Chapter 11
Eleven
“I wish you’d let me drive for just a little bit. This is such a cool car.” Piper smoothed her hand across the dashboard of
the red convertible Emilio had rented for the drive to his grandmother’s. Gus, who was sitting in the tiny backseat, gave
her cheek a peck with his nose.
“No way. Not after you confessed to Xander you’ve had so many speeding tickets.”
Piper wished she hadn’t been so honest. “Who’s going to pull me over? There’s nobody around.” Piper drank in the views as
Emilio took the roller-coaster hills and many sweeping curves with precision. The countryside all around them was a sea of
deep green, with craggy bits of terra-cotta earth dotting the landscape while an ocean-blue sky hung overhead with the wispiest
white clouds. It was like being in a movie. Piper really wanted to drive. She wanted to do everything. Last night with Emilio
had ignited something inside her. “Nothing bad will happen. We haven’t seen another car for at least fifteen minutes.”
“I would like to live to see my abuela, thank you very much. Luckily for me, we’re here.” He turned onto a long, winding driveway
and the house came into view—a rustic villa with a red clay roof and golden stucco exterior atop a hill.
“It’s so beautiful.” So stunning, Piper set aside her sore feelings about not being able to drive.
“My grandparents have lived here my whole life. Well, now just my grandmother. My grandfather passed away when I was a teenager.
His name was Gustavo.”
Piper gasped. “Is that how Gus got his name?”
“It is.”
“Is that a vineyard? Is that part of her property, too?”
“Yes. My grandmother runs a small winery. Most of it doesn’t leave the country. And she also grows olives for olive oil.”
Emilio pulled up to the house and killed the engine. “Huh. I don’t see my mother’s car. I thought she’d be here.”
“Your mom?” It put Piper on edge to know she’d be under more familial scrutiny, but she realized that after last night, anything
could happen when she was with Emilio. It was best to go with it and embrace the adventure.
“She always comes to see her mother before this race.”
Piper’s phone beeped with a text. It was Gabby. “My sister. I guess the bridesmaid’s dresses are ready. Not sure why she felt
the need to tell me. I’ll just text her okay.” When she looked up, Emilio was close.
He swiped off his sunglasses. Late-morning sun showed off every unbelievable feature—his warm but piercing eyes, his straight
nose, his unbelievable lips. “What does your dress look like?”
“It’s blue. Navy. Off the shoulder and long.”
He reached for a lock of her hair and twisted it in his fingers. “Blue brings out blue. I’m sure it’ll make your eyes look
amazing.”
Heat rose in Piper’s cheeks like she’d just stuffed her head into an oven. They’d agreed last night hadn’t meant anything,
but this didn’t feel like nothing. It felt like sex was still very much on the table. She’d hoped that might be true, but
she didn’t want to assume. “You noticed the color of my eyes?”
“They’re practically screaming, ‘look at me.’”
She didn’t bother fighting the smile that seemed destined to spread across her face. “Coming from someone who has the prettiest
eyes I think I’ve ever seen, I’ll take that as a compliment.”
He leaned in closer and gave her a quick kiss. “Good. I should hope so.”
From the backseat of the car, Gus barked, then hopped out and ran past them, making a beeline for the house.
“Looks like Gus is ready to see his abuela.”
Just then, the front door opened and out stepped a woman who bore only a slight resemblance to Emilio. Emilio’s grandmother
wasn’t what Piper had imagined, dressed in a gauzy white peasant top with black embroidery and a pair of wide-leg jeans. Her
dark hair fell past her shoulders with a striking and very chic gray streak on one side. Her bare feet were tan, with an edgy
dark purple on her toenails. Piper loved her style.
Although it was hard to study when Gus was practically licking her to death.
“Gus! No!” Emilio yelled.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Emilio’s grandmother said. “Te amo, Gus. I love you, too.”
Gus calmed down, but his tail was going fifty miles an hour.
“I’m sorry. He still acts like a puppy sometimes,” Emilio said.
“Milio,” she said, stepping down to the bottom step of the short staircase. “Finally, you are here, and we can have a cocktail.”
“It’s not even lunchtime.” Emilio kissed her cheek.
“But we have a guest. And guests are always more fun if we have a cocktail.”
Piper approached, already enamored. “Hi. I’m Piper.”
“Piper, this is my abuela, Ximena,” Emilio said.
She smiled warmly. “Call me Mama Ximena.”
“It’s so nice to meet you, Mama Ximena.”
“Your pronunciation is quite good,” she replied.
“Four years of high school Spanish. I can ask where the bathroom is, and the library, but I’m afraid that’s about it.”
