2. Chapter One
Chapter One
O ne Year Later
Scowling, Dina stomped out of her bedroom and stormed across the hall to her daughter’s door. Camila’s favorite popstar had unexpectedly announced her retirement last night. So, of course, Camila had been dramatically and obnoxiously blasting music ever since.
“Turn that down!” Dina knocked on her daughter’s door. “Guests are arriving soon. You’re going to terrify them with all that noise.”
There was no response from inside, and the music volume didn’t decrease even a decibel. Dina flung the door open and marched right over to the sound system. Camila hadn’t even noticed and stayed at her perch in front of her vanity, dabbing at her face. Dina finally found the power button and shut the whole thing off.
“Hey! I was listening to that!” Camila shouted and glared.
“Camila Maria Farias!” Dina erupted in frustration at the sight of her teenage daughter’s destroyed bedroom. “Look at this mess!” She picked up a pile of carelessly discarded clothing. Some of the pieces still had tags dangling and the tell-tale smudge of fiery orange Takis dust. “Have you been using these as napkins?”
Seated in front of her vanity, Camila rolled her eyes. “Manuela will wash them on laundry day.”
Aghast at the way her daughter so flippantly regarded the household staff, Dina glared at her. “Manuela isn’t washing any of this. You are.”
Camila spun on the tufted bench in front of her mirror and gawked at her mother. “I don’t know how to wash clothes.”
“Well, you’re fourteen. It’s time you learn.” Dina tossed the mangled handful of shirts at her daughter. “Starting now.”
“But the party!”
“Weren’t you complaining last night that you were too old for a baby’s party?” Dina reminded her daughter of the pouting and whining after dinner last night. All because Dina’s mother had dared to ask Camila to help with the face painting station at the party. “Since you’re too mature for a baby’s party, you can learn to do laundry.”
“But!”
“No.” Dina cut her off with a slash of her hand through the air. “No more excuses. When I was your age, I handled my own laundry, kept my room and bathroom clean and managed my own calendar.”
“At my age, you were in boarding school and had freedom,” Camila shot back. “I’m still stuck here in this prison—.”
“Prison?” Dina repeated with irritation. “This massive, luxurious estate is a prison?” Dina scoffed. “You live a fairytale life, Camila. You have no idea what a real prison is.”
“No, but my dad does!” Camila screeched. “You and my uncles made sure of that.”
Dina reared back in shock at her daughter’s outburst. “Camila, your father is in prison because—.”
“Because he hurt our family. Allegedly .”
Her shock turned to horror. “There was nothing alleged about it, Camila.”
“Wela Mirta says otherwise,” Camila insisted.
Dina frowned at the mention of her former mother-in-law. “Mirta? Since when do you talk to your grandmother?”
“Since I decided I needed to know my family better,” Camila defensively said and turned back to her mirror.
“You know your family. Your real family,” Dina clarified. “We’re right here. Loving you. Supporting you. Believing in you.”
“She loves me, too! And maybe if you weren’t so controlling, she would be able to support and believe in me,” Camila snapped.
Dina swallowed the awful things she wanted to say about Mirta. They were things that she would never tell her daughter. Terrible, awful, painful things she had endured while married to Diego. Horrible abuse that Mirta had known about and sanctioned with her silence and excuses.
“She wants to host my quince ,” Camila revealed.
“Over my dead body!” Dina snarled, surprising even herself with the ferocious way the words left her mouth.
“What is all the yelling about in here?” Soila Farias, the matriarch of the family, entered Camila’s room with Jasper on her hip. The birthday boy toyed with his grandmother’s necklace and babbled happily in her arms. “I can hear you halfway across the house!”
“Ama says I can’t go to the party!” Camila put on her best show of tears. “She says I have to clean my room and do laundry!”
“Enedina?” Her mother glanced at her with concern.
“Look at this mess!” Dina gestured around the cluttered room. “It needs to be cleaned. Her laundry needs to be washed and dried and folded and hung up.”
“But I don’t know how!” Camila wailed pathetically. “Why am I being punished for something I never learned?”
Soila shifted Jasper to her other hip. She seemed torn between babying her granddaughter and supporting her daughter. “Dina, she’s right. She’s like this because you let her get away with everything.”
“I let her get away with everything?” Dina couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She stared at the woman who always shielded Camila from responsibility and consequence. “Are you serious, Mama?”
Soila pursed her lips. “We’ll talk about this later. Guests are starting to arrive for Jasper’s party.” She glanced at Camila. “I think that’s enough makeup for today, mija . You’re so beautiful. You don’t need all of that.”
Dina finally noticed all the makeup on her daughter’s vanity. “Is that...? Did you take this from my bedroom?” She crossed the floor and snatched up the pilfered tubes and palettes. Dior, Chanel, YSL—Camila had collected the very best from her mother’s vanity.
“I was just borrowing it!”
“Borrowing requires you to ask first.” Dina grabbed the jar of La Prairie from the vanity. “You don’t need this either! You’re fourteen! You can stick to Bissu.”
“Do you want me to break out? To get clogged pores? That’s what happens when I use that cheap garbage!”
“Then I guess you better get a job so you can afford the good stuff!” Dina shot back before stomping out of the room with her armful of makeup and beauty creams. Behind her, Camila sobbed for attention, and she was certain her mother was only too happy to give her the coddling she wanted.
As she returned her things to their empty spots at her vanity, Dina caught her reflection in the mirror. Where did I go so wrong?
She’d tried to be a good mother to Camila, to always put her first and to make sure she had a stable, happy, loving environment. But somewhere along the way, she had been too indulgent. Maybe she shouldn’t have always dropped everything the moment Camila needed something.
