Chapter Seventeen
The days passed, and they began to settle into a schedule.
Mara was learning how to mitigate some of her nausea and set up a schedule around what she could not mitigate.
They did not go back to the office just yet, as they were still working on the media rollout of the announcement of their marriage and children.
But some whispers had begun now that they were back in the city, and they needed to get moving. Besides, Agustin found himself wanting everyone to know. He wanted Mara on his arm at events. He wanted to show off pictures of Julia to any unsuspecting bystander.
He wanted this private life to no longer be a secret or something to hide. He wanted everything to be out in the open. His. Mara thought they needed a few more days to perfect the messaging, but Agustin was impatient.
Still, she had never led him astray. In business and in this strange new life they’d created, she was the steadying force. He could not regret the series of events that had brought them to this moment.
It might be difficult at times. He still could not quite let go of that moment days ago when she’d interrogated him about his affair plans. Perhaps he’d thought she might have a better understanding of him than that, but he could easily lay the blame on his mother putting ideas in her head.
Because every day with Mara as his wife was somehow better than the last. Naturally, he’d prefer her in his bed, but he was also painfully aware that she was dealing with a lot of pregnancy symptoms that left her feeling terrible.
She’d gone to a checkup with a doctor here in the city—one with more equipment than the retired Dr. Cressaro—they had been assured all looked well. In a few weeks they would do more in-depth scans.
She had been prescribed a medication for her nausea and was beginning to feel a little better, though the doctor had assured them both it might take some time.
Still, everything felt right and settled.
And he’d received an email from the last piece of the media puzzle he felt assured meant they should be able to make their announcement tomorrow.
So he went in search of Mara in the sprawling house that had begun to feel more like an actual home than he’d ever really had before. Full of warmth and conversation.
He found Mara in the sitting room that had been transformed into a kind of family room. He could guess this was her favorite room simply by the amount of time she spent in it.
Julia was on her stomach on the floor, pushing up to grin at Mara who was also sprawled out on her side, making cooing noises at the baby that had her squealing in delight.
For a moment, he was paralyzed in the doorway.
Which was common these days. To be struck by a feeling so overwhelming and deep that it never went away.
It would sweep in like a hard wave, then stay, squeezing everything inside of him tight.
He might have called it pain, but it was too warm and soft to be anything bad.
It was love. And not just for the beautiful baby growing like a weed, now able to push up on her arms and rock back and forth, like she was getting ready to crawl.
It was the woman lying on the floor, dressed in her business attire except for the fact her feet were bare, and her hair was not tied back quite so tightly as it was for the office.
She had been his trusted right-hand man, so to speak, for years. Not just to get things done but to understand his wants, his needs in business and in life. The woman who tempted him like no other, who hid her complications so well, he had yet to be able to unearth them all, but he wanted to.
He wanted to. No one had ever fit into his life with such ease.
No one seemed to fit like her. Not friends, not family.
No one. She may not understand him fully, but still better than anyone else ever had.
Even the ways she did not understand him didn’t seem to crush him as his mother and Felipe’s determined misunderstanding often had.
She was the answer to a question he hadn’t known he’d been searching for. There was no one else. There would never be anyone else.
He did not know if he made some involuntary noise or if she just sensed him there, but Mara looked up. For a moment her eyes were happy.
Before they went wary, causing a sharp pain to lance his chest.
She pushed herself into a sitting position. “She seems so close to crawling. It’s a bit early, milestone wise, but I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if she’s advanced.”
“I am sure she is advanced in everything,” he agreed, because Julia was perfect.
Mara moved as if she was going to get to her feet, so Agustin reached out and helped her up. Then he couldn’t quite bring himself to let her go, this woman he loved. Loved.
So instead he pulled her close and did the only thing he could think to do in the moment. He put his mouth to hers.
It had been so long. Too long, of letting her keep him at more than arm’s length. Of wanting her so much and holding himself back because he was a man who kept his promises.
