Chapter Fourteen
It was the only conclusion, and yet she shook her head. “You are to marry the countess.”
“Damn the countess.” And damn this stubborn woman.
He ran a washcloth under some water in the sink and then placed it on her forehead.
She looked physically wrung out. “She had her chance, and she did not take it. Gracias a Dios. I will rescind the proposal first thing in the morning, and you and I will be married at once.”
Mara took the washcloth, then pushed him away. “You cannot marry me, Agustin.”
How she could be so stubborn in the light of such…
such…such, was beyond him. “I suppose you will abandon this child on my doorstep then?” he asked dryly.
Perhaps he did not know everything about her, but he knew she was not a woman who ran from a responsibility, and he had seen her with Julia.
She would not run from this, and neither would he.
Mara shook her head, using the cloth to wipe her face before discarding it in the sink. “I grew up without a father for half my childhood. A child does not need a father. I am living proof.”
Need. She dare speak of need when he was the father in question. “My child will have one.”
She sighed and moved past him into her room, then she seemed to remember Julia in the crib and turned back around, back through the bathroom and into his bedroom. “I need to sit,” she muttered.
He took her by the elbow, though she stiffened, and moved her to the bed. “You will lie down,” he instructed. He pulled back the covers, nudged her onto the mattress.
He expected more of a fight, but he could tell she was feeling terrible. She lay back on the mattress and closed her eyes, blowing out a slow breath in a nod to what must be more nausea.
“You need something to drink,” he told her, not at all sure that was what she needed but clearly something. “Food. What will settle your stomach?”
“Nothing,” she said, somewhat petulantly.
Well, he’d see about that. Surely Senora Silva would know what to do. “I will bring you something. Rest. You need to take care of yourself.”
But she grabbed his arm before he could turn away.
“Do you think I’m just playing hard to get?
Refusing for fun? We cannot marry. Do you not understand what you would be condemning these children to by insisting upon marriage?
” There was a kind of desperation in her expression he’d never seen from her.
Something soft and vulnerable he did not quite understand.
She had always been so in control, so determined. Nothing was beyond her ability to handle.
Except this apparently.
Yet another reason to get married. He would take care of everything, and she only had to take care of herself. He felt that purpose settle into him, like a sense of something being incredibly right.
He placed his hand over hers. “Condemn is dramatic, Mara, and you are not dramatic. They will, perhaps, have to deal with some gossip in school, should this even still be of interest when they reach school age. We will teach them how to handle it. I have weathered that particular storm myself. You simply have to know how to take it.” Felipe had not learned, but Agustin had.
“Agustin—”
“Besides, you once reminded me my money can pay for an awful lot. It will pay to keep anyone quiet. We can educate them at home if we must. We have nothing but options, Mara. There is no need to catastrophize.”
“You cannot simply silence with money, not everything, or you would have quieted the press around Felipe, and you never could. Not when he was alive. Not since.”
It hurt, this impotence she pointed out in him. And yet it was the truth. Felipe had been a force Agustin had not been able to contain. Agustin had not become successful by ignoring uncomfortable truths, so he accepted this one.
And the fact Mara was pregnant with his child.
A child. There was something amazing about that. A feeling he would not have had if not for the past month with Julia. He might have been terrified, far more concerned with the future, but the idea of another little baby to care for did not fill him with anything so terrible.
“I will not marry you,” she said fiercely.
He removed her hand from his arm and sighed. “You do not have a choice.”
“Yes, I do. There is nothing but choices in this life, and we have made some bad ones. We have…we have made a mess of things. But it is up to us to fix this, because two innocent children now hang in the balance.”
She sounded reasonable and calm, but he held her gaze and saw the wild panic in it. And pointed out the one piece she seemed to keep ignoring. “Yes, Mara, our children.”
He thought it was the our that finally got through the brick wall of a shield she’d been holding up against him. Tears glistened in her eyes, though she blinked them furiously back.
“Now, I will go get you something to drink. Rest. We have much to plan.”