Ximena brushed it aside with a wave of her hand. “No worries. My husband and I were both academics. My English is top-notch.”
She looked at Emilio with nothing less than pure love in her eyes. “Come. Upstairs. I have your rooms ready.”
Emilio grabbed their suitcases, and he and Piper followed through a grand central hall with dark wide-plank wood floors and
wood beams overhead. Colorful artwork hung from the walls.
Piper walked slowly, admiring them. “These paintings are unbelievable. So beautiful.”
“Abuela was an art history professor. She’s met many famous artists over the years.”
“I thought you said she had a winery and grew olives.”
Ximena smiled. “That’s just the property’s way of paying its way.”
Upstairs, Ximena led them to two doors at the very end of the hall. “Milio, you are in your usual room. Piper, you are across
the hall.”
“Where’s Mom staying?”
“She’s not coming. She and Rico are having a little getaway.”
“Rico? Who’s Rico?”
Surprise crossed Ximena’s face. “You don’t know?”
Emilio looked at Piper like she might know something, but she was just as much in the dark as he was. “No. I do not.”
“Well, I suppose you could call him her boyfriend. She hasn’t told me much, and I haven’t met him. I do know he’s much younger
than her.”
Emilio just shook his head, but Piper thought she could see trails of steam coming out of his ears. “The divorce isn’t even
final.”
Ximena put her arm around Emilio. “I think you need to be a little easier on your mother. She’s trying to find herself. After
years of being a wife and your mother, she has a whole new identity. She’s a single woman and nearly sixty. That’s not easy.”
Piper could relate. Having gone from being someone’s fiancée to being nobody’s anything had been a big adjustment. Funny how
easy it was to attach so much meaning to a label. It could change in the blink of an eye.
Emilio grumbled and relaxed his shoulders. “I suppose that’s true.”
“Perhaps she’ll find love. Or perhaps she’ll simply find a good time.”
“I do not want to think about that.”
“Selfishly, I’m glad she isn’t coming. I’d like to have you and Piper to myself. We’ll have much more fun.”
Emilio glanced at Piper with a mischievous glint in his eye. “That’s true.”
“Let me take Gus downstairs for some water and a snack,” Ximena said.
“No jamón,” Emilio insisted. “It’s not good for his belly.”
“What falls off the counter is not my problem,” Ximena said. “But I will do my best.” She turned and started down the hall
with Gus at her heel.
“She’s going to feed him ham, isn’t she?” Piper asked.
“Definitely. I’m guessing the next time we see him, he’ll be drunk off it.” Emilio laughed quietly and shook his head, then
looked at the door to his room. “You could stay in here if you wanted to.”
“Um, no. I can’t. Your grandmother said this is my room. And she’ll know something is up if I don’t stay in here.”
“Well, something is up, isn’t it?”
Piper didn’t love having to define what was going on between them, but she did have strong feelings about what was and was
not appropriate for this setting. “Yes. It is. But nothing can happen at your grandmother’s house. It doesn’t seem right.
I don’t want to be disrespectful.”
He hesitated, then smiled. “I appreciate your manners. I’m sure my abuela will, too.”
She felt good about having made a stand, even if it meant she’d be sleeping alone tonight. “Thank you. I’m going to check
out my room, stow my stuff and get freshened up.”
Piper stepped into her room, immediately drawn to the view from her window. Piper had never had a case of wanderlust. She’d
always been the epitome of a homer, but she could admit she could get used to this—traveling to new locales, seeing new sights
and having new experiences.
More than anything, she was proud of herself for having said yes to this job. For allowing her world to open up. After her
engagement was broken off, it felt like her future had narrowed to a very dark point. Moving back home brought her a rung
even lower. There had been days when she felt like she couldn’t see five feet in front of her face, let alone imagine herself
five years down the road. And it wasn’t that she was necessarily seeing everything more clearly now, but rather that her eyes
were open to possibilities.
“Knock, knock,” Emilio’s voice came from behind her.
She turned as he stepped into her room. She hadn’t yet noticed the lovely accommodations—the beautiful white embroidered coverlet
on the wrought iron bed and the carved wood wardrobe in the corner and an adorable painted turquoise writing desk on the far
wall. It was about as romantic a room as Piper could imagine. And seeing Emilio in it was giving her all sorts of feelings—tingling
and whatnot. Sensations across her skin—up her belly and along the chain of her spine. It wouldn’t take much to just close
the door and grab him and fall back onto that beautiful bed. Unbutton his shirt and spread her hands across his glorious chest—the
skin she’d touched last night. Kiss his unforgettable lips. Get lost in one of the sexiest men on the planet.