The Saint's Devilish Deal

by Kristina Knight

  “Still hiding out?” he asked, cocking his brow in question.

  “Not hiding out. Observing,” she said from her place to the left of the head table. Where she was partially hidden by a gorgeous Christmas palm.

  Santiago snatched a glass of champagne from a passing waiter. “Is that what they call it in California? Go on, please.”

  “You have no idea how fascinating the rich and moderately famous can be.” Esme sipped champagne and then discreetly pointed the glass toward a couple sitting to the side of the band. The woman, dressed in a sapphire blue and emerald green sheath with feathers adorning her hair, twirled a golden ringlet around her index finger. The man, in a white linen suit and with just a fringe of hair left on his head, sat with his arms crossed and his feet tapping in annoyance. “Those two are completely mismatched. She is obviously a gold digger and he is looking for a new trophy wife, right? However, if you look a little closer, they’re playing footsie under the table and watching each other very closely. Plus, she just told him she was pregnant and the look on her face was truly happy, not just I’m-getting-out-of-the-prenup happy.”

  “She told him she was pregnant at a party?”

  “Okay, I made that part up, but whatever she said a few minutes ago made both of them very, very happy. Real happy, not bored-and-faking-it happy. It also increased the footsie action.”

  “Maybe she agreed to play with whatever sex toy he purchased because his old-man-equipment doesn’t work so well anymore.”

  She slapped his shoulder. “You’re terrible, Saint. Sister Immaculada would not be impressed.”

  “Dance with me.” Santiago placed his hand at the small of her back and heat raced up her spine. Her body wanted to follow him, desperately, but she held back. Staying in the background at his family home was one thing. Flaunting her appearance was quite another. From the first time she visited Puerto Vallarta, Eduardo Cruz intimidated Esme. His blustery exterior didn’t hide a sensitive heart but a block of frozen tundra, and she hadn’t been able to fit an icepick into her evening bag.

  Esme shook her head. “I’m happy being invisible back here in the corner.”

  “Do I need to remind you of our agreement?”

  “We agreed that the extreme sports were part of my ‘re-training’. Dancing in your father’s home isn’t an extreme sport. Although it could be hazardous to my health.”

  “Mmm.” He leaned closer, nuzzling her neck with his nose. “Dance with me, pequeña”

  Her insides were quivery, wanting to be closer to Santiago, but she made one more attempt at avoiding the dance floor. “I already had two hours of sunbathing beside the pool today. That and my double-dose of excitement yesterday should exempt me from stepping on your toes on the dance floor.”

  “For today.” He sighed against her ear and she shivered.

  Esme wasn’t certain why, but Santiago’s acceptance disappointed her. She didn’t want to dance around the floor, waiting for Eduardo to pounce on her. She should be happy they were going to stay hidden in this corner of the room. So why wasn’t she?

  “If you’re really, really nice, I may dance with you later,” she said, batting her eyelashes at him.

  “I can be really, really good with that kind of incentive.” He was quiet for a minute, his hand drawing circles over the silk of her dress. She sighed and leaned against him. “Does this mean we aren’t fighting any longer?” he asked.

  “We weren’t fighting, at least not today. We disagreed, most co— people do,” Esme said, and swallowed a gulp of champagne to cover the near gaffe. Couple? She nearly referred to them as a couple. Not a good idea. They weren’t a couple. They were partners in a business for the next few months. Bedmates. That was all. When Santiago said nothing, Esme felt compelled to speak. Her words tripped over one another as she tried to make sense of the cacophony in her head. “It’s just been weird adjusting to the fact that Aunt Constance didn’t trust me with her baby.”

  “She didn’t not trust you, Esme—”

  Before he could say anything else, Tobias took the stage, silenced the band, and clapped his hands together. After welcoming the guests and wishing Eduardo a happy birthday, he motioned for the lights to dim. A slim man in a white chef’s coat and tall pastry hat wheeled in a monstrous cake bearing a striking resemblance to Casa Constance into the room. Candles reflected off the tiny cake-hotel’s windows, shined onto fondant-created people and flickered across a swimming pool filled with blue tinted sugar. The crowd broke into a chorus of “Happy Birthday” as the cake came to rest at the head table.

