Chapter Eighteen
Agustin went to the office. He needed out of that house. He needed…away.
He was not running. He was damn well going to stick. He just needed a break. A breath. And the place he had always felt most himself was the Sosten offices.
Well, and the castle with Mara in his bed, but that didn’t do thinking about at the moment.
Since it was the weekend, no one was there, but he still walked down the hall to his office. He didn’t necessarily need to work. He just needed something that felt steady and real. Something that he understood, totally and fully.
But he found himself standing in the doorway, looking at the office he’d spent most of his adult life in, and felt…nothing.
Which he thought he’d wanted, but in this moment, he didn’t. So he turned back into the hall, not sure where he would go.
Something down the hall seemed to catch his eye, and he found himself walking all the way to the end of the hall. A small office there had always been earmarked for whenever Felipe deigned to make an appearance. It had not been touched since his brother’s death.
Agustin let himself inside now. Even though Felipe’s appearances were rare, the office felt like him. Bright colors, manic artwork. The desk was cluttered with things—certainly none of them business related.
Agustin didn’t know what he was searching for, but he moved through the office looking at different things, and then he took a seat at Felipe’s desk.
He took a deep breath and let it out. “How you must be laughing at me,” he muttered. “You would happily tell me no woman ever rejected you, but I wonder if you ever loved any of your conquests.”
Maybe he had. He had proposed to the one. And he’d had a child with Adelina. Maybe there was love there. Maybe Felipe had just not known what to do with it.
God knew Agustin did not know what to do with this. Mara had cut him in half, seeing what he did but not why he did it. She had cut him in half, refusing him.
And perhaps if it had been based in something other than fear, he would be able to work his way toward anger. But he saw her fear. Her traumas. She was trying to protect herself from hurt, and how could Agustin deny her that?
“Perhaps careening into that wall was the better option, brother,” he said, knowing it wasn’t true. Aching for the brother he’d lost, even if they hadn’t known how to be real brothers to one another.
And then Agustin noticed, there on the corner of the desk, a framed photo of the two of them.
It had been taken about a year ago. Felipe had been in Monaco for his birthday.
He always threw raucous birthday parties for himself, and Agustin had never once attended, always claiming work, and really he had known he did not fit into Felipe’s life.
But Mara had insisted he go. Made the arrangements even though he’d told her not to. Then she’d somehow talked him onto the plane before he could fully balk.
The party had been terrible, as expected, but then next morning Agustin had gotten up to return to Spain. Through sheer coincidence he had run into Felipe in the hotel lobby, on his way back from wherever he’d been carousing all night.
They’d had breakfast together on a whim. It was one of the few times he could remember sitting somewhere, just his brother and him. Felipe hadn’t told stories of his wild escapades as he usually did when they were together. Perhaps he’d been too hungover.
So they’d talked about growing up. They’d talked about the future. Agustin had thought it was a turning point, that Felipe might actually start coming into the office, start trying to take a role at Sosten. He had returned to Spain thinking things had changed.
Nothing had changed. It had been a sharp disappointment. But now, with his brother gone, Agustin found himself grateful for that moment of sincerity. Even if it hadn’t lasted, at least he had experienced that moment.
A moment Mara had insisted upon.
She had known, better than him, what he had needed to do, and he had—after some fight—trusted her to be right. Even then.
Agustin could only be grateful he’d had that breakfast with his brother. That moment of real connection. “Something I can share with your daughter someday.”
He sighed and leaned forward on the desk. “What am I to do about the mother of my child?” Then he laughed to himself, because God knew he wouldn’t ask Felipe’s advice if he was living.
But there was advice in that picture. In meeting a person you didn’t understand where they were at.
“Thank you, Felipe,” he murmured into the quiet office. And for the first time, he let himself grieve losing his brother.
Mara had cried. She wouldn’t feel badly about that. She’d blame it on pregnancy, not heartbreak.
She couldn’t be heartbroken. She couldn’t feel like that little girl. Not when she had children depending on her. The emotional turmoil had to be hormones because she had promised herself long ago never to be laid useless by the choices of another. Good or bad.
