Chapter 20
SARINA
“Good, aren’t they?”
I nod my head enthusiastically about to take another bite of my pastelillo.
“Best in the city. Just don’t tell Tino I said that.” He lifts his finger to his mouth.
“Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me,” I say with a laugh that Tomás echoes.
“Okay, phew. Guess we’re good at keeping those.”
His laughter draws to a close as does mine. Our moment ruined by indirectly addressing the many elephants lingering in the room with us. Between our initial meeting, our new work situation, and him being Lorena’s brother, it feels as though the list keeps growing longer by the day.
Chewing the last of my food, I bring my hand to my mouth, shielding it to speak.
“Listen, I–”
“Hold that thought,” Tomás says before scurrying off to the stand we ordered from. It’s not until he comes back with a napkin and small cup of water in hand that I realize some of the guava from the pastelillo dripped onto my dress.
He dips the napkin in the water, saturating it just enough, and then looks up at me with the most adorable puppy dog look in his rich brown eyes. “You want me to or would you prefer to do it?”
The stain is conveniently located below my waist. A damn near perfect bull’s-eye above my center.
“You can do it.”
“Are you sure?” His gaze doesn’t falter from mine.
I uncross my legs and lean back placing both elbows on the table. “Yes, it’s not like you haven’t made what’s underneath the fabric wet before.”
His jaw grows visibly tight as he begins to address the mess I made.
It doesn’t take much to get him flustered. I can tell there’s so much he wants to say but he’s holding back, which appears to be his default.
A minute or two more float on by, and once he’s rid my dress of the guava, replacing it with a giant, rather inconveniently placed wet spot, he tosses the napkin in the trash.
“So, where were we?”
I genuinely forgot for a moment, until I reach for my phone –a nervous habit I have when I don’t know what to do with my hands– and see an unread text from Lorena.
“Our growing list of secrets,” I blurt, placing my phone back down.
“Yeah,” Tomás huffs out, leaning his weigh on the bench, propping one elbow on the table.
He looks so effortlessly hot it takes me a second to get my bearings straight enough to pay attention to what he’s saying.
“I wonder if she’ll suspect anything when we tell her we’re going together to your sister’s wedding.
She didn’t seem to think anything was up when I stole you for every dance I could get out of you at Hummingbirds,” he says through a grin that can only be described as prideful.
It’s true. She didn’t seem to think anything of Tomás and I dancing in our own little world for the entirety of Salsa night.
As relieved as I should be by that, I can’t help but feel surprised.
Yes, Tomás is her brother, but even she can’t deny that he’s an overall catch.
But then again, she knows how I am, or how I’ve allowed others, including her, to perceive me –unattached and uninterested in love– that she just assumes nothing is there.
And it was just some harmless dancing. That’s what it needs to be, but the more I spend time with him, even if it’s in these small pockets of time, a part of me can’t help but feel that it’s not that easy to ignore.
Clearly, I didn’t think this through.
This has mess written all over it.
And in my delusional state of trying to prove my dad wrong, yet once again, I didn’t think of the implications.
Interrupting his rather cute rambling, since he’s clearly concerned with what his sister thinks, I cut in. “I read over those onboarding documents.”
He stares at me for a beat, trying to read my face, seemingly surprised that I brought up work of all things. “Okay?”
My eyes roll. “The rules at Turner he definitely does not strike me as that kind of guy. Still, this whole conversation post my trauma dump feels off.
Lifting my hand to his lips, he kisses it. “Trust me. I would never take advantage of you. I have an idea.”
“That requires me to be in your penthouse?”
“Are you against going to my penthouse?”
“No,” I breathe.
But I know I go there, I’m not going to be able to maintain this thin wall between us.
“We don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with. But I figure the backdrop of the Met lit up would make what I propose more special.”
My eyes narrow. “What exactly do you have in mind?” His lips travel to my empty ring finger, kissing it as he just did my hand.
“A way that you can get what you deserve.”