“We’re a mess,” she muttered, lips pressed to his skin. He circled his strong arms around her and laughed ruefully.
“I’m sure Piera would ban us for life for desecrating the sanctity of the private screening room.” She could hear the smile in his voice.
“We are extremely indecent,” she agreed. “These interludes are going to make it hard to enjoy taking your job.” The moment the words came out of her mouth Rodrigo stiffened under her and released her from his embrace.
“Yeah. We got a bit carried away there. We really have to stop doing that,” he said harshly as she worked on getting her bra back to rights and her blouse buttoned. “I’m glad you’re aware none of this changes anything. I’ll help you find the information you need, Esmeralda, but I have no intention of stepping down as CEO.”
It was like a bucket of cold water, but she’d needed it. This was who they were now. At odds, being pulled apart even when they could not stay away from each other. In that moment she resented her father for putting her in this position, and she wished—she really wished—that for once Rodrigo could pick her. But he wouldn’t; Sambrano Studios was the love of his life, the only thing that he’d sacrificed everything for again and again. He’d never give it up.
She smoothed her skirts and felt her face heat with embarrassment as she felt a wet spot right where he’d cupped her sex. She’d been so aroused she’d soaked the fabric. She was embarrassing herself. He was not letting his lust interfere with his plans and she had to do she same. She grabbed her purse before stepping into the aisle then turned to look at him. She hated that even after just having him, she still wanted him. That even when she despised him, she craved how he made her feel.
“My plan is to be CEO, Rodrigo. You giving me a few orgasms is not going to change that.”
Thirteen
Esmeralda had stomped out of the theater after thanking Piera and got into the car without saying a word. “Could you please have the driver drop me off at my apartment? I have what I need and can work the rest of the day from home. I don’t want to go back to Sambrano.”
Usually someone not wanting to talk suited him just fine, but as usual, his reaction to anything and everything that had to do with Esmeralda was far from his normal. “So you’re not going to acknowledge me?” He tried to keep his tone mild, but every one of his emotions was set at the maximum. He felt out of control, frustration building in him like an avalanche. He was out of sorts, regretful for ruining the moment, for reacting like he had at her words. He should just leave this alone, drop her off at home and get on with his day.
“Manny, we’re taking Ms. Esmeralda home. 419 Riverside Drive.”
She whipped her head back at that and he realized his mistake. “How do you know where we live?”
Shit. He was not getting into that. Him revealing how he was aware of her address when he had never set foot there—as far as she knew—would just add to the already mounting list of reasons for her to hate him.
“I must have heard it from Mami,” he lied, but the words had an instant effect on Esme.
“Of course.” Her eyes softened at the mention of his mother. “Gloria was able to visit before she got too weak.”
When his mother had been losing her battle with cancer years earlier, Ivelisse had been there to help, sitting with his mother for days on end. And he’d heard from Marquito that Esmeralda had come to the wake for a few hours when he’d been called away to do something for Patricio. Because even at his mother’s funeral he’d had to put the studio first.
“Mami misses her.” Her voice was hoarse with real emotion, and seeing her hurt for his mother cracked something open in him. He never talked about his parents; he’d stopped even mentioning his father’s name after he disappeared, leaving Rodrigo holding the bag for his reckless gambling. Then his mother had gotten sick. But if anyone knew what his mother had meant to him, it was Esmeralda.
His twenties were a blur, nothing but overwhelming stress and paralyzing fear that they would be destitute, that his mother would die because they could not get her decent care. But he’d done what he’d needed to. Kept his head down and made himself indispensable to Patricio Sambrano until he was pulling in an eight-figure salary before he was thirty. Ten years of gritting his teeth, and the only moments of real happiness had been with this woman who he barely knew how to talk to anymore.
The car came to a stop and when he looked out, he saw the front of her building. He’d only been here that one other time, but everything that had to do with Esmeralda was permanently etched in his memory.
“419 Riverside Drive,” Manny announced, and without saying a word to him Esmeralda pushed the car door open. He ought to let this go, to drive off and go back to his obligations, but instead he got out of the car and went after her.
“You’re not even going say goodbye to me, Esmeralda?” he growled, hot on her heels.
“Goodbye,” she said as she made her way to the entrance of the building. She tapped in the code for the door and soon they were inside the small but well-appointed lobby of her building. He had no idea what he was doing, but he just could not let her go.
“You’re being unreasonable. This is my life,” he hissed as she walked into an alcove by the door.
She came to a dead stop as his angry words resounded in the space and spun on him so quickly they almost crashed into each other. “And this is my life, Rodrigo. I didn’t ask to be Patricio’s daughter or tell him to do what he did in his will. But I am shooting my shot.” She laughed and it sounded broken. “I want this, Rodrigo. I have ambitions. Don’t you think I wish things were different? I...” Her voice broke and she lifted her eyes to the ceiling, blinking fast. “I’m sorry this is the hand we’ve both been dealt. And I really thought that we could, that maybe—”
But whatever she was about to say died in the space between them. “You know what, never mind what I thought.”
