Chapter 14 - Marisol
My body is a traitor. It’s been hours since Nico made me come multiple times then locked himself in the bathroom to finish alone, and I can still feel his hands on my skin like bruises that won’t fade.
I'm at La Sirena, trying to focus on vendor contracts while my thighs ache from how wide he spread them.
My pussy throbs with phantom fullness, remembering his cock stretching me while his face stayed perfectly controlled.
Even now, sitting in my office chair in a cream silk blouse and tailored pants, I'm wet just thinking about it.
About him. About the way he groaned my name through the bathroom door while I lay in his bed, destroyed and discarded.
Pretending nothing happened is exhausting, but I've had eight years of practice at pretending, so I'll manage.
La Sirena in daylight feels wrong, like seeing a movie star without makeup.
The golden glamour becomes worn velvet, champagne stains visible on carpet, the magic stripped away to reveal just another business that needs managing.
The smell of stale alcohol mingles with industrial cleaner.
Somewhere below, a vacuum hums as the skeleton crew preps for tonight. But I love it all the same.
I'm actually working for once, contracts spread across my desk, vendor invoices that Logan usually handles but I'm trying to understand because focusing on numbers keeps me from thinking about the way Nico's tongue felt on my clit. Pretending I have my shit together and didn’t beg a man to come inside me last night, and he chose his hand instead.
He's outside my door now. Present but not hovering.
The perfect distance that says I'm doing my job without acknowledging that mere hours ago he had me pinned to his bed, making me scream.
I hate that I want him closer. Hate that last night meant something to me and apparently meant nothing to him.
Hate myself for still getting wet when I remember his voice through that door, desperate and raw, saying my name as he came.
The morning crawls. I sign documents without reading them. Approve vendor invoices that could say anything. Every time I shift in my chair, I feel him—the phantom stretch, the soreness that proves last night happened. My body remembers even when my brain tries to forget.
By early afternoon, I've almost convinced myself I can function.
"Got a minute?" Logan appears in my doorway, and I've never been more grateful for an interruption. Whatever designer he’s wearing today fits him perfectly, the suit tailored to perfection without trying too hard. His blond hair is perfectly coiffed, and his blue eyes seem to see right through me.
"For you? Always. You're the only one actually keeping this place running."
"Don't sell yourself short. You've been more present lately." His face is carefully neutral, which means something's wrong. "But we have a problem."
He closes the door, glances at where Nico is stationed outside. "Your new shadow. Can he hear us?"
"Probably. He hears everything. Like a very judgmental bat. What's going on?"
Logan hands me his tablet, already open to a society gossip site. The headline hits me: DELGADO HEIRESS GONE WILD: Yacht Party Meltdown
"Three men? That's insulting." The joke comes automatically, deflection before the pain hits. "If I'm going to have a scandal, at least make it impressive, like an entire yacht crew."
Then I actually look at the photos.
They're worse than any joke can cover. Me, two nights ago, looking exactly like the disaster everyone thinks I am. Dress askew, hair wild, eyes glazed. Dancing with my arms above my head, mouth open in what could be ecstasy or desperation. I look wasted. I look pathetic.
The text underneath twists the knife: Sources say the troubled heiress arrived already intoxicated and proceeded to "work her way through" at least three men over the course of the evening.
"She was a mess," said one partygoer. "Everyone felt sorry for her.
You could tell she was desperate for attention. "
"This is lies." My voice comes out steady, which surprises me. "All of it. I didn't touch anyone. I danced, I drank, but I didn't… three men? I didn't even kiss anyone."
"I know." Logan's voice is gentle, which makes it worse. "But the photos are real. And the narrative is… plausible. Given your history."
"My HISTORY…"
"I'm not judging you, Marisol. I'm telling you what people will believe."
The woman in the photos could absolutely be the woman in the headline.
She looks like someone who'd sleep with strangers for validation.
She looks like her father's worst disappointment made flesh.
Looking at them, I feel a wave of disgust at myself, at whoever took them, at the fact that this is who I've let myself become in the public eye.
"Who leaked this?" I stare at the tablet, trying to see past my own humiliation to the strategy underneath.
"I don't know. Could be anyone from the yacht. But the quotes, the spin…" Logan frowns. "It feels coordinated. Like someone wanted this story told a specific way."
