Chapter Seven
Agustin knew he was not imagining the awkward stiffness between him and Mara the next day. But he ignored it all the same.
They took turns with Julia, with helping Senora Silva in the kitchen, and they waited for news from the doctor or from Paulo. Nothing could be done or decided or changed until they knew where Julia came from. Until they knew who she was.
And Agustin kept his physical distance from Ms. Valdez. He tried to think of her as such in his head instead of Mara but found that in every room they were forced to share, his gaze was drawn to her. He relived that moment of holding her in his arms, against his own very impressive will.
There was no truly avoiding her when there were so few people in this castle, and there was so much to manage.
The initial report from Paulo that evening was not particularly promising. Agustin had considered it an easy feat to track down a woman abandoning a baby on a private island, but the woman had taken great pains to hide her identity.
And if everything Senora Silva had told him and Mara was correct, Felipe had been coming to this island for some time with his friend. She must know more about getting on and off the island than he’d given the mystery woman credit for.
What also didn’t help was they could not find any official record of Julia’s birth. Paulo would keep looking and digging, but it should have been easier to find. Unless it had purposefully been hidden.
So that night, as Agustin got Julia to sleep in the crib positioned in his room for his turn with her, he had no information with which to determine his next steps.
Everything was still in flux, especially considering the message he had received from his mother’s assistant.
His mother and her staff had fled the Delgado estate in Madrid for his grandfather’s lesser-known chalet in Switzerland in an effort to avoid the incessant paparazzi.
Agustin needed to move, to do, and yet he was stuck here in this place of not knowing how. This should obsess his every moment, his every thought, his every last ounce of energy.
Instead, he lay in bed thinking of Mara with her hair down, rocking a fussing baby in her pajamas. The delicate lines of her back, the soft give of her chest against his.
What would she taste like?
He relived the catch in her breath, that heat in her eyes, even if it had been tinged with fear.
Not of him, or he did not think so. She would not be his assistant still if she feared him in any way. But there was a fear of this thing that had erupted between them.
He felt similarly. He could handle it. He would handle it, but he had never known lust to strike him so sideways. To have no recourse as to how to deal with it. Nothing and no one were off-limits to him.
Except her.
A lesser man would be afraid.
He awoke from a dream-filled sleep thwarted and edgy and irritable. But when he glanced over at the crib and heard the soft noises that babies seemed to make, something inside of him eased.
It was still dark, though the clock read nearly six. Julia was no doubt beginning to wake because she was hungry or needed a change. It was strange, how much a tiny creature needed. How had the human race survived and thrived when being a babe was an absolutely helpless endeavor?
But here Julia was, surviving what had brought her here, so perhaps she was not quite so weak. He peered over the edge of the crib down at her. She was wriggling, eyes open, but not fully alert just yet.
When her eyes met his, something in her expression changed. It was not a smile, exactly, he did not think. But it felt like recognition. Like happiness. She reached her little arms up, as if a signal she wished to be picked up.
He could only oblige. She settled into him with one of her little cooing sounds. Her head soft against his shoulder.
“I suppose you will be needing a change,” he murmured. He’d attempted to get out of this chore, but Mara had cornered him yesterday and made him go through the steps until he’d mostly mastered them.
He did so now as Julia grew a bit agitated. “Hungry, no doubt,” he murmured as he snapped one of her little outfits back into place. “We will get that situated, and then you will be Ms. Valdez’s responsibility for the morning.”
Paulo should have more answers for him now. The doctor should be potentially offering some answers this evening.
“I will simply demand it,” he told the agitated baby as he left the bedroom with her in his arms and headed for the kitchen downstairs.
They all deserved answers. Perhaps Julia did not know the questions, but someday she would. She might not remember these days…but Agustin would. Forever. No matter what happened.
This realization was not a particularly welcome one.
If she was not Felipe’s, what would Agustin do with the memory of these days?
Taking care of a defenseless child he’d have no legal connection to?
If there was a chance the mother wanted her back, and Julia was not Felipe’s, Agustin would have no recourse.
It was confusing how much this thought distressed him. He tightened his grip on the baby.