  Santiago’s mother clapped. “A wish, Eduardo, you must make a wish.” She smiled happily as the crowd hushed in anticipation.

  Eduardo looked annoyed. Clenching his jaw, he declared, “Tonto! I do not want that cake or this party and I will not blow out ridiculous candles like a four-year-old. You will not make a fool of me, Magdalena, when you are already the fool.” He stormed onto the terrace.

  The crowd gasped as he stormed off although only a few could have heard his words. Magdalena’s face crumpled. She looked wildly around and then hurried from the room. Santiago’s body went rigid and he stepped forward, Esme grabbed at his hand to stop him following his father onto the terrace, but he shook her off. Sending a malevolent look to the head table as Tobias took the stage and made a joke about fire extinguishers, Santiago went in the opposite direction, following his mother into the mansion. Someone opened another terrace door and the ocean breeze rippled over the cake, blowing out the candles and throwing the cake hotel into darkness. Esme stood rooted to the spot for another long minute, but as the musicians began playing she hurried from the room.

  In the empty hallway, Esme realized she had no idea where to go. The ferry back to the mainland wouldn’t leave for at least another hour. Santiago was nowhere in sight. She played with the idea of wandering the grounds for a bit, but with Eduardo apparently on a tear, she nixed that plan. Allowing the old man to rip at her emotions as he’d just done to his wife was not her idea of a good time.

  She knew Eduardo was outside, so Esme decided wandering the mansion’s hallways was the safest thing to do. She passed a gilt framed mirror, too many side tables to count, and a few flower arrangements she wouldn’t mind copying to use at Casa. Framed pictures of Tobias, Santiago, and their sisters were everywhere, a few with Magdalena’s smiling face between the two boys. Eduardo’s image was absent from the house. Esme supposed it was hard to take a good picture of a man who frowned and berated constantly. At the end of the hall, a second staircase rose to her left and a door opened to her right.

  A sliver of light shone through the crack in the door, and Esme turned away. Santiago’s voice brought her back.

  “Mama, come home with Esmerelda and me,” he said, sending a thrill of hope into Esme’s heart. He considered the villa home? It shouldn’t surprise her. The place was a refuge for her as a child, why shouldn’t it be a refuge for him as well?

  Magdalena sniffled. “He is my husband, pequeño, it is my place to stay in his home.”

  Esme watched from the door as Santiago gathered his mother into his arms just as he would have gathered her to him after the surfing accident. Her heart squeezed. How could she make this okay for him? His mother wouldn’t leave her home, just as Esme’s father, Ernesto, hadn’t been able to leave her mother. Not until the day, in the depths of depression, Josephine Quinn convinced her husband to go for a drive—and drove them straight into the ocean.

  He whispered something in her ear and then, a little louder, “”You don’t have to live like this any longer. He can’t hurt any of us.”

  Hands shaking, Magdalena pulled away from her son. “I only wanted you to help celebrate your father’s birthday.” She blotted her eyes with a tissue and wandered the room, trailing her hands over tables and picture frames as she went. “Who doesn’t want to celebrate a birthday? So I planned this party as a surprise. I’m not sure what went wrong.” She shook her head. “I must have f
orgotten to invite someone important or, or maybe it was the food. Your father cannot abide spicy food but I filled the menu with traditional Mexican foods. I will go back over the details and I will know for the next time.”

  “Mama—”

  Esme jumped as Tobias’s hand clamped around her upper arm. He hustled her into the room, tossing a set of keys to Santiago. “You should go. It is bad enough that you crashed our father’s birthday party but to bring her? It is no wonder Father reacted the way he did. You should both go. I instructed the ferry to return early and most of the guests are already starting for the docks. You can take my boat, and I’ll stay with Mama.” He turned gentle eyes to their mother. “No te preocupe.”

