the-charmer

by Myra Scott

  “This is between Diego and me. It is not your concern.”

  Zane was nearly shaking with rage. “It became my concern the second your fist collided with his face, asshole. You want to hit someone? I’m right here. Let’s go.”

  Alvaro glared daggers in my direction and I reflexively withered under his stare. “Call off your guard dog o te rompo hasta los huesos” he hissed darkly. I stepped back, horrified.

  “What did you just say to him?” Zane questioned fiercely. Alvaro folded his arms over his broad chest and didn’t answer. Zane looked over at me and asked, “What did he say, Diego?”

  I looked back and forth between them, my heart pounding. I knew that if I translated what Alvaro had said, there would be a fight. No question. I couldn’t stand the thought of Zane getting hurt on my behalf. He didn’t deserve that. This was my problem, not his. Alvaro shook his head slowly, commanding me not to say a word.

  “Diego!” Zane exclaimed.

  Quietly I replied, “He said he’ll break my bones.”

  With one swift, fluid movement, Zane lunged at Alvaro, knocking him into the wall. I jumped back with a gasp of fear as the two of them struggled. Zane stepped back, clearly doing his best to restrain himself. He was trying not to turn this into an all-out fight.

  “You’re really going to threaten him right in front of me?” he growled.

  “Well, él es mi novio. I can do whatever I want with him. It’s not your business, is it?” Alvaro replied coldly. He cast another hateful glance my way and I stared down at the floor. “Come now. You have been spending a lot of time with mi novio, haven’t you? You are a tough man, clearly. But surely you have figured out by now that Diego is not like you and me. Diego is weak. A coward. I deal with him exactly the way he deserves.”

  “By abusing him? Pushing him around?” Zane shot back furiously.

  Alvaro shrugged. “I do what is necessary. No es tu problema. Back off. Get out of our house. I don’t know what makes you think you have any say in the matter.”

  “It’s my problem because I care about Diego and I will not allow anyone to hurt him. Not even you,” Zane snarled, pushing up his sleeves and taking a step closer. Alvaro stared at him quizzically for a moment, then raised an eyebrow and smirked, as though an idea had just occurred to him.

  “Ah,” he said, looking over at me with disdain. “I see it now. Of course. It all makes sense. Diego has been screwing around. Mi novio must have given you one hell of a blowjob, yes? I bet he bent over like a little bitch for you. Like the weak little punk he is. Don’t be fooled into thinking you are the only one, Mr. Anderson. I am sure he has been sharing himself with the whole city.”

  I felt the color drain from my face and my knees buckle underneath me.

  He knew. It was all in the light now.

  Zane, however, was unfazed by the partially correct accusation. “Don’t talk about him that way,” he warned. Alvaro laughed cruelly.

  “Are you defending his honor?” he snorted. “Amigo, he does not have any honor to defend. Diego has been a whore since the day I met him. I tried to turn him into something better, give him a taste of success, but it was a waste of time. That’s what I get for taking on a charity case, I suppose. You and I, however, we are alike.”

  “We are nothing alike,” Zane retorted. “I would never hurt Diego like that.”

  Alvaro rolled his eyes. “Oh, you say that now. Give it a year and see how you feel. This man is a spineless, worthless dog. You’ve already seen what he’s good for. Sucking cock and causing drama. That is all he has to offer.”

  “Shut your fucking mouth,” Zane seethed.

  “Why? Too difficult to hear the truth? Mierda. That blowjob must have really messed with your mind, amigo.”

  Zane took a step forward. “Shut your mouth,” he said, enunciating every syllable.

  A familiar expression came over Alvaro’s face. I knew that look very well. His body language told me everything. His hands became fists and he leaned forward, narrowing his eyes slightly. He was about to assault Zane.

  “Alvaro, don’t,” I whispered.

  “Stay out of this, Diego!” Zane commanded.

  “Si, Diego. Back off,” Alvaro hissed. He took another step toward Zane, raising his arm.

