One Week to Claim It All

by Adriana Herrera

  “Oh, I see how it is. You two are scheming together.” He threw his head back and laughed. “Oh, honey, have you hitched your star to the wrong wagon. This one is a cold-blooded bastard. He only looks out for himself. If he’s who you’re counting on then we definitely have nothing to worry about.” He twisted his mouth into what she assumed was a satisfied smile.

  “I guess you do have something against people who work for a living, little brother.” Esme knew the smartest move was to keep her mouth shut and let Rodrigo handle Onyx. But it incensed her to hear her brother talk about her ex-lover like that when he’d done so much to keep their father’s company going. Rodrigo shot her a surprised look, then turned his attention back to Onyx when he tried to lunge for her.

  “You don’t know anything about me. About any of us. You’re not a part of this family.” Onyx’s ugly sneer disappeared when Rodrigo shook him hard, pressing him harder to the wall.

  “Don’t talk to her. You little shit, you’re not good enough to lick her fucking boots.” Onyx paled and even Esmeralda could hear the cold menace in Rodrigo’s voice.

  This was a freaking mess. Rodrigo was seconds from completely losing his temper and when he did this was truly going to go to hell in a handbasket. Onyx would make sure everyone knew what had happened and somehow she’d be blamed for it. She moved fast and got as close as she could without running the risk of getting elbowed in the face.

  “Rodrigo, please stop,” she asked with as much calm as she could manage. “He’s not worth it. He’s got nothing to lose. We do.” She could see how the words landed by the way he ground his jaw. After a moment, he stepped back and released his grip on Onyx, who stumbled for a moment, but quickly began to run his mouth again.

  “If you’re sleeping with him, my advice is that you cut your losses now. He’ll sell you out in a minute to stay on top.”

  “Are you trying to get your ass beat, Onyx?” Rodrigo growled. “I’m so fucking tired of you people and your drama.” Onyx just weaved in place, that drunk smile on his face. They’d keep doing this all night until they came to blows or Onyx barfed, and she’d had enough.

  You people. The loathing in Rodrigo’s voice was like a slap in the face. He meant the Sambranos. He meant her, too.

  “I didn’t ask you to get involved in this, Rodrigo. I can take care of myself.” She didn’t even give him a chance to respond and moved toward the door. She was done with this. She needed to get back to what she was here to do: prove to the board she was the only one who could take the helm of the television empire.

  Nine

  “Why did you leave like that, Esmeralda?” Rodrigo sounded rough as he walked into Esmeralda’s office, even to his own ears. He’d lost it back at the party, acted like a complete Neanderthal, and he couldn’t even find it in himself to regret any of it. Well, that wasn’t true. He regretted embarrassing Esmeralda. He was sorry he’d made an already bad situation worse for her, but when he’d seen that little shit coming for her, he’d gone into a rage.

  “What was I supposed to stay there for, Rodrigo?” She sounded fed up, and he couldn’t blame her. “As you can see, I’m working. What are you doing here? I thought you would’ve had enough Sambrano drama for the night.” He had. He was absolutely done with Onyx, Carmelina and their bullshit. But instead of going home like a sensible person, he’d ended up here. He’d told himself a dozen times on the drive over that he was here to finish up some work. But he’d been lying; he’d come after her, hoping she’d be here. To make sure she was all right. She’d been magnificent. Standing up for herself when anyone else would’ve cowered.

  “I am tired of Sambrano drama.” He should be thanking her for the way she’d stood up for him. No one had ever done that. Usually people were only too happy to see him be dressed down. They lived to remind him he was only the help. How easily they forgot that if it weren’t for him things would’ve fallen apart. But they still despised him. Loathed him for being the only person Patricio trusted, as if that hadn’t cost him anything. “I thought after that scene you’d want to call it a night.”

  She scoffed at that. “And then what? Let my so-called brother’s insults scare me off? Carmelina Sambrano made sure I knew what my place was my entire life, and yet I am still here,” she said, leaning against the desk chair. Her tone was placid, but there was a sharpness to the way she held herself that told him that scene at The Cloisters had shaken her. “I would never give any of them the satisfaction of thinking they got to me. Sorry, Rodrigo, you’re going to have to work a little harder for that corner office.”

  “I already have a corner office.” He sounded pissed and tired, but she wasn’t fazed by any of it. Her long neck and back were ramrod straight as she typed on the keyboard, her eyes darting between the three monitors in front of her. That’s when he noticed she hadn’t even bothered to change her clothes. She’d wiped off her makeup, put her hair up in a top bun, taken off her shoes and gotten to work.

  Focused. Determined. She stayed on her path, didn’t let the drama distract her. He’d lost that somewhere along the way. The ability to let all the scheming roll off his back. To the world he looked like he was made of stone, but he felt worn down. Sometimes he could barely come up with one or two reminders of why he loved this job. Being at the helm of a television empire came with power and prestige, but when everyone thought of you as the lackey, that you got the job by kissing ass, you had to constantly prove yourself. And he was tired of having to deal with the scorn of people who could not survive one day doing what he did. And in that at least he and Esmeralda had something in common.

