Chapter Eleven
Agustin half dozed, but unlike the last time he had allowed this to happen, he did not let Mara out of his arms. Though he’d told himself it was goodbye, he was not satisfied with that. At all. And in the past, when he was not satisfied, he fixed things, didn’t he? He could fix this somehow.
“Perhaps we have been too laser focused,” he murmured. The thought wasn’t fully formed. Nothing was. He was floating on feeling and satisfaction. A dangerous combination. “The countess is not the only woman I could marry to fix my problems.”
Mara stiffened in his arms, the first alarm bell that he had let his feelings do a little too much of the thinking. That he would be misunderstood, as he so often was.
But this was Mara. She had always understood him, anticipated his needs, made things happen for him. It was why she was the right choice. Not some countess.
“A marriage to me would be a scandal, if this is what you’re suggesting,” she said, something in her tone he could not quite decipher.
He did not reply to that right away. He had not come out and suggested marriage exactly, but he supposed there was no other way to interpret what he’d said. He supposed there was no other meaning behind what he’d said.
“Your entire point in this whole endeavor is to avoid a scandal. Thwart Felipe’s scandal with an upstanding and newsworthy choice of your own.” She wriggled out of his grasp, slid off the bed. “I would be newsworthy, no doubt, but not in the way you want.”
He watched her jerk on her clothes and found himself warming to the idea rather than backing away from it. She was already such a huge part of his life, knew how to handle everything. Julia already knew her. Maybe the answer had been under his nose this entire time. “Perhaps I have been wrong.”
She turned to face him now, eyes blazing.
There was no hint she agreed—or even wanted to agree with him.
“You have a child to think of,” she told him fiercely.
“Can you imagine how she’ll be treated? Raised as the daughter of the assistant you slept with?
The stories will not be kind. People will question power imbalances.
Your integrity. And your rivals will question and undermine Sosten’s missions by tales of you and your brother’s escapades. ”
He pushed himself into a sitting position and frowned. She was speaking sense, and yet it didn’t land right. “This is hardly an escapade.”
“It does not matter. You have to see that, and you will when you begin to think with your brain again.”
He tossed the blankets off of him, perhaps a little satisfied when her gaze dropped, even if only momentarily.
“I am thinking with my brain, Mara. I am considering how easy it would be. You know the situation. You know the end goal. I do not have to worry about you spilling any secrets about Julia. You love her.”
A look of anguish crossed her features, but she shook her head.
“The countess will cause a stir, a good stir. There will be interest and press, and if you add a baby, that much more. But it will be the good kind. No one will question the pedigree of the countess or whether you took advantage of her.”
“Are you accusing me of something?”
“I am not, but people will. Many people. And Julia will bear the brunt of that. We will not throw away Julia’s future well-being for sex.” She lifted her chin, fiery and determined, but there were still tears in her eyes. “I will not.”
Sex. It seemed such a simple word to describe everything he was feeling when it came to her. But she was not wrong. Per usual, everything she brought up was decidedly on point and no doubt correct.
To argue with her would be to accept something else was at play here. That marrying her held some appeal, and that was utterly ridiculous. It was just a simple answer, but if she did not want to be the simple answer? Fine enough.
“Very well.”
She exhaled loudly, then gave a sharp nod. “I hope you have a successful trip,” she told him and sounded like she meant it. Even as she stalked through the bathroom door and closed it—quietly of course—behind her.
He stared at the door. Successful trip. So professional. So distant. Successful trip.
To seek an engagement to another woman. A woman he didn’t want.
Wanting doesn’t matter when it comes to marriage. Marriage is little more than a business. A partnership.
And still, all he could seem to think was he’d much prefer Mara as his partner in all things.
And such a thing could never be.
Mara thought she had known heartbreak before, but having to reject Agustin’s foolish proposal—if one could even call it that—nearly decimated her.
The only thing that saved her was caring for Julia while Agustin was away. Proposing to someone else.
“The right someone else,” she muttered.
“What was that?” Senora Silva asked from where she stood over the kitchen sink cleaning up Julia’s latest mess.
“Nothing,” Mara said, trying to smile.
The days had passed more easily than she’d expected. With Agustin away, she could almost function like a normal human being. Maybe she cried herself to sleep every night, but during the day she could work and care for Julia and almost feel whole again.
It had been nearly a week, and she was almost to the point of convincing herself she could stay in this position as long as she and Agustin kept their physical distance. The past few weeks had proven she could work remotely.
But then all her certainties and belief crumbled when she heard heavy footfalls in the hall outside the kitchen. The kind that could only be one person, even though the travel accommodations she’d made for him had him returning tomorrow, not tonight.
Her heart raced. She watched the entry, desperate to see him.
He appeared in a suit. His hair was just a tad mussed as if he’d spent some time in the wind between the plane and the castle. How she ached to reach out and smooth it into place.
His gaze landed on her for less than a second, and she had to be glad it did not linger. Because it ricocheted through her like a bullet, rearranging everything.