She turned again and walked over to the elevator as he stood there rooted to the floor. Unable to go after her, but not wanting to leave without fixing what was happening between them. He wanted to know what it was she wouldn’t say. But as soon as the door opened their chance to talk was drowned out by a familiar cacophony of holas and mijas. And he was screwed, because Ivelisse Peña and her three sisters all came out of the elevator, a swarm of Dominican aunties heading straight for him.
“Niña, why didn’t you tell me Rodrigo was coming over?” Esme’s mother cried as she engulfed him in a hug. The top of her head barely reached his shoulder, but like his mother, what she lacked in stature she more than made up for in temperament.
She put her hands on either side of his face and he bent down so she could kiss him on the cheek. “Ivelisse, it’s been a minute.”
She clicked her tongue, pulling back so she could get a good look at him. “Too long.” She patted him on the cheek and pursed her lips in a sad expression. “You got Gloria’s face. Verdad?” she asked her sisters, who promptly gave him more hugs. He felt starved for touch. But even with these women loving on him he felt cold and bereft, because the only person he wanted, the only hands he yearned for, belonged to the woman who was standing off to the side looking miserable.
He took a step back as Ivelisse asked him questions about his brother. “Marquito’s good. Loves his job,” he said with a smile he was certain didn’t reach his eyes. He was proud of his brother, but he couldn’t get excited about anything in that moment. He needed to leave. Walking in here after Esmeralda had been a terrible idea. “Listen, Ive, it was good seeing you, but I have to get going. I just came to drop off Esme.”
Ivelisse was a wily woman and the mere mention of her daughter’s name seemed to wake up her spidey senses. Instantly her gaze was shifting back and forth between the two of them as if she was picking up a signal from inside their heads.
“I’m not letting you out of this building until you come up a
nd have a cafecito with us. Esmeralda, what are you doing standing there in a corner looking mad? Ven, mija.” She waved over her only child, who indeed looked very unhappy to be in this tableau.
“I have my driver outside,” Rodrigo pleaded, knowing Esme probably didn’t want him anywhere near her.
But Ivelisse would not be dissuaded. “Rebeca, go tell the driver Rodrigo’s going to come up for a visit.”
And that’s how he found himself sitting in Esmeralda’s living room getting plied with coffee and Dominican pastries during the middle of a workday.
Fourteen
Esmeralda wanted the floor to open up and swallow her whole. Because she was pretty sure she reeked of sex and was now surrounded by her mother and all her aunts while they cooed over Rodrigo, who also probably reeked of sex. They were sitting on her mother’s love seat while the older women ran around setting out food for the honored guest. Because God forbid a male visitor came to the house and they didn’t serve him an elaborate feast like he was a freaking emperor.
“Esmeralda, mamita, what did those pastelitos ever do to you? Stop looking at my food like it offended you.” Her mother thought she was cute. But if she didn’t stop glaring Ivelisse would pick up on the fact that something was wrong. And her mother was not above asking her twenty questions in front of company.
“Sorry, Mami,” she mumbled and leaned in to grab a cheese pastelito. She was annoyed but also hungry and the fried cheese-filled pastry would at least put her in a more amenable mood. When she leaned back into the couch, next to freaking Rodrigo, her hand accidentally grazed his thigh. His hard and very muscular thigh, which she’d been astride just an hour ago...before he reminded her again that he was not interested in anything other than pushing her out. She expected him to be put out, or bored, looking at his watch, desperate to leave their small apartment, but he appeared totally at ease with arms splayed over the back of the couch. He should feel out of place here in his five-thousand-dollar suit and expensive haircut. But somehow, he fit.
“I’m heading out soon,” he said against her ear, and her body flooded with heat. “I just didn’t want to be rude to Ive.”
She exhaled and turned to him. “It’s fine. It’s not like they would’ve taken no for answer.”
At that precise moment her mother walked out from their little kitchen carrying a tray laden with steaming cups of café con leche. Rodrigo sprung up from the couch as soon as he saw her, his arms extended to get the tray from her. “Ivelisse, you should’ve called me, I would’ve brought this out for you.” Her mother waved him off, but happily handed him the heavy tray.
“You were always such a helpful boy.” She leaned in to kiss him on the cheek as he handed cups to Esmeralda’s aunts. Something about her mother’s expression gave Esme pause. She looked regretful, like she always did whenever Rodrigo was in the picture.
“Rebeca, how’s the teaching gig? Are you still up at Gregorio Luperón?” Esme’s aunt perked up at Rodrigo’s question about her beloved students. Esmeralda seriously resented the ball of warmth pulsing in her chest at the fact that he remembered the high school her aunt worked at.
“It’s a roller coaster,” Rebeca answered with a laugh. “Teaching those math kids that the arts are also important is always a struggle. But I keep trying.”
“If anyone’s going to get through to them it’s you,” he told Rebeca with a fond smile. By that point every one of the older women was riveted by him. And Esme couldn’t blame them. The man was a walking, talking sex dream. Her hands twitched as that sculpted chest flashed in her mind. He was back to looking picture-perfect. Only an hour earlier she’d had her hands all over him. She’d kissed that generous mouth, nipped at his neck.
Yeah. She needed to calm down.
