Chapter 26
Lila Logan Cameron
Call sign: Cassiopeia
Lila’s fingers traced Alejandro’s rib cage. He was dozing but would start every once and a while to cast a glance at his watch.
Each time Lila soothed him. They still had over an hour until Francis was done with his shift.
The rhythm of Alejandro’s breath lulled Lila into a sense of calm that she hadn’t experienced since The Old Eileen left land. Alejandro Matamoros was sturdy. An anchor.
Her thumbnail paused over a freckle below his pectoral. She wondered if Alejandro afforded her the same amount of trust that
she did him.
“Mi amor . . .” she purred, and he woke in an instant.
“You are not asleep,” he pointed out.
Lila’s fingers moved to his throat and the outline of his Adam’s apple. “I suppose I am not all tired out.”
“Mmm.”
Her other hand found the soft skin behind his earlobe. “And I’ve been thinking hard.”
Alejandro stretched and traced the curve of her leg. “Too hard . . . There is a simple solution for that, senora.”
Lila clasped Alejandro’s face in her hands so he could not look away. “Where is he taking us, Ale?”
Alejandro said nothing.
She tried again, this time sliding her bare thigh across his chest, so she sat perched over his boxers. “Is it a nice surprise,
at least?”
She was hoping for a Bahamian resort or a new holiday home in the Caymans.
“He’d kill me if I spoiled it.”
“He’d kill you if he found you here,” Lila whispered in his ear, and Alejandro’s entire body shivered in response. “You know
I have plans for the twins’ birthday. Will we at least be home by then?”
Alejandro tried to sit up, but she pinned him to the mattress. He couldn’t hide. Not from her.
“Ale, I have auditions booked. Luncheons with friends. Audra Tines and I are supposed to spend a weekend at her place in the
Catskills. These things might not seem important to you. Or to him. But to me . . .” Lila cleared her throat carefully. “To
me, they are everything I live for.”
Event to event. There was nothing as exciting, as life-giving as that. Her childhood had been a series of activities, being
whisked from church to pageant, from party to play. Lila needed an existence that brimmed with exhilarating moments. Overflowed
with them. It was only in the soundless in-betweens where her spirits sank. Rylan once told her she was not unlike a shark,
which must keep swimming, keep passing water over its gills, or it will suffocate and die.
But how could she make Alejandro understand that, this man who was, in many ways, her opposite?
He preferred to be silent rather than speaking.
He preferred to be cooking than having any sort of adventure.
He didn’t talk about himself much, but Lila had once gotten out of him a glimpse of his childhood in his apartment kitchen in Fontana.
His parents had worked two jobs each, and his abuelita watched him and his baby sister during the summers.
She taught him how to cook and play cards.
She taught him how to change his sister’s diapers and make a healthy meal that even a picky little kid would devour.
Alejandro spoke a language of slow, sunny Sundays where the only sounds were his abuelita’s afternoon soaps and the sizzling of tortillas on a pan.
Alejandro shifted on the bed. “You like surprises, though, no?” He sounded less certain.
Lila lay on top of him, hoping to apply physical and emotional pressure.
“I like diamond necklaces, not schedule upheavals.”
“Lila . . .”
She fanned her hands across his clavicles. “Alejandro . . .”
Alejandro caught her hands and sat up even with her entire weight against him. He propped himself against the headboard, holding
onto her. “It’s not that kind of surprise. It’s . . . uh . . . it’s not for fun, okay? That really is all I can say.”
Lila sat back on her heels. “Not for fun?”
“And not . . . not really for you.”
Well, of course it wasn’t. This trip never had been for her, had it? Lila refrained from rolling her eyes.
“What is it for, then? Will we be home in time for my audition?”
Alejandro watched her for so long that Lila began to feel uncomfortable under his gaze, a sensation she had never felt with
him before. She hated it.
“No,” he answered at last, and the word might as well have been a gunshot.
“No.” Lila touched her ribs. If she wasn’t going to be in Florida in time for the audition, she wasn’t going to be in Florida in time for the twins’ birthday, the trip to New York, or a thousand other engagements.
Francis, that narcissistic bastard. Where were they going that was so important, then? And if he had to go, why drag her along
with him? It’s not like he enjoyed her company.
Lila’s eyes smarted, and she waved her hands to keep too much heat from splotching her complexion. She wanted to slap her
husband. She wanted to strangle him.
“Well, then,” she whispered. “Fuck.”
“I’m sorry.” Alejandro attempted to recapture her hand, but she folded it in her lap instead.