  I quickly fumbled for my cell phone and dialed 9-1-1. As the line rang, Alvaro took a swing at Zane. I gasped and clapped a hand over my mouth. In my ear, the operator was asking, “Hello, what is your emergency?”

  “My boyfriend is fighting my—my—a man. In my house. Someone is going to get seriously hurt. Please send help,” I whispered into the phone as I backed away in the corner by the front door.

  “Okay, sir, please stay on the line. What is your address? Are you in danger?”

  “I think I’m in danger, yes. Please help me,” I replied. Alvaro’s fist smacked into Zane’s jaw and I cried out in horror. Zane stumbled back, but quickly recovered, barreling toward Alvaro and landing a left hook to his nose. A spray of bright red blood flew through the air. I quickly muttered my address into the phone and stared out the window, watching for the police cars as my heart pounded in my chest.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - ZANE

  As the paramedic carefully applied the bandage to my forehead after applying the stitch, everything was a blur of anger and aggression after we had exchanged a few blows, and things were only starting to slow down now that I was sitting on the back of an ambulance.

  I vaguely remembered the police arriving, the fight getting broken up, and all of us getting hauled outside for questioning. Before that, I smugly remembered landing a few solid blows on Alvaro that he would remember for a long time. He had gotten patched up away from me, and it gave me quiet satisfaction that it took a few more paramedics to tend to him than to me.

  While my paramedic tended to my wound, I was forced to keep looking in the same direction and hold still, and my gaze happened to be turned to Diego and the police officer who was taking his statement.

  My heart churned with mixed feelings at the sight.

  When I first laid eyes on Diego Castillo, the very last direction I imagined our relationship taking was to the back of an ambulance outside his house, feverishly answering questions about the abusive ex I just beat up. A mix of shame and guilt welled up inside me.

  Maybe this wasn’t how an Anderson was supposed to behave. What would my mother think of me now, having just beat up a man and dragged all of us out into this big messy situation? There could have been a hundred better ways to solve all this.

  But when those thoughts started to get to me, Diego would shift so that the light caught his lip injury, and any scrap of remorse vanished. Could I really blame myself for this? Alvaro was the one who behaved like a monster, and he did so to the sweetest man I’d met since coming to Vegas.

  The paramedic finished his work and stepped away from me, leaving me to roll my shoulders back and look down at my bandaged knuckles. I was physically impeccable, but no amount of training would keep you from bloodying your knuckles against a man’s facial bones when you really wanted to lay into him. In the heat of the moment, there was nobody I would have rather injured myself punching than Alvaro.

  And although I spent so much time worrying what my family might say about the whole situation, I remembered an incident from my childhood. I couldn’t have been more than ten, but I remember standing up to someone in the schoolyard who was taking a toy from a friend of mine. We fought, and I remember both of us getting pulled off each other crying, but I’d given him a bloody nose. We were both reprimanded for fighting and sent home with stern notes to our parents.

  I had been almost unable to face my mother because I knew she’d gotten a call from the school about the fight before I even got on the bus to come home. When I talked to her, she sat me down and spoke to me so seriously that I was sure this was the end of the world.

&nb
sp; But I remember her stern, calm voice saying that while endangering myself was never a good thing, that I should always stand up for people who need it, but never become the bully—she said that she raised me to know the difference.

  It wasn’t a memory I ever gave much thought to nowadays, but it gave me some quiet reassurance, looking back on it.

  After this was over, I thought, I was going to give Mom a call and have a long talk about all this. I couldn’t bottle it up any longer.

  With that thought on my mind, I watched Diego finish talking to the police officer. They exchanged nods, and then Diego’s dark, gorgeous eyes turned to me.

  There was such a look of tired relief mixed with gratitude on his face that I felt my eyes threatening to mist up immediately. The two of us smiled at each other, and Diego couldn’t help but give a silent, disbelieving laugh as he walked toward me.

  “You never thought making a deal with me would land you sitting on the back of an ambulance, did you?”