  Patricio ignored his daughter for her entire life. And yet of all his children she was the one who’d gotten his determination and ambition. The one who had pursued a career in television. And still she was the one who had to prove herself, who had to earn the right to claim her place. “What are you working on?” he asked, taking off his jacket as he came over to look at the screen. He needed a distraction.

  She glanced up at him for a moment and he did not miss that her eyes landed right at the spot where he’d unbuttoned his shirt and a sliver of skin was peeking out. His eyes locked on her lips out of their own volition and his mouth watered with the memory of how it had felt to kiss her tonight. Despite the exhaustion, a jolt of desire coursed through his body at the thought of doing it again. He’d take that smart mouth with hard, hungry kisses and then he’d pick her up, wrap her strong legs around his waist and have her right against the wall. Lose himself in the tight perfect grip of her body, until they were both spent.

  Get your head in the game, Rodrigo. She’s about her business and you need to be, as well. He pulled up a chair and sat next to her as he rolled up his sleeves. Esmeralda gave him a suspicious look as he pointed at the slide she was working on. “Tell me about this.”

  “Are you serious?” she asked incredulously.

  “The board already knows I can do the job. They want to see if you can.”

  She rolled her eyes at him, but something about what she saw on his face seemed to smooth the lines of tension on her forehead, and she turned to what he was asking her about.

  “This is my Big Ask,” she informed him, as her eyes scanned the screen. “I’m proposing we bring back some of the programming that Sambrano was known for in the early years. Remember the old comedy sketch shows they did with comedians from all over Latin America? The Afro-Latinx culture focused shows. I was also thinking that we could have a network dedicated to only Latinx food. And not just tacos and ceviche, which are the only things people seem to think we eat.” Her eyes lit up as she talked, her hands everywhere as she explained, and he could not get enough of it, of her.

  “I’m envisioning baking competitions, grilling showdowns. I’m talking Garifuna pastry chefs, Quechua bakers, Argentinian grill masters. I want every region, every country, every culture represented.” With every word she said his brain woke up more
, and he realized he was intrigued. He was more than intrigued. He was...energized. “There are so many Latinx chefs who have gained a huge following on Instagram and I bet would love to be on a network, you know?”

  He frowned as she went through the slides, taking in some of her concepts. They were good. Innovative but still staying in line with the brand. The kind of stuff he’d pushed for in his early years at Sambrano but gave up on after getting shot down again and again.

  Well, they weren’t exactly like his. Her ideas were a lot bolder. Where his had been baby steps toward going back to the roots of Sambrano, she was proposing leaps. He’d suggested a cooking show; she was going in with a whole network. Then he looked down at the open folder on the desk and froze. “What’s that?”

  She looked down at where his finger was pointing and then up at him, beaming, all the anger and resentment from earlier in the evening forgotten. That was something he’d always loved about her. Esmeralda could never stay angry for long.

  “There’s no cover letter, so I don’t know who drafted the memo. It’s almost eleven years old, but the concept is basically a prototype of what I’d like to propose.” His heart sped up again as she continued. “Listen to this,” she told him as she pointed to the paper. “‘We have to continue to fulfill the promise we made to our viewers, that from Patagonia to Baja California, they can go home when they tune into Sambrano networks.’” The smile on her face was radiant as she looked up at him.

  “That’s it. That’s the mission. We have to lean into the vision that our world is wide and rich enough that we could have entire cable networks fully dedicated to us. Like a Latinx History Channel. All our histories, bringing in Indigenous producers, Afro-descendant filmmakers. Shows dedicated to LGBTQ+ Latinx communities. We can do anything, like Project Runway, but make it Latinx.” She grinned at him and he found himself smiling back. Seeing her vision clearly. “I want every gaze represented. To make a mark in the current landscape Sambrano has to think bigger. One channel isn’t enough to carry all that we are.” She was practically vibrating with excitement, her eyes on a future without limits. An artist standing in front of an empty canvas with a brush, paint and endless possibilities. And she was a force to be reckoned with.

  “You were around then.” She said it almost as if she’d just remembered that fact. “Do you have any idea who wrote this and if they’re still here? I’d love to talk to them to find out why their ideas were never implemented.”

  He paused, nervous to confess this secret to her. “I wrote it.” He almost laughed when she did a double take, as if she couldn’t even picture it. He couldn’t blame her. He could barely remember the twenty-five-year-old junior content developer who wrote that memo. When was the last time he’d felt that inspired? When he’d felt unafraid to launch himself into something just because he felt passionate about it? He couldn’t recall.

  “You?” she asked, her eyes wide with surprise.

  He crossed his arms over his chest, feeling defensive and a little hurt at her astonishment. “Is it so hard to believe that I could’ve written that?”

  Her eyes softened at whatever she saw in his face and tapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t be such a baby. I’m just surprised, that’s all. You’ve always seemed so...risk-averse.”

  “You mean boring,” he said. She pointed a finger at him, clicking her tongue. “I’m a realist,” he declared, doing his best to hide the peevishness in his tone.

