Free The Consequence He Must Claim by Dani Collins

let herself believe they were friends, especially when he did this, asked for her thoughts. He might not be in love, but talking about his forthcoming marriage still seemed profoundly personal. She couldn’t help but read in to it, believing he valued her opinion.
    “The thing that strikes me,” she said carefully, “is how different you are with her. I’ve seen you with women, Cesar.” She offered a tolerant smile. Did she resent those women? Hell, yes, but she’d known he was a playboy before she’d interviewed for the job. “I can make all the judgments I want about the quantity of women you date, but you always appear to like them. To be genuinely attracted. When you see Señorita Fuentes coming, you give her the same look you wear when greeting a tax auditor.”
    “I don’t lie to tax auditors, either,” he said flatly, looking away, mouth twisting with disgust. “Most people tell me I’m difficult to read, you know.”
    “You are. But I know you.”
    “Do you.” His gaze swung back to hers and something in the sudden connection made her heart skip.
    “I like to think so,” she disclosed.
    “Then you know this is how my life must go. You know about the industrial spying?”
    “Yes.” She’d read what she could find online about it. The court case had gone on for years, but the intellectual property that had been stolen hadn’t been something that could be reclaimed. Once Pandora’s box had been opened, there was no restitution.
    “It was my fault. I was using my father’s money, gambling that my work would pay back the coffers with interest. The work was stolen, the investment went bust and the legal bills were horrendous. Yes, we eventually retrieved a fraction of that in the settlement, but it was a pittance against the fortune that we should have had. We could have faced bankruptcy if not for Diega’s family helping us refinance. They stepped up because we’ve always had this understanding between our families that we would be joining forces when the time was right.”
    Sorcha couldn’t remember him ever directly referencing the espionage. The closest he’d come was mentioning the name of his first company, “the one that was lost.” Each word of what he’d just said had been bitten off with a gnash of his teeth, bitter and filled with self-recrimination.
    “If I’ve taken advantage of my freedom, enjoyed a ‘quantity’ of women,” he said, quoting her pithily, “it’s because I’ve always known my opportunity to do so was finite. I don’t intend to cheat on her, Sorcha. You won’t be expected to lie.”
    She smiled. His tenacity was so predictable. “My notice still stands.”
    “Because you think she’ll make it hard for you to do your job.” He shook his head. “If this was a love match, perhaps, but our marrying is a business decision. She knows my work is my priority. My life.”
    That statement struck her as alarmingly hollow. Sorcha gleaned a lot of satisfaction from her work, but a huge part of that satisfaction came from providing for the people she loved. Her life was her family. And Cesar, she added silently. Her heart was so misguided.
    “Cesar, my father married for those sorts of practical reasons,” she confided, clearing her throat because her soul was still pulled and frayed by the circumstances after his death. He’d failed them, not just financially, but by leaving them humiliated. She still nursed a deep hurt over that. “He needed the money to keep his family’s estate intact. Then he fell in love with my mother.”
    Cesar sat arrested for a moment. “I didn’t know that about you.”
    “That I’m illegitimate? The product of infidelity? I don’t advertise it.” She actively tried to hide it, in fact, but for his greater good she would reveal a little of her deepest shame. “I’m saying there are pitfalls to what you’re contemplating.”
    “Love?” He finished his drink and set down his glass, then pulled the dripping bottle from the