  “Don’t say that,” I said, grinning. “But I’ve got to say, it’s been a much more interesting arrangement than any of my other business partners.”

  He shook his head, chuckling, but we were interrupted by the sight of a police officer marching Alvaro in handcuffs to the back of one of the police cars.

  As the officer put a hand on his head to push him into the seat, Alvaro cast a rueful glare back at both of us. I looked up at Diego, whose face was full of mixed feelings, some relieved, some anxious.

  “Hey,” I said softly, getting his attention. “We did the right thing.”

  “You think so?” he asked.

  “I know so,” I said. “He was the one who was already violent. If we hadn’t come here tonight, then you might have been stuck with that on your own, and not willing to stop him,” I pointed out, nodding to the police car. Diego frowned, sniffing, but he finally nodded.

  “I know you are right, Zane,” he said. “Alvaro and I never should have been, but it got so bad so slowly that I never fully realized everything he was capable of. Without you, I…”

  “Don’t worry about that,” I said, waving it off. “You don’t need to go down that road. You never will.”

  Diego gave me a teary smile, and he sat down beside me. After a moment, I wrapped my arms around him, and he embraced me. We held each other tight, feeling each other’s warmth and heartbeat against our chests, and I heard him sniff.

  “Thank you, Zane,” he breathed. I beamed, and finally, I kissed him on the cheek before looking at him with one hand on the side of his head, stroking his hair gently.

  “What happens now?” he asked.

  “Alvaro will face charges, and he’ll most likely get sent back to Spain,” I said. “And I have a feeling he won’t be in a hurry to come back. If he is, we’ll deal with it together.”

  Diego nodded, still smiling at me. “Zane, I do not know how to thank you.”

  “Don’t,” I said. “I didn’t do this as a favor, Diego.”

  “I know.” He turned his head to watch the police car take Alvaro away, and we hopped off the back of the ambulance as it prepared to pull off as well.

  “Still,” Diego went on, “Zane, it has been such a...a wild ride, knowing you,” he said, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “That’s an interesting way of putting it,” I said.

  “It’s been an interesting time. Zane. Without you, I don’t know how I could have gotten through any of this.” He cracked a smile. “I never expected it to boil over the way it did so quickly, but…”

  “Nobody expects this kind of thing to happen,” I said. “And nobody should. Alvaro is not the kind of man anyone should expect to have to deal with. Especially not someone like you, Diego.”

  His smile grew. “I could not have gotten through this without you, Zane.”

  I shook my head, chuckling, and I took his hand in mine. “Diego, you are...the most sweet, considerate, kind-hearted, and quick-witted man I have ever met. You keep me sharp and on my feet, but at the same time, I feel more relaxed around you than anyone else. I don’t know how you do it, but I know that you deserve nothing but the best in life.”

  Diego’s smile was melting my heart, and he squeezed my hands before I went on.

  “I don’t know what the future is going to be like,” I admitted, “but I do know...that I am falling in love with you.”

  The words had barely left my mouth before Diego threw his arms around me and pulled me in tight, and I hugged him back, both of us squeezing the life out of each other as we stood there, lost in each other.

  “I love you too, Zane,” Diego gushed in Spanish. “I want you to hear it in my mother tongue. I love you, and I never want to let you go.”

  “You don’t have to, Diego,” I replied in the same language. “Because I’m not going to stop holding on.”

  The two of us let our tears flow freely as we stood there, squeezing each other so tight I thought we were going to pass out. When we finally broke free of each other, we looked each other up and down and burst out laughing.

  “God, just look at the two of us,” I said in English. “A couple of casino owners looking like we just stumbled out of a brawl at a dive bar after midnight, confessing our love through a busted lip and a bleeding forehead.”

  “It’s not exactly our comfort zone,” he agreed, wiping a tear from his eye. “But things have been an adventure since meeting you, Zane.”

  “Diego, if you think things have been an adventure so far,” I said, “you haven’t seen anything yet.”