I’ve spoiled her.
I’ve ruined her.
“You okay, Dina?” Sky, her new sister-in-law, cautiously asked from the open doorway of the bedroom. She always looked effortlessly beautiful, but today, she practically glowed. Her blonde hair fell around her shoulders in loose waves, and her makeup was barely there. She’d chosen a cheetah print shirt dress and brown leather sandals to fit with the zoo-themed party. “I came to get Jasper and heard the yelling.”
“I’m fine.” Dina waved off Sky’s concern. “Just mother-daughter things.” Knowing that it would be only a few blinks of an eye before Jasper was a teenager, she warned, “You’ll find out soon enough.”
“Oh, gosh.” Sky grimaced. “I’ve barely got a handle on teething and ear aches!”
Remembering how difficult those early years of parenthood could be, Dina smiled reassuringly. “You’re doing an incredible job, Sky. I’m sure don’t hear that enough, but you are.”
Sky shyly nodded. “Thank you. I appreciate that.”
“We’re lucky to have you in our family.” Dina closed the distance between them and gently rubbed her sister-in-law's shoulder. “You’ve been such a source of strength for us and especially for Rafael. I don’t know that he would have gotten through that gunshot and then the infection without you.”
“He would have,” Sky said. “He loves his family too much to give up without a fight.”
“He loves you more than anything.” Dina had watched the transformation in her oldest brother with interest. He had stepped into the role of father without complaint and was now stepping back from the role of CEO to focus on Sky and Jasper. “You’ve been so good for him.”
“He’s been ever better for me.” Sky had a faraway look on her face. “He makes me feel safe, like I finally belong somewhere.”
“You do.” Dina hugged her. “You’re part of our family now.”
Just down the hall, a door slammed and Camila shouted some nonsense that echoed off the vaulted ceilings.
Dina sighed. “Our very loud, chaotic family.”
Together, the two women laughed and made their way downstairs. It wasn’t a quick walk across the mansion that had housed generations of the Farias family. Dina’s ancestors had settled in the area in the early 1600s. Over hundreds of years, the family had built a sprawling estate centered around a grand mansion in the Spanish colonial style. Parts of the house had been razed, rebuilt and renovated. Others remained almost exactly as they had since the earliest days with only minor updates.
Growing up, Dina had always felt like a princess in a fairytale castle. She had servants and the prettiest clothes and jewelry boxes filled with gold and pearls and anything else she wanted. She had been spoiled and pampered and shielded from the harsh realities of life.
Until Diego .
Not wanting to think about the biggest regret of her life on such a happy day, she forced away those thoughts. She and Sky entered the grand parlor and found most of the family there welcoming the party guests. Since Jasper was so little and didn’t have actual friends yet, the family had decided to invite all the children of their employees to celebrate.
Already, there were dozens of kids running wild in the courtyard. Just beyond the courtyard, down the stone steps, more children shouted and laughed as they darted in and out of bounce houses and blow-up obstacle courses. A small petting zoo had been arranged off to one side. Carnival style booths offering face painting and games and all sorts of treats and drinks sat on the perimeter of the party space.
“Did anyone tell Mama that llamas spit?” Lola wandered over with a plastic cup of lemonade in hand. “Because there’s a big ass llama in that petting zoo, and it does not look happy about all these screaming kids.”
“A llama?” Sky echoed with concern. “I thought it was only supposed to have farm animals like goats and sheep and some rabbits?” She craned her neck and searched the crowd of adults. “Have you seen Rafael?”
“He had to deal with something business related.” Lola sipped her lemonade. “He went that way, I think.”
“I’ll find Rafael,” Dina said as Jasper started making noise across the room in Soila’s arms. “You tend to Jasper.”
As Sky hurried to her nephew, Dina’s gaze landed on Camila who had chosen to wear a cropped Farias Tequila t-shirt to the party with shorts that would have violated her school’s dress code. Every motherly instinct in her body demanded she storm over there, drag her daughter out of the room and march her upstairs to put on something more appropriate.
She fought that urge and turned to Lola. “Will you keep an eye on Camila?”
Lola gave her niece a once-over and sighed. “If I had tried to wear that, Mama would have forced me into a nun’s habit and had me locked away in a convent, but look at her now!”
Across the room, Soila fawned over her granddaughter and grandson and new daughter-in-law.
“I wish Camila and Jasper could understand that the woman they know as their abuelita is not the same woman we knew as our mother,” Lola grumbled.
Wasn’t that the truth?
As she looked for her brother, Dina wondered if someday Camila would say the same thing to her children. Probably .
Dina neared Rafael’s home office and heard Beto’s voice and another male she didn’t recognize. They were speaking English which surprised her. They were all fluent, of course, but at home, everyone spoke Spanish.
When she lifted her hand to knock on the party closed door, Dina froze. Another male voice had joined the conversation. A very familiar voice.
One that had haunted her dreams.
And her fantasies.
But, surely, she had to be mistaken.
It couldn’t be him .
It just couldn’t.
Her hand trembled as she knocked on the door and called out, “Rafa?”
“Dina? Come in.”
She pushed open the door and found Rafael behind his desk, his arms crossed and a frown marring his face. Beto stood near the window overlooking the agave fields and had a similarly concerned expression. Two men in dark suits sat in the chairs in front of Rafael’s desk.
But it was the man leaning back against the bookshelf that held her attention.
Her heart fluttered wildly, and her stomach wobbled with shock.
It was him .
The Texas Ranger.
Her one-night-stand.
Steve .