Francis had lied from the beginning about their destination. Lila sucked in her cheeks, trying to remember back to the day
they had boarded the ship. Had anything been off? Had there been a kind of sign she’d missed, something she should have noticed
so she could turn to her husband with her finger in his face. Aha! I know what you’re up to!
But she couldn’t think of anything. Tia had arrived. They’d eaten dinner. Then the cake fight, the gifts, and . . .
The pearl necklace that matched the earrings.
The one that meant Francis had been keeping track of Lila’s spending habits. And then, after that . . . the phone call.
Ernie Carmichael had called Lila—not Francis, not Alejandro, but Lila—to tell her he wouldn’t be coming. His mother had fallen, but he didn’t sound disappointed about missing the trip or upset
about his mom. He sounded nervous.
“Let’s talk of cleaner things, senora.” Alejandro found her hand and opened it, tracing the fine lines on her palm and wrist.
“I want to talk about this.” His touch sent every nerve in her arm tingling, but she held steady. She would not be as seduced
as she was seductive. “Did Ernie Carmichael know about Francis’s . . . surprise?”
Alejandro’s lips quirked, and he tucked a piece of her hair behind her shoulder. “What has gotten you thinking about Ernie Carmichael? You could hardly stand him. Or his wife.”
Lila caught his hand before he could lower it. “Tell me if he knew, and I’ll pause my interrogation.”
He nodded, very serious. “Just a pause, hmm?”
Lila waved his trapped hand over his face. “Do you want this back or not?”
Alejandro didn’t break her grip, though she knew he could if he wanted to. “Yes,” he said finally. “Ernie knew.”
And what he said next was barely audible, more mouthed than spoken, as if this particular thought of his had simply spilled
out of him, unbidden.
“Ese cobarde . . .”
That coward.
Lila let his hand go and lay on Alejandro’s chest, her cheek against his collarbone. His heartbeat filled her ears. The blood
beneath his skin ran hot and loud. In this moment, Alejandro Matamoros was hers.
Alejandro’s loyalty to Francis held no question. They had been boyhood neighbors, then best friends, then business partners,
and at some point, she knew, they had become brothers.
Arthur and Lancelot indeed.
But even Lancelot chose Guinevere in the end.
“Alejandro . . .” She said his name with an echo of the accent she’d picked up learning Spanish from him.
“Sí, senora?”
She lifted her head, swirls of her silver-blond hair pooling on his throat. “Who are you here for?”
Who are you loyal to?
She let him sit in silence for a minute, wondering if his brain was grappling for a diplomatic escape to the impossible question.
He served Francis, no doubt about that. But Francis wasn’t here right now.
Alejandro swallowed, the only hint of nervousness Lila had ever witnessed from him.
“He is like blood,” he told her.
It was an answer of sorts, and the one Lila had expected. She gave him an understanding smile and bent down so that her hair
curtained around him and the tip of her nose lightly touched his. “But?” she prompted, and Alejandro was helpless in their
proximity.
“But I’m yours,” he breathed.
Lila’s chest swelled, and she bathed him in kisses, marking her territory with each stamp of her lips. He was hers. He was
in her bed, after all, keeping her warm and guarding her heart.
Alejandro dissolved at her touch, and they traded kisses for several slow minutes. At last, she settled back onto his chest
and looked at his watch. Fifty-two minutes left.
She would have been content to remain quiet until the time seeped away, but Alejandro was no longer on the verge of sleep.
“I know he is your husband, and you know him very well,” he said carefully. “However . . . I see him in those moments when
someone wants something from him. I see how he clenches even tighter onto something when he realizes it’s desirable.”
A part of her knew this. Being with Francis was not at all unlike show business; she had learned that the hard way. Throwing
herself into every audition and interview had only lessened her appeal. The movie stars most sought after were the unavailable
ones with tragedy-ridden lives that filled up tabloids and gossip columns. She was never going to get back home to rescue
her career by badgering Francis. But she was not someone who would hide from him either, like Ernie Carmichael.
She was going to get it the same way her darling husband had gotten where he was in life now.
By outsmarting everyone around her.
Alejandro cupped her chin. His hand was rough. An oil burn welted on one knuckle. “Make him come to you.”
Lila smirked slowly and brushed her lips against Alejandro’s cheek. “Of course, apuesto. You are right. And I just have one
favor to ask . . .”
She leaned down and whispered into his ear, as if it was no more than sweet nothings between lovers. As if she hadn’t just
come up with a plan for the world to burn.
He was right, after all. About more things than he realized. The way to get through to her husband and resurrect the famous
Lila Logan was the same.
All she needed was a touch of fire.