  One of the police officers approached us, a notepad in hand.

  “Mr. Castillo?” she asked, pointing with a pen to Diego. “If you would, could you come with us down to the station? We need to ask a few more questions and have you fill out some paperwork about the assault.”

  “Yes, of course,” Diego said, “I’ll be with you in just a moment.”

  The officer nodded and headed back to her car, leaving me to look at Diego one more time, so many more words left to be said.

  “Can I come along with you?” I asked. “I’ll give you a ride, even.”

  “That’s okay,” he said, shaking his head. “You’ve been by my side at a crucial time in my rocky relationship with Alvaro, and I couldn’t possibly ask for more. It will give me some peace to be able to close that chapter of my life on my own.” His face grew a little bashful as he added, “Besides, I want as many memories as I can with you to be happy ones.”

  “What, filling out paperwork at the police station isn’t your idea of a good time?” I joked, and he laughed. “I’ll have to cancel my plans for our second date.”

  “Second?” he asked, raising an eyebrow, and I flashed a grin.

  “You can’t tell me that dinner we had together at the tapas place wasn’t a date,” I pointed out, and the Spaniard’s cheeks grew red. He opened his mouth to protest, but when no words came out, I raised a triumphant eyebrow.

  “I’ll call you in the morning,” he finally said, turning to go. Just as he did, I stepped forward, taking him by the hand and turning him around.

  Wrapping a hand around the back of his neck, I brought him in for a gentle kiss, careful not to hurt his lip. We pressed our mouths together for a few sweet, beautiful seconds, feeling the warmth of our bodies together in golden bliss before we broke apart and stared at each other lovingly.

  “I’ll come over in the morning,” I corrected him, “and I’m going to make you breakfast.”

  Diego grinned, and he pecked me on the lips once more before heading off to get into his car. I watched them go, leaving me alone in the cool of the night, nothing but the inky-black sky above to keep me company.

  Yeah, I thought, I think I can take this one home to Mom.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN - DIEGO

  “What do you want to watch? There’s a football game
on at six if you’re into that,” I said, scanning the TV guide in my hand as I carried a homemade charcuterie board out of the kitchen and into the living room. I looked up from the guide to smile at Zane, who was seated on the same couch where we first made love. There were still cuts and bruises on his face, even though mine were starting to fade. But despite the pain he had to be feeling, he was grinning at me. There was a spark in those gorgeous blue eyes. He took a sip of his red wine and beckoned for me to sit down next to him.

  I carefully set the charcuterie board down on the coffee table and tossed the TV guide into an armchair. I eased down onto the sofa, cuddling close to Zane, who put his muscular arm around me and leaned in to kiss my cheek. At the very last second, I turned and pecked him on the lips before he could reach my cheek, and he burst out laughing.

  “You’re sneaky,” he chuckled. I shrugged, beaming at him happily.

  “Thank you. I pride myself on that,” I answered. I leaned over to pick up my glass of wine and clink it against Zane’s glass. “To us.”

  “To us,” he repeated, taking a sip. “So, when you said football…”

  “Oh. I meant soccer, lo siento,” I added, blushing. “Not American football. Fútbol.”

  “Good, yes! You are learning so fast,” I congratulated him. “Soon, you will be fluent enough to hold a conversation with my parents. If I can convince them to actually speak Spanish with you, that is. They are so proud of being fluent in English, that’s all they want to do: show it off to Americans.”

  “I just want to be able to tell them in their own language how much I love their son,” he told me gently. “I need them to understand that I’m going to treat you so well. Not like Alvaro.”

  “No, no. Nothing like Alvaro,” I said, wrinkling my nose. I set my wine glass down to sweep my long, dark hair back into a ponytail. Zane watched me closely as I did so, and I raised an eyebrow in confusion.

  “What?” I asked, suspicious. “You’re staring at me.”

  He smiled and reached over to cup my face in his huge hand. “Nothing. I just love looking at you, Diego.”