  Don’t worry, Esme translated and nearly laughed. Magdalena shouldn’t worry that her husband had trampled all over her birthday gift, made a fool of her before hundreds of her friends? This was not the first time, she knew. Eduardo’s treatment of his wife was ongoing; no wonder Santiago steered clear of this place. No wonder he didn’t want to be here any longer than necessary.

  Pain ripped at her because Esme knew she couldn’t ask him to stay with her, and she knew she wouldn’t leave with him. She couldn’t leave Casa Constance. She’d shut herself away, stupidly thinking that being serious about business was all she needed to succeed. In reality, all the training in the world might not save Casa Constance, but she had to try and a full recovery would take more than the six months Con had asked for.

  But they couldn’t leave Magdalena here alone.

  “Your father’s actions have nothing to do with me or Santiago and everything to do with abuse, Tobias. How you can’t see that—”

  “This is not your brother’s fault, hijo mayor, the fault is mine.” Magdalena continued her circuitous route of the room as if she might find the answers she sought in one of the deco boxes or flower arrangements. Esme wanted to cry for her. For Santiago. For the entire Cruz clan. “I have to fix it.” She drifted from the room, leaving Esme between Tobias and Santiago.

  “You know where my dock is. Use it and get out.” Tobias’s eyes were flinty, just as they had been in the villa the week before.

  “Tobias—”

  “You washed your hands of our family when you ran out on the business, ponce, don’t try to come back and play boy hero now.”

  Santiago’s hands clenched. “I’m not playing anything. I’m trying to help our mother.”

  Esme took Santiago’s hand. She had to get him out of the house before they started throwing punches. Eduardo’s scene was bad enough, she didn’t know what would happen to Magdalena if her sons turned on one another in the family home.

  “We should go, Santiago. Your mother doesn’t need a confrontation right now, she needs peace and quiet.”

  Santiago looked at her as if she were speaking Latin. “Leave her here? I thought you, of all people, would understand.”

  Esme wanted to run after Magdalena herself and drag her to Casa Constance, but that wouldn’t solve anything. Magdalena had to make the choice, and since she chose to stay their staying would only cause more upheaval. Oh, but she wanted to wipe that look of betrayal from Santiago’s eyes.

  “Go ahead, ponce, leave.” Tobias posed in an extravagant bow, pointing them to the door. “It’s always been your best move.”

  Santiago clenched his hands into fists. Esme placed her hands around his. “Don’t, Santiago. For your mother’s sake, let’s just go.” Santiago shook her off as he strode to the door.

  “I’ll come back tomorrow, Mama,” he called up the stairs. He turned, shooting a venomous look at his brother. “You might as well get used to the idea that I’m back. I won’t stand by while he abuses her the way you have.”

  The anger disappeared from Tobias’s eyes in a flash, replaced by sadness. “You cannot do more than I have tried. She will not leave this place.” Tobias threw out his arms in impatience, as if tired of the entire subject. “Most of the time, she is fine. Father lives at the resort with whatever Mensa candidate he can buy for a week or two. This will pass, Santiago, it always does. You’ve just never stayed around long enough to see the recovery.”

  Santiago grunted in disgust. “There can’t be a recovery without medication—and I don’t mean the Valium she’s probably sucking down right now.” He raked his hand through his hair. “She needs more than you or I have ever given her.”

  Esme felt like an outsider watching them. This was the longest conversation she had ever witnessed that didn’t end in bloodshed. Did they even know she was in the room? Santiago squeezed her fingers. Okay, he knew.

  “I’ll bring your boat back in the morning.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Someone from the resort can do that.”

  A loud wailing sounded from upstairs and both men jerked.

  “Tobias, he won’t come back, will he?” The words slipped from her mouth before she could pull them back.

  “As long as he has a warm body in his bed, no. Our father has made embarrassing and then ignoring his wife an art form.”

  “Then why don’t we stay? She needs someone. It might be good for your mother, to have both of you—”

  “No. It won’t. Leave, Santiago. If he realizes you’ve stayed he will come back. You were always his best weapon against her. Poking at her about you is his favorite pastime, especially after a scene like this.”

