Chapter 6
"Keep in mind that great love and great achievements require great risks"
—Dalai Lama
I was nervous.
For that night I had chosen a pale yellow dress with a single strap that left my right shoulder bare.
The skirt fell just above my knee and had a slit on my left leg.
The dress clung to my figure and accentuated each of my curves, making me look sensual.
I paired it with high-heeled gray shoes.
I applied natural makeup on my eyes, pale pink lipstick, and wore my hair straight and loose.
Anxiety dominated me, and by eight o’clock I was ready and pacing around the apartment unable to control myself. That half-hour wait felt eternal. Finally, my phone rang with a message from Hermes letting me know he was waiting for me.
When I left the building and saw him leaning against his car, my breath caught. He was wearing black jeans and a white shirt. He was handsome, elegant, and unbearably sensual. A beautiful smile appeared on his face, and I almost tripped over my own feet and fell flat on my face.
Focus, Delfina, I told myself.
As I approached, I noticed his pupils dilate and his lips part.
“Beautiful,” he said, stretching out his hand for me to take.
“Thank you,” I replied, taking his hand expecting him to escort me to the car door, but he surprised me by pulling me toward him and kissing me sweetly on the lips.
“You’re beautiful and too sensual,” he stated, looking at me with desire.
“Don’t do that again.”
“Do what?” he asked, with an innocent face.
“Kiss me.”
“I won’t do it again without your consent, but if you don’t want me to lose my sanity, at some point I’ll have to kiss you again.”
“We’ll see about that. Shall we go?”
“Of course.”
He opened the car door for me and, once I was seated, closed it. I took the opportunity to observe him as he walked around the car to the driver’s door; he was pure sensuality and elegance. He sat down and before starting the car, he looked at me.
“I made a reservation at a restaurant, but I still think the conversation we’re going to have should be at your place or mine. What do you think about having dinner and then going somewhere else to talk?”
“I don’t think that’s best.”
“Think about it a bit and then we’ll see what we do. Thank you for accepting my invitation. You look beautiful and it’s taking a lot of restraint not to kiss or touch you.”
Me too!, I thought.
“Stop saying those things,” I whispered, looking straight ahead, preferring not to look at him to avoid weakening.
I heard him laugh softly and then he set the car in motion. The silence made me uncomfortable.
“Can I put on some music?”
“Of course,” he replied.
I turned on the radio and at that moment “Shivers” by Ed Sheeran was playing, and I decided to leave that song on.
“What kind of music do you like?” he asked.
“Various kinds, I’m eclectic in my musical tastes.”
For a few minutes we remained silent, until he broke it.
“Who was that guy who was entering your apartment with his own key the other day?”
“It wasn’t his key, it was mine. The guy, as you call him, is named Paul and he’s been a friend for many years. And when I say friend, I mean it literally and not like your ‘friends,’ he’s a friend like your brother is.”
“And what was he doing with your key?”
“He had stayed over and went out for coffee.”
He turned and looked at me seriously.
“And why did he stay overnight with you?”
“He didn’t sleep with me, he slept on the couch.
On Friday we had a get-together with friends at my apartment and watched several movies.
Paul stayed over because his roommate asked him to come home late since he wanted to be alone with a friend.
It’s quite common for my friends to stay over, sometimes for that reason, other times because they fall asleep and we can’t wake them up, or because they drink too much.
That’s just how they are,” I replied, downplaying it.
“You made me have a difficult day. Seeing him enter your apartment bothered me a lot,” he stated.
“Let’s clarify something, Hermes. I wasn’t the one who complicated your day because we don’t owe each other explanations about our lives.”
He looked at me again but said nothing.
“We’re here,” he said after a few minutes, while pulling into a parking lot next to an elegant restaurant.
He wouldn’t let me get out of the car because he wanted to help me. He was such a gentleman. When we started walking, he took my hand. I pulled to free myself from his grip, but he looked at me and maintained his strong hold. In the end, I decided to walk hand in hand with him.
“You're taking liberties that don't belong to you,” I stated.
“They do belong to me,” he responded.
We entered the place and immediately people approached him.
