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.”
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.
Swallowing back her misery, she resigned herself to raising Enrique alone, already missing Cesar. She had missed him all these months, missed his dynamic pursuit of his goals, his easy command of any situation, his bursts of enthusiasm for a fresh project and his nod of satisfaction over a job well done.
She would keep missing him so much.
Except...
He was different. He’d always had that air of contained energy, but there was a higher, colder wall around him, not that he’d ever been the most demonstrative person. His entire family was like that: aloof and reserved. She had always thought it ironic that, despite their Latin roots, the Monteros were devoid of the clichéd warmth and short fuse one was taught to expect from the Spanish.
Was it the situation? Or had the accident changed him in a fundamental way? Because by the time they’d opened up to each other that day in Valencia, she’d moved from intimidation through hero worship to falling in love with the man she’d come to know. She had thought she’d known him quite well, despite the fact he hadn’t divulged more to her than, she suspected, anyone else he’d ever confided in. She had simply observed.
Her heart lurched as she settled herself in her bed, thinking of all the small ways he’d proven to be more than a focused businessman governed by logic and the scientific method. In her three years of working for him, he’d revealed himself to be caring enough to catch a loose dog off a highway so it wouldn’t get hit. He’d let her in on his secretive experiments with metallurgy that didn’t always have a practical purpose, he just had to know. He bordered on being a nerd about those things, actually, bemusingly eager to report his findings.
And even though he had a dry wit, he rarely laughed. Except around her. She actively tried to make him laugh, just to hear his surprised snort.
Sorcha swallowed, recalling how they’d split that bottle of champagne that day, congratulating each other. That was another thing she adored about him. He acknowledged her contribution, never taking all the glory for himself.
Tomorrow, she had been thinking as they clinked glasses that afternoon. Tomorrow she would draft up his thank-you letters to the various department heads. He would go through each one, noting specific areas of achievement and offering his appreciation. It wasn’t sentimental, he’d assured her the first time he’d given her the task. “Research shows that positive reinforcement achieves better results than negative feedback. Moving forward, the teams will be doubly motivated to strive for excellence.
“Nice work with the press,” he’d said to her as they sipped their champagne, adding the warning, “It will get worse.”
“I know.” His father was moving into politics and every level of media, from serious journalists to paparazzi, was turning over rocks, eager for something to crawl out. But with one verbal pat on the back from her exalted boss, Sorcha mentally dug in, determined to keep earning his approval.
For a moment they’d shared a comfortable silence. The sun had painted muted patches of light on the oriental carpet, shining through the coated glass of the windows. His phone had chimed on his desk and he’d had his guard down enough that he didn’t disguise the twist of dismay that contorted his mouth before he controlled it.
Only his family had his direct number, but he didn’t rise or ask her to fetch it.
Oh, right. Diega Fuentes, his soon-to-be fiancée, also had the number.
Cesar topped up their sparkling glasses, ignoring the call.
Leaning forward on the sofa, Sorcha set down her glass, taking advantage of Cesar’s attention on his placement of the bottle back into its ice bucket to memorize his profile, so sharp and proud. His big shoulders shrugged briefly as he settled back into his chair. He lifted his feet onto the coffee table and crossed his ankles, releasing a contented sigh.
This was their private ritual, this brief celebration of closing out a project. In a moment his mind would turn to the stages of all the other projects they were juggling and she would set her phone to record his musings. She might rise to fetch a notebook or search out a file or drawing as they began prioritizing their next series of tasks.
But not yet. Right now, this was their downtime.
And she had some business of her own to address.
“You have something to say,” he noted, watchful beneath those lazily drooped eyelids, making her feel self-conscious. When had he learned to read her?
She swallowed. This was the moment she’d been waiting for and it was harder than she’d expected. Her throat tightened and the words came up with a little rasp, dragging a barb. “I have to put in my notice.”
“Did you mishear me? I said you did well with the press.”
She smiled, but it didn’t stick. I’m serious, she telegraphed.
He lifted disdainful brows. “You promised me five years.”
“I did,” she admitted.
“Something to do with your family?”
“No.” His question surprised her. Apart from the incident with her niece, she hadn’t realized he’d noticed how important her family was to her, especially given how indifferent he seemed toward his own. “No, it’s...” She hadn’t figured out how to approach this without coming off as insulting him, his family, his attitude toward marriage and his intended. “You know how sometimes you ask me to tell a white lie to a woman you’re dating, to say you’ve left the building when they drop by unannounced? Or to take the fall if you forget to call? That kind of thing?”
“I didn’t put that in your job description. You did.” He took a healthy swallow of sparkling wine, expression shuttered, all his attention on her.
He certainly took advantage of her willingness to send flowers, pay bills, cosset and reassure the revolving door of women he dated.
“I did,” she agreed. “Because I took a job working as PA to a bachelor and that’s a sort of job hazard. Working for a married man is different.” She looked at her hands to remind herself to keep them still because it made her a little sick to think of him married to that ice queen Diega Fuentes. “You either become friends with his wife, in which case you can’t lie to her for any reason, even if your boss asks you to, or she sees you as an extension of his job—that thing that takes him away from her. And she makes it hard for you to do your work effectively.”
“You