  She gave him a long look from under those thick dark lashes of hers and he could see the hint of a smile pulling up at her lips. “I meant solid, reliable. One who sticks to what works.” She wasn’t wrong. He’d learned to temper his ideas, to work within the confines of what was doable, and she would have to learn to, as well. He uncrossed his arms, feeling like he needed something to do with his hands, with his eyes. To keep from uttering something he shouldn’t or worse, reaching out and touching her. Boundaries were his friend.

  “I liked that about you,” she said, almost ruefully. “Your steadiness.” His chest expanded at her words, the sincerity in them. Esmeralda never said something she didn’t mean. And that was what had always devastated him when it came to her. She would never lie, not even to protect her pride. He kept his mouth closed as he sensed his own onslaught of confessions coming on. No good could come of that.

  They stayed with their gazes locked, and that need which seemed ever-present when he was around Esmeralda swirled like a ring of fire in his gut. Ten years of telling himself he was over her. That the entire relationship had been a mistake. That Esme had only been interested in him as a way to get back at her father. That there was nothing there. That he’d destroyed any chance of getting her back. That they were both better off. Each of those lies turned to dust the moment he’d seen her again and were immediately replaced by this feckless want.

  “What ever happened to the guy who wrote this?” she asked, and there was a breathlessness to her voice.

  “That guy learned idealism got him nowhere. That to get to the top he had to compromise.” And now that he was at the top, he wondered if those compromises might have been too high of a price to pay.

  “I think you’re lying.”

  “You know me a lot less than you think you do, Esmeralda,” he rebuffed, voice tight with too much feeling.

  “I know that the same guy who wrote this memo was the guy I was falling in love with. I know that even though you let my father and his shitty dog-eat-dog view of the world suck you in, you’re the guy who helped your family when they lost everything. You might have turned your back on that man, but he’s still there.” Her finger pressed right on the spot in his chest where his heart was pounding like a jackhammer.

  He stood up, shaking from the way her words had struck him. “I’m heading out for the night.”

  “You know what else I know?” she asked, voice dripping with something that made him stop in his tracks. “That you’re dying to finish what we started in that creepy bedroom suite this afternoon.” He had to suppress a laugh even as his cock hardened from her words.

  “And the last thing I know is that I’d let you... All you have to do is ask.”

  His hazel-eyed beauty bit her bottom lip, tucked a curl behind her ear as she waited for his reaction. It had been stupid to kiss her. Stupid and potentially disastrous because the floodgates were now wide open. He’d known he would do it again if she asked him. He’d been dizzy with the possibility of it. And now she had.

  Hope had always come at a steep cost for Rodrigo, and he had never paid a higher price than when he’d let himself believe he could have Esmeralda Sambrano-Peña. He’d sworn he’d never again take a gamble like the one he’d taken on this woman. And yet here he was, ten years later, older but clearly not much wiser, about to plunge into the abyss again.

  Ten

  “If we start this, we’re not stopping until I’ve had you, Esmeralda,” he warned, already moving toward her. In an instant he’d gone from feeling a bone-deep weariness to a madness that crackled under his skin like lightning. Some things never changed, and Esmeralda had a knack for making him forget he was supposed to be measured and stoic.

  “Did I stutter, Rodrigo?” He didn’t say a word, he just leaned in and scooped her into his arms, and after a yelp of surprise she wrapped her legs around his waist and held on. “Why can’t I keep my hands off you?” she grumbled as she worked on kissing down his neck, her hands already busy with the buttons of his shirt.

  He grunted when she used her teeth on him and wished he could sprint to his office without risking ramming into a glass door. The lights of the entire floor were off except for the small lamp on Esme’s desk and the ceiling light guiding him to the bedroom in his office. Patricio was probably rolling over in his grave right now, but even that thought would not stop him from doing this.

  He was tired of holding back, of not letting himself have the things he wanted. The
things he craved. Only with Esmeralda had he ever let go, cut loose every one of his passions, and she’d always met him each step of the way. She quenched his every thirst, and it had been so long since he’d felt this kind of urgency. He’d been walking in a desert these past ten years without her. He’d known what was missing, but his need to never step out of line, to stay on track, kept him from her. It had been unfair of Patricio to ask him to stay away from her, but none of that mattered here and now.

  He reached the door to the suite in a few swift steps and slammed his hand on the button that would slide it open. Esme tried to loosen the grip of her legs around his waist and pushed off him like she was intending to walk the rest of the way. He was not having it. A sound very much like a growl escaped from his chest as he crushed her to him. “You’re staying right here.” He pressed the point by lowering his head and licking into her mouth.

  “Why do I find this side of you so ridiculously hot?” she asked, feigning annoyance at the same time she slid a hand down to his crotch and gripped his hard cock over his pants. “Mmm, looks like someone is ready to unleash himself on me.” She bit his earlobe as he reached a serviceable surface and set her down. She kept her legs around him, but now that his hands were free, he let them explore.

  “Mess around and find out, Esmeralda,” he warned, eliciting a wicked laugh from her.

  “I’m planning to, Rodrigo.” She was a brat and he loved it. He had to breathe through the need pounding inside him. He pulled back for a second. There was one small light in the bathroom, so that she was cast in shadow. But he could see her leonine eyes, like embers in the dark. Full of the heat that had always burned him down to ashes.