There could be nothing between them now. She had to draw that line, or she would have to quit immediately. If she could not start getting her physical reactions under control, leaving was going to be the only option.
Julia squealed in delight, and the hard planes of Agustin’s face softened. He crossed to her, while Mara stayed totally still.
She hadn’t let herself dwell on it, but the truth existed here in this moment. She’d missed him. It was an ache so deep she didn’t know how to assuage it, and she worried that she would not be strong enough to walk away. That she would stand in the shadows of his life, watching in pain, forever.
Would it be so terrible? If she at least got to watch? Wouldn’t losing him and Julia forever be so much worse?
“I need to clean her up,” Mara managed, though her voice sounded strangled.
Agustin did not so much as look at her. He held out his hand. “I will do it.”
She handed him the rag, and he carefully wiped Julia’s face and hands of the pureed carrot she’d enjoyed this evening.
“You will sit and eat,” Senora Silva commanded.
“I have made you a plate.” She bustled about the kitchen to get the plate and warm up the food she’d set aside for him.
She’d done it every night, even when Mara had insisted he wasn’t coming.
The senora seemed to be sure Agustin would come running back.
Mara hated it.
Still, when she placed the plate in front of Agustin at the table, a bouncing, excited Julia in his lap, Mara gave the older woman’s arm a squeeze. “It is late. I’ll fuss over him and clean everything up, Carmen. Don’t worry about it.”
“All right. Buenas noches. Que descanse.”
Both Agustin and Mara muttered their own goodnights, and then it was simply the three of them.
She could feel Agustin’s gaze on her, but Mara focused on cleaning up what little was left in the kitchen to be tidied.
“You are on a first-name basis now?” he asked, his voice low and far too potent in the quiet of the kitchen.
“It was beginning to feel silly remaining so formal,” she said with her back to him. “How did the week with the countess go?” Because that was what was important. His progress with the countess.
When he said nothing, she had to look over her shoulder at him.
He was eating, and he kept his gaze on his plate.
She could read nothing in his expression, even as Julia patted her hand against his neck.
When he finally spoke, it was quietly and thoughtfully.
“The countess has some…reservations. I wanted to ensure she was comfortable with the idea of being a mother before I told her specifically about Julia, and she balked some. She wants some time to consider if she would be amenable to children in our lives together.”
Time. What kind of time? Mara nearly demanded. But she managed to keep her expression placid. Time was not a negative if it meant she got more time with Julia. But Agustin underfoot again? This was a negative.
“I spoke with my mother,” he continued. “They are doing a better job of handling the press in Switzerland. Sosten’s PR department is still handling relentless requests for information on Felipe, and some distant family members and old friends of his are continuing to fan the fires of speculation, but ensuring Julia is safe and unknown remains the priority, so we will give it some time yet. ”
Time. What the hell was Mara supposed to do with time? But she couldn’t ask him that. It spoke too much of her own issues. “What of your work schedule?”
He glanced up, cool and unreadable. “If you are amenable, I will return to the mainland. While the countess considers her options, we continue to look for Julia’s mother and keep her existence a secret, you will stay here with her and work remotely.
I realize you are not a nanny, and this is not ideal, but I am not yet ready to bring in any third parties on this manner. ”
“I agree with you,” she said. “As long as Julia’s safety is of concern, I will gladly stay and do what is needed. But…for how long?”
“The countess has agreed to think it over. When she has come to a conclusion, we will discuss Julia specifically and go from there. One step at a time.”
“And if she does not agree? If she does not want to be a mother?”
His gaze met hers then. She was reminded too much of that night when he’d suggested they marry…like that could ever be an option.
“Then I suppose we will need to make other arrangements.”
Mara had to swallow at the lump in her throat. “She’ll agree,” she said. Firmly. For herself, she supposed, more than because it was a foregone conclusion. She needed it to be a foregone conclusion.
Agustin got to his feet. “I intend to return to the mainland tonight, but I wished to see Julia before I did.” He gave her a little bounce that had her giggling. “Please thank Senora Silva for the meal.”
“Yes, of course.”
For a brief moment, they stood a room apart, staring at each other, saying nothing. Perhaps only hearing the echo of their own heartbeats in their ears.
“I will email you my preferred travel schedule in the morning.” Stiffly, he moved across the room to her and handed Julia off.
Mara made very sure no parts of their bodies so much as brushed.
“For the next week, I will return to my normal duties. If you cannot handle yours from here or because of Julia’s needs, delegate whatever needs delegating. ”
“Of course,” she told him, but she kept her gaze on Julia. “Julia comes first.”
She got the impression he wanted to say something to that, but in the end, he did not say anything else.
He left.
And the next few weeks went on in the same fashion. Agustin would sweep in for an afternoon, a morning, an evening. He never spent the night, but he always spent time with Julia.
And for nearly a month, Mara lived a completely different life.
The life of a mother.
She knew it was wrong to think of herself as such. She was a glorified nanny. But she loved Julia like her own. She’d begun to love this life as her own.
But none of it was hers.
And never would be.