His Heir, Her Honor (Rich, Rugged And Royal #3)(35)
Author: Catherine Mann

Apparently last night had been a dream after all, and it was time for her to wake up….

Unable to sleep, Lilah inched from Carlos’s bed, the one in his father’s mansion. Although the past and present felt strangely merged at the moment with memories of that wretched morning after hammering in her head.

Careful not to disturb Carlos, she reached into her purse on the bedside table and fished free her cell phone. The scent of roses from their bath filled the room, a much sweeter scent than those chlorine-tinted recollections.

Things were different now, damn it. All the same, she resisted the temptation to crawl under the covers and spoon against his back. She needed to take care of a niggling detail.

Before she surrendered her guard fully to her future husband, she needed to call her parents.

Tiptoeing, she left the room, closing the door softly, before curling up in the window seat to place her call, nerves pattering. She knew they would be happy, but she’d put off the conversation because she had a tough time reconciling herself to a lifetime with a man who had held back from her in so many ways, a man who would never have chosen this life for himself if she hadn’t gotten pregnant. She thumbed “seven” on her speed dial and waited through so many rings she almost gave up. Then—

“Hello?” Her mother’s voice cut through the static of the distant connection of her parents’ “anniversary” cruise. She hadn’t been exactly truthful when she’d told Carlos she couldn’t call them. It had been one thing to hold the baby news close for a while, another matter to keep an established pregnancy and an impending wedding from her mother.

“Mom, it’s me.” She hugged her knees, her nightgown draping her legs.

“Lilah, honey, it’s so great to hear your voice,” her mother said enthusiastically, not even mentioning the hour or how the call must have woken her. “Let me get your father on the phone too.”

“Mom, no, really.” Her head fell to rest against the warm windowpane. “You don’t need to disturb him.”

“Don’t be silly.” Her voice faded as she must have pulled the receiver from her face. “Darren? Darren, wake up. It’s Lilah.”

Her father’s voice rumbled along with the rustle of sheets in their cruise ship cabin. How her parents managed to stay together she couldn’t imagine and didn’t want to dwell on overlong with her own hastily conceived wedding on the horizon.

“Okay,” her mother said, back on the line. “I’m switching you to speakerphone.”

“Mornin’, pumpkin,” her father said groggily.

There wasn’t a breath deep enough to prepare her to say the words she never thought she would say to her parents. “Mom, Dad, I’m getting married….”

His wedding day was overcast, but he was a man of science, not superstition.

Carlos stood by his father’s hospital bed in the island clinic, Lilah beside him. His brothers, his sister and their significant others gathered in a corner. Limited visitation rules were out the window for the duration of what promised to be the shortest service on record. A priest waited at the foot of the bed, looking a bit confused as to whether he’d been called for last rites rather than a marriage.

Enrique struggled to sit up straighter. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

Startled, Carlos looked at his father, then realized the old man was speaking to Antonio. The youngest Medina son was the donor match—he would give a lobe of his liver—he would save their father’s life. Something Carlos couldn’t do in spite of all his medical degrees.

“Absolutely certain,” Antonio answered from beside his wife.

Enrique slid the pocket watch from his bedside table. “You used to play with this when you were a boy. I want you to have it. It is a small thing to give you in exchange for a piece of your liver—”

“Thank you. I’ll keep it until you’re well enough to need it again.” Antonio took the watch, swallowing hard before giving his father a brisk but heartfelt hug. “Besides, you pretty much gave me my liver in the first place.”

“You are a strange boy.” Enrique shook his head, then wheezed for air. His face pale, he continued haltingly, “And Carlos, I have something of yours, mi hijo.”

Enrique extended a gnarled hand, a black velvet box in his grip. Carlos didn’t even have to open it to know what rested inside…his mother’s wedding rings, a platinum diamond set, meant to be worn by a queen. Meant to be worn by Lilah. He was still stunned she’d actually agreed.

The wary hope in her eyes when she’d said yes made him feel like a first-class ass. He wasn’t the romantic hero she dreamed of. He wasn’t wired that way, a flaw in himself he’d known from the start. But it was too late to protect her from that any longer. They were tied to each other through the fragile life inside her, and he would do his best to make sure she never realized the bad deal she’d made. Taking the box from his father, Carlos turned to Lilah with a king’s ransom worth of gems in his hand.

Twelve

Lilah twisted the platinum diamond ring set around and around on her finger, hardly able to process all that had happened in the past thirty-six hours since she and Carlos had exchanged “I Dos” at the island clinic. Now, she and most of the Medinas paced in a private waiting area at the Jacksonville hospital where Enrique had been transferred for his transplant.

While she wasn’t a big fan of preferential treatment, she understood how much mayhem their presence would have caused had they been placed in the public waiting area. The Medina fame should not intrude on someone else’s crisis.

And she had to admit the quiet for their own emergency was helpful. Her nerves were fried. In her job as a hospital administrator, she’d witnessed so many families facing similar ordeals, but she’d never been on this side of the surgery.

Tests, doctors, plans had filled the past day and a half to the point of exhaustion. For the two nights prior, she and Carlos had made intense love before falling asleep. Any honeymoon plans, even any talking would have to wait. Right now their world was tightly focused into these four walls, with antiseptic air and bad coffee.

The door opened and Antonio’s wife, Shannon, walked into the waiting room. She’d been sitting with her husband as he awaited surgery. “Enrique would like to see you.”

Carlos, Duarte and Eloisa stood in sync from the steel and pleather sofa.

“No…” Shannon shook her head. “He wants to see Lilah.”