the call from her father.”
“I’m so sorry, Rico. It’s truly awful that you’ve had to carry this.”
“I don’t want your pity, Poppy.” He curled his hands into fists, straining the seams in his gloves. “I want your silence. I expect it. Not even Cesar knows and we don’t keep much from one another. But I swore to her parents I’d keep it quiet.”
“What about the company?”
“Her father asked me to stay on as President. He’s sickened that she tricked me. I could weather the scandal if the truth came out, but it would destroy them. Despite Faustina’s behavior, they’re good people. I don’t want to hurt them any more than they have been.”
“I’ll never say a word,” she promised.
He nodded, believing her because they were in this together now.
“You understand why I told you? If she had been honest and up front about her situation, I would have helped her, maybe even raised that baby if she had asked me to. I wouldn’t have punished the child for her failings.” His anger returned, making his nostrils sting. “But I don’t appreciate that you have also kept secrets from me, Poppy.”