It was obvious he was a regular, and imagining him there with other women didn't make me feel very comfortable.
We followed the waiter who escorted us to our table and, once again behaving like a complete gentleman, he pulled out my chair for me to sit down before taking his own seat.
“Nice place, I hadn't been here before,” I commented.
“The food is excellent and varied. I come here quite often.”
“I can imagine,” I said, with obvious irony.
“I think you're imagining wrong. I've only come here with my family, meaning my mother and Baco, and for business lunches or dinners, nothing more.”
At that moment, a waiter came over to take our order.
Hermes ordered a bottle of their best wine and suggested I try one of their main dishes, advice that was seconded by the waiter who, according to him, said it was one of the customers' favorite dishes.
Following the suggestion, we both ordered “Pork tenderloin medallions with caramelized pears and pear aioli.”
“Well, here we are. We might as well start with what brought us here,” I proposed.
“Wouldn't you prefer to enjoy dinner first and then go to your place to talk? I'm not suggesting mine because you've already ruled out that option.”
“Why can't we talk here?”
“I think today's conversation is too important to have in a restaurant,” he stated.
I looked at him thoughtfully.
“And if you think that, why did you invite me to dinner?”
“Because I want to enjoy a dinner with you. I want to get to know you better,” he said, looking at me with longing.
At that moment, two waiters brought our plates, and Hermes didn't say anything more. When they left, I decided, just as he had said, to start getting to know him better.
“I'd like to know something,” I said, and Hermes left his fork suspended in the air and looked at me warily.
“Tell me,” he finally said.
“If you really want to be with me, why did you go to your brother's birthday with your date? It's contradictory and confuses me.”
“You're right,” he affirmed, and exhaled with resignation.
“As I told you before, seeing your friend entering your apartment ruined my day.
I was furious and I suppose jealous. I took for granted that you were going to Baco's birthday, but I also imagined you would go with him. If I had been more prudent, I would have forgotten about it and not canceled the meeting I had in Sao Paulo, but jealousy was torturing me and I decided to go see with my own eyes if you were with him. My companion was a last-minute decision to make you feel what I was feeling. I know it was immature, I admit it.”
“You canceled a business meeting in Sao Paulo?” I asked, completely surprised.
“I did.”
“You're absolutely insane,” I said, unable to believe what he had told me.
“It's possible. Now it's my turn. Have you ever been in love?”
“Youthful infatuation, nothing more.”
And now it was my turn for that question that had me very intrigued.
“And you?”
“I was in love and about to get married, to be more precise, hours away from getting married. But that's the story I'd like to tell you when we're somewhere more private.”
That really had left me surprised. I imagined his reluctance toward love was due to some heartbreak, but the marriage revelation was shocking.
With the personality I knew him to have, it was hard to imagine him in love, let alone married.
He seemed like such an independent man and enemy of emotional commitment that it was difficult to visualize him that way.
“Very well, let's leave it for later,” I said, trying not to appear too surprised.
“Tell me about your family,” he asked.
“I only have my brother, Tom. My mother passed away a few years ago, and my father abandoned us when we were little. Unfortunately, my brother lives in Miami, and we can't see each other as much as we'd like.”
“I'm sorry about your mother.”
“It's been quite a few years now. The pain of her loss will always be with me; I doubt it will ever disappear because I miss her every day. With time, you learn to live without the person you love and to coexist with the emptiness they leave behind.”
“Love and loss always go together; it's part of the deal. That's one of the reasons I closed myself off to that feeling,” he stated seriously.
“But good things come with love too, things you'll only experience if you give it a chance.”
“You say that as if you have experience, but you told me you only had a youthful infatuation,” he questioned.
“I'm not saying it from personal experience; I'm saying it because I've seen the good things and the happiness it has brought to people close to me.”
“That's not valid. Until you experience it yourself, you can't really have an opinion.”
“I prefer to remain optimistic.”
He stared at me intently, as if trying to reach my soul, and it made me shiver. After a few minutes, his expression changed, and he looked at me cautiously again.
“I’ve been researching your professional career. You’re well-respected and very talented. I’d venture to say you’re among the best economists in the country.”
“You’ve been doing what? You’re a stalker.”