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church,
we are.”
    “And in the eyes of the state?”
    “That’s more problematic,” he bantered
back.
    “More problematic how?”
    “Jessica,” he said with a lingering look, “I
told you the paperwork takes time to process.”
    “Seven to ten days,” she replied, restating
what he’d told her earlier.
    “Best-case scenario.”
    “Because everything’s been submitted to the
magistrate in Seville?”
    “La Esperanza del Corazón is a small town,”
he said deferentially. “Anything here has to be sent to a higher
authority.”
    “Fernando,” she said, meaning it absolutely.
“I need you to level with me. What’s in this pretense of a marriage
for you?”
    He set down his cup, then took her own and
put it aside. “Everything is at stake for me. More than you
imagine.”
    “Like?” she pressed.
    Fernando heaved a sigh, surveying the
panorama around him.
    “Like…” he said, with a weighty frown, “this
place here. The ranch. My mother’s sustenance.”
    Jessica sat up a little straighter as north
winds rippled, stirring the branches above them.
    “I don’t understand.”
    “My grandfather was a proud man. Proud and
stubborn too. He decided long ago that he wished his legacy to
continue. His commitment to the bulls, his attachment to this
land…”
    “And?”
    “He wrote it all down,” Fernando said. “He
wasn’t about to take chances. Ernesto Garcia de la Vega wanted to
ensure that his legacy would continue.”
    “In what way?”
    “In a way that ensured a continuation of the
line.”
    “You’re talking you, now?”
    “I’m talking me and you. Don’t you understand
what this means? How huge this is?”
    She shook her head, utterly confused by his
confession.
    “Jessica,” he said, fiercely meeting her
gaze. “If I don’t find a bride and produce offspring by the time
I’m thirty-two, this whole thing is for naught. This estate, my
inheritance, any support meant to go to my mother…will all fall
through.”
    “But how?” she asked, incredulous.
    “It’s in the codicils of my grandfather’s
will,” he answered flatly. “Either I marry my match and we produce
an heir by my thirty-second birthday, or the entire estate goes to
the Catholic Church of La Esperanza del Corazón.”
    “No,” she said, fascinated and compelled at
once.
    “Please, tell me that you’ll help,” he said,
meeting her eyes. “My mother is a strong woman, it’s true, possibly
as fierce as they come. But this ranch is her home. She buried my
father here and longs to have her final resting place beside
him.”
    Jess thought of her own mother and each of
the struggles she’d endured as a single mom. As harsh as Señora
Garcia de la Vega had come off during their lunch, Jess knew the
woman was simply being protective of her only son. Jess frankly
admired her for raising two children solo. She knew from her
mother’s experience that task wasn’t easy. She didn’t know about
Fernando’s sister, but the man himself had turned out decently
enough. Perhaps better, in many ways, than she’d initially
understood. While Fernando could be brash in business, there was a
softer side to him she hadn’t been privy to until late last night.
When he’d held her in his arms, he’d done so with a tenderness and
a passion that no woman in her right mind could ignore. Jess had
found it impossible to resist his advances, when—in truth—she ached
for him just as desperately as he wanted her. It wasn’t just about
sex; it was in the way he looked at her, in the way he promised
that one thing she’d longed her entire lifetime to hear… And now
there was another layer to him still, that of the caring and
devoted son. Jess couldn’t help but find his commitment to family
instantly appealing. Still, this notion was absurd. He couldn’t
actually believe she’d consider it.
    “There has to be another way,” she said.
“Couldn’t you buy the ranch for your mother yourself? You make good
money in