"Someone's trying to damage me. Right when Papa's dying and succession is uncertain."
"That's my read too. Someone wants you to look unfit. Unworthy."
"The Zayas have been circling since Papa got sick," I say, mind racing. "Could be them. Or someone internal."
Nico appears in the doorway. He's seen something in my face, read my body language from across a room. The man really is a tactical bat. His hand drifts to where his gun sits, that unconscious tic when he's calculating violence.
"What happened?"
I hand him the tablet without a word. Watch his jaw tighten as he reads, looking for disgust or disappointment. Finding only cold assessment. But then something dangerous flashes in his eyes. Not at me, but at the idea of other men touching what he's claimed, even in lies.
"You didn't do this."
"How do you know?"
"Because I tracked your phone that night.
Remember? You found out when I showed up at the yacht.
" His voice carries a hint of something, maybe remembering my outrage when I discovered he'd been tracking me.
"You arrived at 2:15 AM. You were on the yacht for forty-five minutes before I extracted you.
That's not enough time to 'work through' three men. "
I laugh, bitter and cracked. "Timeline verification. How romantic. Though I'm still processing your violation of my privacy, by the way."
"Romance isn't relevant. Facts are. Someone planted this story. Who benefits from damaging your reputation while your father's dying?"
The question cuts through self-pity, forces me to think strategically. "Rivals like the Zayas. Maybe someone internal who thinks the party girl shouldn't inherit."
"Names."
"I don't know specifically. Logan might, or Tío Cesar. He knows everything about the organization. I should ask him."
"No."
The word cuts through the air like a blade. Not a suggestion, an order.
"What do you mean, no?"
"Don't tip anyone off that you're investigating. Not until we know who's behind this."
"Cesar isn't BEHIND anything. He's family."
"He's not blood."
"Neither are you, and I trust you." The words slip out before I can stop them. Something flickers across his face, there and gone too fast to read.
"Just be careful. With everyone. Including people you think you can trust."
The day grinds on. My phone buzzes with notifications I don't check, staff give me pitying looks they think I don't see.
The smell of the club during daylight hours (lemon polish and lingering cigarette smoke) makes my stomach turn.
Late afternoon, Logan needs me to sign off on maintenance estimates for water damage in one of the VIP suites upstairs.
I take the stairs without thinking, mind still churning on the article, on who wants me destroyed.
The carpet whispers under my feet, that thick pile that swallows sound, makes everything feel muffled.
With each step up, the air gets heavier.
The third floor hallway stretches before me, and something cold slides down my spine.
I'm checking my phone, not paying attention to where I am. The jasmine hits first, that specific scent from the diffusers we use up here. My steps slow. The temperature drops, or maybe that's just my blood. My body knows where I am before my brain catches up.
The door. Third on the left. The Calypso Room.
I freeze completely. Through the small window, blue wallpaper with silver Art Deco patterns. The same blue that haunts my nightmares. The same patterns I saw behind Gabriel's shoulder when…
Eight years collapse. I'm eighteen again, racing up these stairs because Gabriel called, voice strange, desperate. Finding him outside this door, white-faced, shaking. "Mari, she's not breathing, she wanted me… her lips are blue…"
Inside. The woman on the bed. Young, beautiful, still. The room cold despite the Miami heat. Gabriel's panicked breathing the only sound. Lips blue from lack of oxygen, not cold. Eyes open, staring at nothing. Not sleeping. Not unconscious. Gone.
"What did you DO?"
"Nothing! She just stopped breathing. I swear, I didn’t do anything."
My chest feels like someone's sitting on it. Black spots dance at the edges of my vision. The hallway narrows. I reach for the wall, miss completely. My knees are buckling.
Arms catch me before I hit the floor. Solid, warm, steady. Nico. Even through my panic, my body recognizes him, leans into his strength.
"Marisol. Look at me."
I can't. I'm still seeing the room, the body, Gabriel's hands shaking.
"MARISOL."
His voice cuts through the flashback. I blink, and he's there, hands on my shoulders, face inches from mine.
"Breathe. You're here. You're safe."
"The room, I can't, Gabriel…"
"You're not in the past. You're here. With me. Breathe."
He doesn't ask questions, just extracts me from the hallway, down the stairs, through the club to a back exit. Into the car. Home.