Luckily when he arrived in the kitchen, Mara was already there, so he needn’t think about emotional what-ifs.
There was work to be done—as evident from the fact Mara was dressed for the office, as she had been yesterday. Of course, she had probably only packed for a trip as his assistant, not as the woman who existed outside office hours.
Except he’d seen her pajamas. Not suitable for any office.
“I’ve already made her bottle and put together some breakfast,” Mara—Ms. Valdez said, without looking at him. She turned to him, but her gaze was on Julia when she smiled. “I can feed her if you’d like to eat.”
Agustin looked down at the grumpy baby, something moving through him he did not fully understand. Just that he did not wish to hand her off just yet. “I will handle it. You eat.”
“Very well.” Mara handed him the bottle without looking at him. She kept her eyes strictly on Julia, then back to the counter as she put together plates.
She put Agustin’s coffee at his elbow, along with a plate of toast and a piece of the tortilla de patatas Senora Silva had made yesterday. Occasionally, he could balance the baby just so to take a sip or a bite while Julia sucked greedily at her bottle.
He glanced at Mara when she took a seat across from him with her own plate and coffee. She had her laptop set up on the table and focused all her attention on that. After a bit of silence, she finally looked up.
She clearly didn’t expect for him to be looking at her, because she stiffened, her eyes getting a little wild, like a child caught doing something naughty. Then she smoothed out her expression and visibly relaxed her shoulders.
“I’ve extended your out-of-office through next week, but there may be some calls you need to jump on eventually,” she said, sounding as she always did. The prim and perfect assistant of a very important man.
But he knew what her hair looked like when it wasn’t twisted tightly out of her face. He knew the soft cast of her expression when she looked at Julia. He knew what she felt like in his arms.
She looked down at her computer, eyebrows furrowing as if she’d followed the path of his thoughts and didn’t like them.
He wanted to tell her he didn’t like them any better than she did. He just couldn’t get rid of them. What would do it? What would erase this unwanted spurt of desire and need every time he looked at her? Thought of her?
He could only think of one thing, and that wouldn’t do.
Eventually Julia finished her bottle, and Agustin handed her off so Mara could burp her. He went to the sitting room and took a few phone calls and handled a few emails Mara had forwarded him. He tried not to think of her or Julia or anything else.
He was a CEO, the Delgado in charge. He was in charge of billions. He had to be able to shut everything else out and deal with work.
When Paulo called with an update, it was a piddly bit of nothing. He could find no record of boat or plane heading to or from the island. No record of a child’s birth on the day listed in the information left with Julia that would fit Julia.
The mother was little more than a ghost.
“I’ll expand my focus,” Paulo told him. “No one is a ghost forever.”
But Agustin wasn’t so sure. Still, he ended the call with Paulo, did some more work, though he was distracted. Mara should have brought him Julia by now so they could trade off. When Senor Silva brought him lunch, Agustin could not keep his mouth shut.
“Where is Ms. Valdez?” Agustin asked in confusion.
“The senora and Ms. Valdez and the baby have gone for a walk along the beach. Senora asked me to bring you your lunch. Is there anything else you require?”
“No, that will be all.”
Senor Silva nodded, then left the room.
Agustin was hungry, so he ate. But once he was done, instead of going back to work, he wandered to the far room of the castle. One with windows that looked out over the beach.
They were walking toward the castle now, the three of them: Senora Silva with her cane, Mara holding Julia—who was wrapped up in a blanket and little more than a bundle in Mara’s arms—as they made slow progress.
Mara was clearly keeping her pace slow and leisurely for the older woman’s benefit.
The wind swept the little trio, but they seemed content and well wrapped up against it.
Agustin watched them, not sure what about the scene pulled at him. Would Julia enjoy the wind? The sound of the sea? He hadn’t thought about the fact that she’d been cooped up in this castle for days now. Fresh air was likely a good idea.
Perhaps he should join them. They looked like they were about done, but he could meet them in the courtyard.
Before he could talk himself out of that, his phone rang. He glanced at the readout, prepared to ignore it, but instead immediately answered. “Doctor. What news do you have?”