  “Who is there to tell him?” she asked.

  Tobias rolled his eyes at her naivety. “You can really ask that? I live here. The staff is paid by me, and most are loyal. But all are afraid of my father, just as your aunt is afraid of him. Why do you think she left without a word? I had hoped buying the villa at auction would soften my father’s temperament, but you two are actually bringing it back to life. Leave, Santiago, and I’ll make sure Cruz Resorts leaves Casa Constance alone.” He gritted his teeth when neither Esme nor Santiago budged. He focused on his brother. “Go home.”

  “You don’t have to do this alone, you know,” Santiago said quietly. “I didn’t leave to punish you. I left so that I wouldn’t lose myself.”

  “And I am already lost. I will take care of our mother, but I can’t do that if you are here.”

  A few minutes later, Santiago handed Esme into the forty-five foot Sea Ray. He untied the mooring cables and hopped aboard without speaking to her. Instinctively, Esme put her arms around his waist from behind and lay her cheek against his back.

  “I’m sorry, Santiago.”

  He clasped his hand over hers. She felt his heart beating in his chest. He sighed.

  “No, I am sorry. I shouldn’t have dragged you here, and I probably should not have accepted her invitation. Seeing my face has always angered Eduardo.”

  “He was at least civil until the cake rolled out. None of this was your fault. He didn’t want to be here so he made a reason to leave. If you hadn’t been here, who would have comforted her in the study? I think you helped her.”

  He turned the key and started the motors idling through the small harbor. Esme could see the lights from the ferry in the distance. No moonlight shone on the water, but stars were everywhere. To the south, the Summer Triangle brightened. Santiago glanced up a few times before setting his course back to shore.

  “Do you think so?” he finally asked, sounding as if his entire world depended on her answer.

  “Yes, I do. You let her know she had options, even if she didn’t want to listen.” Esme lifted Santiago’s arm to slide under it. “You can save the world, Santiago, but you can’t always save your family.”

  He made a slight adjustment to the wheel. “Speaking from experience, my Esmerelda?”

  She nodded against his chest. “Maybe a little.”

  “You want to save Casa because it is your family, not just because of Constance.”

  Smiling into his chest, she nodded again. “After my parents died, Constance became my family. But the villa was my hideaway. Inside I could be a pirate or a princess. I could forget that I was essentially the or
phaned child of a manic-depressive and an enabler. And this is way too deep a conversation for a beautiful boat ride through the Bay.”

  “Boat? My brother would be offended. This is more like a mini-yacht, Esme. He’s filled it with every technological gadget you can imagine, it has three sleeping cabins, two heads, a full galley, and a living area.”

  “All that and it sails, too?” She smiled against the softness of his shirt, glad as the shadows seemed to leave them behind.

  “Actually, no,” he said, grinning. “It floats. For a boat to sail it has to have sails—” he pointed above them “—and this boat runs by motor.”

  “I stand corrected. Please forgive me, Saint of the Sea.”

  They watched the water pass by for a long time in silence.

  “Thank you, Esmerelda Quinn.” He kissed her hair and pulled her more snugly against his body.

  It felt like a beginning.

  Chapter Twelve

  “So, Esmerelda, what do you say we blow this pop-stand and go have some fun today?” Leo flirted with Esme from across the front desk. Santiago made a mental note to de-friend his friend if the man didn’t back off.

  Esme batted her eyes at the other man. “What did you have in mind?”

  “Getting a little sand between our. . . toes?”

  Santiago’s fists clenched.

  It had been two days since the scene at Isla Magdalena. Was this how Esme would break things off between them? They had yet to really talk about what had happened or what it meant, but Eduardo had obviously spooked her. Santiago wasn’t sure talking about Magdalena’s problems wouldn’t make them disappear but things were different between him and Esme. She giggled and Santiago’s pulse skyrocketed. Esme wasn’t seriously flirting with the biggest cad on the circuit. Was she? He wasn’t jealous. Was he? Santiago cleared his throat and Leo looked toward the terrace doors.