Chapter 7-Maya
The moon is bright, hanging over the glittering skyline as we pull up in front of the glass-and-steel tower.
Exclusive. Intimidating.
The kind of place you pass by on your way to somewhere else and wonder what it would be like to live there.
Rico doesn’t wonder because he lives there, and he owns his place.
I know because I overheard him mention it once, gruff and proud in that way he tries to hide.
He bought it recently, in the last year, tired of living in apartments that technically belonged to the studio—or worse, to Matheson.
He wanted something that was his.
My gut twists.
We ride the private elevator in silence. Rico, me, Chuy, and two enormous roller suitcases, plus the smaller duffle Rico insisted on carrying himself.
I’m left with nothing but my purse because, apparently, my husband won’t allow me to carry more.
That’s who Rico is.
Old-fashioned.
Over-the-top.
An alpha male straight out of a movie—or a romance novel.
And I hate that some foolish, girlish part of me wants to think it means I’m special.
I’m not. He’d do that for any woman. That’s just who he is.
And here it comes. The part I hate. The part where my doubts crawl up my throat, where all my ugly insecurities line up to remind me what I am.
A poor, fat little rich girl.
A daughter no one wanted.
People don’t care about problems like mine. They think fat people deserve what they get because, hey, you can’t get fat without being greedy, and greed is a sin.
At least, that’s the way it was explained to me when I was young by one of my nannies. But fat isn’t my only sin. Money is next.
See, by the time I was born my father already had money, more than most could ever dream of.
My mother— what little I knew of her —was gone before I was old enough to ask the right questions.
So it was nannies. Tutors. Boarding school. Don’t feel bad, I loved living at school.
My father’s rare attention was worse than his absence.
Because when he did look at me? I was never enough.
Not pretty enough.
Not thin enough.
Not good enough.
A chubby inconvenience in his world of rock stars and models.
Boarding school was the first time I breathed without waiting for his disappointment. The mean girls sucked, but at least they were predictable. I found friends.
Books. Music.
I discovered that while I wasn’t meant to be on stage, I had words that mattered.
I could write.
And I owned that.
It was enough for me. I was happy on the sidelines, lost in the lyrics that came to me when the music played.
Until Rico.
Because Rico is everything a star should be.
The looks. The talent. The raw bad-boy magnetism.
Even his flaws— the temper, the reputation, the careless charm —fit the role.
He is the music.
And me? I’m just the girl who thought maybe, for once, it was different.
So when he pursued me, I let it happen. I fell into bed. Into sex. And it was—everything you could imagine.
My throat tightens as the memories threaten to drown me.
I open my mouth to ask him—to beg him to tell me what he wants of me, why he dragged me here, why he still looks at me like I’m his when I know this is just about giving the baby a name.
“Wait till we get inside,” he says, his voice rough velvet, cutting through my nerves like he can read my damn mind.
I close my mouth.
Obedient. Silent. And yet, not calm at all.
Jolts of awareness zip through my veins, sharp as static.
Rico is always so bossy. He likes to be in charge. Craves it. Demands it. Maybe because so much of his life and his career is out of his control.
There was a time when I liked it.
When his dominance felt like safety, when letting him take the reins felt like freedom.
And the worst part? Some traitorous, needy part of me still likes it.
I press my back against the elevator wall, heart thudding. My thighs clench as his gaze flicks toward me, dark and unreadable, and the memory of his hands on me— his mouth, his voice whispering dirty things in the dark —rushes back so fast I can’t breathe.
“How did you know?”
“You can ask your questions inside, Songbird,” he growls, impossibly dark eyes glittering at me in the too-close elevator.
He’s right.
I was going to ask a question.
But I can wait.
I don’t really have a choice.