Once she’d gotten a hold of herself, she had eaten dinner with Senora Delgado before putting Julia to bed. The nanny had offered to handle it, but Mara wanted to do whatever she could. She would return to work. She would be successful and needed. If everyone needed her…then it could all be okay.
Once her body got used to this new thing it was doing in growing a baby, she would handle all her emotions much better. She was certain of it.
With Julia asleep, and her own emotions still in turmoil, Mara didn’t retire to her bedroom. There would be too much to think about there.
She’d work. On the media plan. Everything was nearly in place, and nothing as foolish as him pretending he loved her was going to change that.
Love. The man had said he loved her. It was the most ridiculous, out-of-pocket thing she could possibly imagine.
He wasn’t that type of man. Sure, he had a bit of a traditional way about him, and he was good at caring for his mother…
from a distance. He certainly loved Julia, even Mara couldn’t pretend he didn’t.
Maybe that was the problem. She’d been there when they found Julia, so he was confusing his feelings for his niece as feelings for her.
Yes, that had to be it.
Senora Delgado swept into the family room. She was dressed to the nines as always. Mara had never seen her look or act as anything other than fabulous.
She remembered what Agustin had said, sharply, that his mother and brother had not understood him—perhaps even willfully. Because they were…this. Performers. People who needed attention.
That was certainly not Agustin. He was so certain of himself. So poised and centered. Still, the Delgados all cared for one another, despite their differences and perhaps flaws in showing it.
“Where is Agustin?” Senora Delgado asked. “I wanted to discuss me leaving tomorrow.”
For a moment, Mara was speechless. Where was Agustin? He had left. Left her and left Julia and… She shook her head against the panic. She knew him well enough to know where he would go when upset. “He’s gone into the office,” she managed.
“The office. On a weekend?” Senora Delgado rolled her eyes in some disgust. “Just like his father.”
Mara frowned. She had not known the elder Delgado, but from what she’d heard, they weren’t just alike. Was this the kind of willful misunderstanding Agustin spoke of? No wonder it would bother him and keep him separate from his mother.
She knew little of Agustin’s relationship with his father, but she had only ever heard him talk about the man with some reverence. But Senora Delgado made him sound bad…not that Mara could blame her, considering the man reportedly had mistresses.
“He just needed some quiet to work through a few issues,” Mara said, her voice sounding stiff to her own ears. She tried to soften.
“Yes, him and his issues,” Senora Delgado said as though Agustin was the one who courted drama, when that had always been the other Delgados’ purview.
Senora Delgado must have seen something pinched in Mara’s expression because she smiled wide, moving closer to Mara. “Oh, he’s always been so…” she waved a hand “…stoic. Dour. I never could figure out what was going on in that fortress of his. I’m sure he does have issues he needs sorting through.”
For a moment, Mara could only stare at this woman.
Dour was not a word she would have used to describe Agustin at any point.
Stoic, yes, a bit. But really, even that was a stretch.
He understood situations too well. So well, she supposed, he sometimes flew under the radar, not letting on how much he controlled, how much power he wielded by not performing for others.
Felipe and Senora Delgado had always been vocal, outspoken. They liked attention and crowds. They liked Agustin handling complicated things for them. For a while Mara had even thought they were using him.
But now, after that whole thing with Agustin earlier, she wondered if none of them knew how to reach each other, so they only did what they knew how to do. For Agustin, it was put up a careful wall. For Felipe and Senora Delgado, it was to ask for help.
“We’ve just had a fight.” Mara had no idea what prompted her to say such a thing, admit such a thing. She knew she would get no good advice from this woman who meant well but was the complete and utter opposite of Mara in just about every way.
“Ah.” Senora Delgado seemed somewhat surprised by this. “Fascinating. Well, dear, take it from me. I know he thinks he’s so much smarter and better than the rest of us, just as his father did, but we’re all doing our best.”
Mara knew defending him wouldn’t really do anyone any good, but she couldn’t help herself. “That isn’t true. He doesn’t think that. That isn’t Agustin at all.”
Senora Delgado scoffed. “I think I know my own son.”
But she didn’t. It was so clear she didn’t. Her perception of him was warped by her perception of her late husband.
I thought you saw me, Mara, for who I really am. “I do,” she whispered. How could she love him so much if she didn’t? But…
“You do what, dear?”