Mara was so physically miserable she did not have the wherewithal to deal with the misery of her life. She didn’t remember falling asleep, but when she woke it was alone in Agustin’s bed.
She had clearly slept for some time. The clock on the stand told her it was late morning.
Agustin was supposed to be on the mainland today, so where was Julia?
Perhaps Carmen had taken her. The old woman couldn’t carry her very well, but if Agustin had taken Julia downstairs when she’d awoken and put her in the high chair, maybe all was well.
Mara needed to get up and find out though. Sleep seemed to have helped. She felt sturdier. More ready to handle everything.
The second she stood though, everything inside of her revolted. She had to close her eyes against the dizziness. When she opened them, she saw a glass of water on the nightstand.
The cold water did some work to soothe the uneasy feeling in her stomach but also made her realize she was hungry. Before she could move forward, the bedroom door opened a little, then after a pause, the rest of the way.
Agustin appeared with a tray.
Mara froze in place. He wasn’t supposed to be here. He was supposed to be at work on the mainland.
“Good, you’re awake.” He strode forward and put the tray next to her on the bed. It was not much: some thickly sliced bread, a bowl with a scrambled egg in it. Another bowl full of mixed fruits. “Sit. Eat, if you can stomach it.”
She was afraid she wouldn’t be able to stand if she did not stomach it, so she sat back on the bed and took a test bite of the bread. It was still warm to the touch. Carmen must have baked it fresh this morning.
She swallowed. Despite her hungry desire to wolf down all the food, she knew her stomach would not handle that well, so she took small bites and took time between each.
“Where is Julia?” she asked, keeping her eyes on the food and not on him.
“We have had a busy morning. She is currently napping in her playpen while Senor Silva keeps an eye on her. Dr. Cressaro is here to examine you when you are ready.”
Mara took another bite of bread. It was settling her stomach some.
A doctor was good, she supposed. She didn’t know much about being pregnant.
Though she remembered some of her mother’s later pregnancies, she had not really been aware of what her mother had gone through aside from a larger stomach, being very tired and needing Mara to pick up the slack with the other children when she’d been pregnant with Daniela and Father had been… gone.
But even before that, Father had not been around much to help, had he?
For every pregnancy Mara could remember, she had been tasked with helping with the younger children.
Mother had always said Father was working, and Mara had always believed it, so why she wondered if it was the truth now was beyond her.
Except they had barely had any money. Food had even been difficult to come by. If he’d been working, surely they would have been better off.
“The judge will also be here soon so we can finalize our marriage,” Agustin said, breaking her straight out of her childhood reverie and straight into fury.
He truly was unbelievable. She set the half-eaten piece of bread down on the plate and glared at him. “Agustin, I will not say yes. I will not agree. I will not sign anything. You cannot force me into marrying you.”
He said nothing to this, just moved for the door and opened it. “Dr. Cressaro? She is ready to see you.”
She huffed out a breath but managed a smile for the elderly doctor. He went through some questions, then examined her while Agustin loomed in the corner, arms folded, expression fierce.
Agustin asked a million questions. Mara couldn’t seem to come up with any. She still couldn’t wrap her mind around a child growing inside of her.
The very idea of it might have been more terrifying if she had not spent the past month taking care of Julia. Remembering those years of helping care for her sisters. It was not easy to take care of young people, but it was rewarding. Satisfying.
And Mara was good at it. She knew that no matter how unfathomable this all was, she would do everything in her power to be an excellent mother. To raise her child to be smart and independent and strong. To not stand for being abandoned. Left behind. Deemed more trouble than they were worth.
No, no matter the outside circumstances, she would give her child everything possible.
When the doctor was done, he gave her a reassuring smile. “It is a bit early to know much based on the information you gave me and what tools I have available to me, but everything seems to be going well,” Dr. Cressaro said.
“She is ill,” Agustin pointed out.
“Yes, fairly normal,” the doctor replied. “Signs of a body getting used to growing another. If it is unmanageable, I can prescribe a medication, but I would recommend getting Ms. Valdez to the mainland and under the care of someone with more resources as the pregnancy continues.”