But he wanted to promise more to her. To love and to cherish. To be more than partners. To be everything.
For a moment, the briefest hint of a moment, Mara kissed him back. Then she stiffened and turned her mouth away from his. She could look away, but he knew he wasn’t imagining the heat in her eyes. Or the misery.
He let her go at the sight of misery. He shoved his hands into his pockets to keep them off of her. He would not cause her misery.
Which she wouldn’t hold onto once he explained… He would explain his feelings, and things would change the way they should. He would turn this life into what it should be.
“Mara, we need to have a talk.”
She glanced back at Julia, who’d rolled onto her back and was entertaining herself with her feet. “Now probably isn’t the time. Claudia will be back from her lunch break at one, and then we can discuss the—”
But he did not want to wait for Claudia. He wanted Julia as witness, and he wanted this clearer. So they could start building something real and stop pretending like this was in name only. “I love you.”
She went pale. Perhaps he’d chosen a bad morning sickness moment, but then she was shaking her head, stepping as far away from him as she could get. “No, you do not.”
Agustin could only stare at her, somewhat speechless for a moment. His feelings had been dismissed often as a young man, so he’d stopped expressing them. But this wasn’t just being dismissed, it was being told he was wrong about them.
“You are claiming to know my feelings better than me?”
She looked him up and down, sheer horror in her expression. “Yes, that is what I am claiming.” She laughed, but it was tinged with panic, not levity or even bitterness. “Agustin, I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish—”
“I am not trying to accomplish anything,” he said through gritted teeth. “I am telling you how I feel.”
“Fine, if you really believe that, I will not endeavor to argue with you.” She was practically pushing herself against the wall, as if she pushed hard enough, she could get farther away from him.
It was the only thing keeping him in place. The only thing keeping him from touching her and demanding she prove she was unaffected.
She sucked in a breath and straightened. She was still pushed against the wall, but she met his gaze—more fierce than panicked now. “But it is irrelevant, because I do not wish to be someone you love.”
The hits kept coming, and he kept not understand from where or why or…how this was spiraling in a different direction than he’d anticipated. He thought she was the one, the one who finally understood, but she was saying these things… “And why is that?”
“This is not about love. It will never be. You must accept that.”
“The hell I do.”
Mara’s legs felt like they might give up, so she used the wall as leverage to keep her upright. She wanted to look away, but that would give him an advantage.
She had to maintain hers at all costs.
Love. Love. He couldn’t love her. He didn’t love her, she reminded herself, no matter how her heart leaped at the idea.
Her brain knew better. “I know how you treat the people you love. The people you actually love. You do not treat me that way. So you do not love me, and even if you did, I would not want to be treated that way.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Agustin demanded, his voice sharp enough that Julia’s happy garbles went silent.
Mara’s heart was beating overtime. He’d caught her off guard with that kiss, for a moment.
Up until this point, he had been very good at letting things go back to the way things had been before the castle.
Business, with Julia the only nonbusiness thing between them.
He hadn’t tried to touch her or kiss her or seduce her.
And if she’d wondered why it was so easy for him to turn it all off, she hadn’t mentioned it. She’d been grateful. Really.
And now he’d kissed her, out of nowhere.
Confessed love. Love? She wanted to laugh, because it was so ridiculous.
But if she laughed, she’d cry. “Surely you know how you treat your mother. How you treated Felipe,” she managed to say.
Because if she could keep this about them, then maybe she wouldn’t have to consider what those words had done to her.
She simply had to be reasonable. Maintain her good sense and remind herself she knew him better than everyone.
Love was something he felt, certainly. But he kept it far, far away. Not in his house. Not close enough to touch.
Agustin got very stiff, as he only did when he was offended. “I assure you, I have no idea what you are speaking about.”
She shook her head. He could be so good at so much and so incredibly daft when it came to self-awareness. “You keep your mother and, before his death, your brother at a distance. You never let them in or close. There is always a very careful wall between you and the people you love.”
“That’s absurd.”