The Consequence He Must Claim. Dani Collins

what the position earns and I’d be happy to show his replacement how to do his job. Frankly, given the loyalty I have demonstrated, I’d expect not to be overlooked for a promotion just because I’m a woman.”

      Astute, tough, competent, devoted. Beautiful.

      “Five years, no sex,” he heard himself say.

      “Not with you,” she confirmed.

      “You’re underestimating your workload if you think you’ll have time for sex with anyone, Ms. Kelly. Be here Monday.”

      So he found her attractive, he’d mentally scoffed. He knew how to keep his hands to himself. Nothing would happen between them.

      * * *

      A tickle on her cheek pulled Sorcha from sleep. She brushed at it, bumping against a warm hand that moved away as she opened her eyes.

      Cesar.

      A sensation of falling hit her, like the mattress was gone and she was falling, falling, falling into an abyss.

      While his aqua eyes stayed on her, like he was falling with her as she plummeted, a bird of prey pursuing her, taking his time about snatching her out of the air, letting her feel the tension between temporary avoidance and anticipated capture.

      She had expected, if she ever saw him again, that it would be a sweet dawn of sunlit warmth, angels singing and flowers opening. There was none of that. Oh, she was happy, so happy to see him well and strong and looking as fit and commanding as ever. She wanted to smile.

      But this man was far too impactful for something so fairy-tale and romantic as merely “happy” feelings. He was a manifestation of a crash of thunder and a streak of lightning, his wide forehead and dark brows stern over those intense eyes that always met hers with such force. His cheeks wore his customary groomed stubble, framing an upper lip that was whimsically drawn and a thickly drawn lower one that had been a sensual delight to suck.

      Sex. Oh, this man oozed sex.

      She automatically closed her eyes, trying to fight the swell of attraction that lit in her nerves, firing through her system, but it had been far easier to control this response in those three years when she hadn’t known how he smelled and tasted. The pattern of hair on his chest flashed into her mind’s eye, arrowing a path down his sculpted abdomen to the turgid organ that had speared out shamelessly, thighs tense as he’d stood over her.

      Then he’d covered her, powerful arms gathering her beneath his heat as he’d thrust deep, that erotic mouth making love to hers—

      “Sorcha.” Even his voice made love to her all over again, suffusing her with remembered pleasure.

      I’m not ready for this!

      She looked through her lashes at him, trying to form some defenses against his effect while searching his expression for the languid, satisfied, tender man who’d kissed her before she’d snuggled against his nudity and fallen asleep.

      She closed her eyes again, telling herself she’d fallen asleep in Valencia, had a long, fraught dream and was now waking to...

      She opened her eyes to a gaze that had grown steely, absent of humor or warmth. His jaw was clenched. They weren’t even back to his customary good-morning, let’s-get-started, businesslike demeanor. This was the man who had dismissed the idea of hiring her at all before he’d even shaken her hand.

      “Hello, Cesar,” she managed to say, voice husked by sleep and emotion. “It’s good to see you’ve recovered.”

      “I assumed you expected the worst, given you quit before your contract was up.”

      A strangled laugh cut her throat, but she was grateful to him for going on the attack. Nothing gave her the ire to fight like being accused of behaving with anything less than integrity.

      “I gave you my reasons and you accepted them,” she said, reaching for the button to bring up her bed, then wincing as her abdomen protested. She fought not sliding into the footboard as the mattress rose behind her and used one hand to keep the blanket over her chest. “Do you really not remember that week?”

      His expression flattened, like a visor had come down to disguise his thoughts and feelings. She had spent three years earning his trust and wasn’t used to being shut out like that. Not anymore.

      “No. I don’t.” And he hated it. That much she could tell as she searched his expression.

      She didn’t know if she was relieved or crushed. The idea that he might remember their intimacy and hadn’t bothered to call had tortured her at her lowest points. His not remembering exonerated him to some extent, but it told her the closeness she’d felt, the connection, was all in her mind. Her memories. As far as he was concerned, they’d never progressed past the incidental touch of fingertips when passing a pen back and forth.

      And despite spending way too much time running through the million potential conversations she would have if she ever met him again, she didn’t know how to proceed. Especially when, in all of her imagined scenarios, she had at least washed her hair and worn real clothes.

      “Are you recovered otherwise?” she asked.

      “Completely. What was this reason you gave me for quitting?” he asked with brisk aggression, like his patience had been tested too long. “That you were pregnant?”

      She flashed a glance upward. “How would that be possible?” He’d gotten her pregnant after she put in her notice.

      “I’m no midwife, but it’s been eight months since my accident, not nine. You were dating that artist. Is it his?”

      Three dates with the painter nearly two years ago, thanks very much to her work schedule, and he still thought it was a thing.

      “I went into labor early.” She shifted to alleviate the pain in her torso. It was coming from his reaction, though, not her recent surgery. His lack of reaction. She’d always thought there was a hint of attraction on his side. He’d said that day that he’d always felt some, but maybe that had been a line.

      This was too incredible, not just having to convince a man that he was a father, but that they had had the sex that conceived his son.

      “I explained my reasons for quitting and then, um, we slept together. You really don’t remember that day?” she persisted.

      He stood with his arms folded and his gaze never wavering, but revealed a barely perceptible flinch. “No.”

      The way he was looking at her, like he was waiting for her to expound on the slept-together details made the pain squeezing her lungs rise to pinch her cheeks. A mix of indignation and agony and plain old shyness burned her alive.

      She glanced at the clock, recalling that the nurse had said she’d wake her when Enrique needed to be fed, but that they wouldn’t let him go more than four hours. It had been three since he’d last been placed in the incubator.

      “When I committed to five years, I didn’t know you’d be marrying before that.”

      “Meaning?”

      “Well, as I explained that day...” Oh, that day had been bittersweet, starting with their customary champagne toast to a project completed. She always loved that time. They so rarely relaxed together, but that was typically when they were both in good spirits. A real conversation about personal things might arise. She’d always felt close to him, then. Valued.

      She cleared her throat.

      “I realize one of the conditions of your taking over from your father was that you would marry the woman your parents chose for you. I just didn’t realize, when you hired me, how the timing would work. That you would get engaged before the five years of transitioning into the presidency were up.”

      “So you gave notice because I was getting engaged. What did you think was going to happen between us, Sorcha?”

      “Nothing!”

      “And