“Thank you, Doctor. We will do so as soon as possible.”
Agustin led the doctor out of the room but did not leave himself. He came right back. “Do you require anything else for your breakfast? The judge should be here by noon.”
She fixed him with her best condescending look. “Do you really believe you can simply steamroll me into marrying you and returning to the mainland as though this will be a normal development for everyone around us?”
“No, I do not believe. I know I can. And will. And I don’t give a damn about anyone around us. I only give a damn about us. Our family.”
The word hit her square in the chest. Family. With him. With Julia. With this child growing inside of her. How she wanted that.
And how she knew it would be an absolute disaster for all involved. What promise could she believe in knowing what she did of the world? Of people? The only person she could afford to trust was herself.
“Now, I will go check on Julia before I tackle some work,” he said as if he hadn’t set to crumbling all her foundations with one word. “The ceremony will be at noon. Do you have need of anything before then?”
Family forgotten, frustration bubbled over in a way she rarely let it. “I need you to go to hell.”
He grinned at her—a grin full of amusement that she had rarely seen. In fact, the only times she had ever seen that lightness to him were the rare times Felipe was around and not causing Agustin more problems.
“Ah, that is not in the cards, mi prometida,” he said cheerfully, then strode out of her room as if that was that.
That was not that. She sat in his bed, fuming. Marry him. Today. Simply because she’d done something so basic, so destructive as sleeping with her boss.
Twice. Without any kind of thought of protection because the passion had gotten the better of her. Of them.
Embarrassing. Shameful. She would love to blame him, but she could not blame him and not take some responsibility for herself. She understood the world. She was not a fool.
But she’d chosen to be one, and now she had to deal with her own consequences. As she’d always taught her siblings, one must take responsibility for their choices.
Unless they just run away from them.
Wasn’t that what her father had done? What Julia’s mother had done? Hell, even Felipe had done this—perhaps he had not meant to get himself killed, but he had chosen reckless gambles knowing what could happen.
But that would not be her. And she knew Agustin well enough to know it would not be him. He would see this as a duty, and he would not shirk it.
She could not sway him. She knew him too well. She could try to run or escape, but he would find her, and more than that… She did not wish to run away from Julia.
Maybe she could smooth things over with the countess herself. Explain that Agustin had acted rashly, and the plan could still go on as it had been laid out. Marriage. A child—Julia.
But what of her child?
She looked down at her stomach, splayed her fingers over her belly. “We would be fine on our own,” she whispered. And she believed it. They would be fine.
But she had seen Agustin with Julia. He had a kind, steady way about him with the baby. Perhaps her child would be fine without him, but wouldn’t he or she be offered so much more with him?
Until he abandons you all.
Mara sighed heavily. She could not let her childhood sway her choices, but she could also not be so foolish as to ignore the fact that some people clearly had no issue turning away from their children. Some people thought nothing of it. Whether after twelve years or five months.
A woman in Mara’s position could not depend on anyone to stay. She could not depend on anyone to keep their promises, to protect or take care. She could only depend on herself. This had been the case for many years. It would not change now.
If there was no way to get through to Agustin, if she had to go through with this marriage in order to maintain some sanity, then she had to find a way to protect herself from falling into the trap of relying on someone.
Luckily, she had already set up their relationship to be the one who was relied on to handle most things. She could certainly bleed her work persona into their personal life. She would have to get a little steadier in her pregnancy so he wasn’t feeding her or giving her cool washcloths.
And before she said any kind of I do, there would be rules. Boundaries. He’d been planning a business arrangement with the countess, so this, too, would be a business arrangement. For the children.
If she put enough rules into place, he could not rip the rug out from under her, because there would be no rug. Only solid ground. Her solid ground.
In this ridiculous and unfathomable scenario, she would get to be Julia’s mother, along with a mother to her own child. There were positives to be had.
She just had to figure out how to ensure Agustin was not a ticking time bomb ready to explode her perfectly arranged life.
Again.