“I might be able to give you hope,” Rodrigo said to Rebeca after taking a huge bite of pastelito. She really had to stop staring at his mouth. “My mentee just started his first year in the NYU film studies program and he went to Luperón.”
“You still do that?” Esmeralda interrupted. “The Big Brother program, I mean.” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop herself and soon four sets of eyes were on her.
Rodrigo turned his gaze to her and the intensity there was enough to make her fan herself. “Yeah, I do.” He nodded, eyebrows furrowed.
“You’ve been in that mentoring program since college.”
He dipped his head again. “Yeah, I actually started an initiative at Sambrano for people interested in being mentors. In the beginning it was just the New York offices, but it went so well we expanded it to Miami and LA, too. Altogether we have like two hundred mentors.”
“That’s wonderful, Rodrigo.” Her mother had always been Rodrigo’s number-one fan. The rest of the tías chimed in and soon he was asking each of them questions about their interests and jobs. He had them practically eating out of his hand. But that wasn’t fair, either. This wasn’t manipulative or fake. He cared about these women. He’d grown up around them. Because they had a history together. A history she’d forced herself to never think about—but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.
And Esmeralda wished it felt like history, like something that was part of her past. But in just a matter of days Rodrigo had become a presence in her life she couldn’t ignore, and worse—one she didn’t know how to walk away from. Even when she was furious with him, she couldn’t deny how right it felt to have him in her life. He was at home here. In her world, with her mother, with her aunts. Because he had always been a part of all of it.
* * *
“Where are all the Juanes and Keanu Reeves posters?” Rodrigo asked, eliciting a wry smile and nudge on his shoulder.
“I am a grown woman, Rodrigo. My teenage crushes are ancient history,” she said, waving him over to the standing desk near the window. In reality her bedroom was sexy as hell. Dark blues and golds, a big inviting bed, and lots of art on the wall. Yeah, this was not a kid’s room and the things he wanted to do to her on that bed were definitely for adults only.
“Come, let me show you something.” For once Rodrigo was grateful for the diminutive spaces in New York City apartments. It gave him an excuse to get closer to her again. She’d thawed in the hour since they’d gotten to her apartment. And he couldn’t deny that it had been nice to spend some time with Ivelisse and her sisters. He had to hold himself so tightly all the time at work that he forgot who he had been. Before everything had gone wrong with his parents, with Esmeralda, his life had not been only about garnering power at Sambrano. His life had been this, la familia.
Esmeralda had been the place where he always felt grounded in that, but since they’d parted, he’d changed. He’d closed himself off; he’d told himself all he needed was the job. And now in less than three days her presence had started chiseling at that barrier he’d created between himself and the world. He could feel the walls of control crumbling with every kiss. And instead of retreating, of trying to find a way to get himself back to the safety of aloofness, all he wanted was to get closer. He had no idea how he’d do it, how he would manage to keep her and the job, but with every passing second he grew more certain that finding a way was the key to everything.
He tentatively moved closer, his front only inches from her back, and instead of pulling away from him she leaned in. Almost instinctively he wrapped an arm around her waist. He pressed his lips to her neck, flicking his tongue at the warm skin there.
“I’m supposed to be showing you something,” she protested as her hand skittered off the keyboard. Within seconds she’d turned around in his arms.
He trailed kisses from her mouth all the way down to the top of her breasts, lapping at her skin as she gasped with pleasure. “I have no self-control at all with you,” she moaned, and despite her mother and aunts being just down the hall, his hunger for her was too fierce to stop.
“Let me see you, Joya,” he urged and she quic
kly obliged, revealing those gorgeous breasts for him. “Mmm, tweak them for me, show me where you want my hands, sweetheart.” His hands itched to touch her, but this game of her pleasuring herself while he watched had always been a favorite of theirs.
She took his hand and guided it to an engorged peak. He worried the nipple between his thumb and index finger, and watched her gasp with pleasure. “I love seeing you like this.” I don’t think I can live without it, he almost said, but instead focused on what he had now. He moved in to kiss her and she responded with the same hunger he felt. Her tongue sliding with his, tasting and nipping until he almost regretted having started something he could not finish.
He pulled back, gasping “I need to have you again.”
She nodded frantically, going in for another kiss. “I can’t disappear on my mom tonight,” she said regretfully. “But maybe tomorrow,” she promised and a sound of pure pleasure rumbled in his chest.
“I would like that.” He was about to go in for another kiss, to show her just how much he wanted her, when his phone went off. It was the ringtone he’d set for friends and family—which now were only a precious few. For it to be a call and not just a text meant it had to be urgent.
He pressed a soft kiss to her jaw and pulled back regretfully. “I’m sorry, I have to take this.”
She nodded in understanding as she fixed her top. “We should stop anyway, my mother is already going to ask me a thousand questions, and I don’t need to walk out there looking like you just had your way with me.”
“Which I did,” he teased, inciting a glare from her. A smile tugged at his lips as he tapped to accept a call from...Jimena?
“What’s up?” he asked into the phone as Esmeralda gestured she was going back outside to rejoin her mother and aunts. She had barely closed the door behind her when Jimena launched into a frantic story about Carmelina.
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