Chapter 10 Matías
Matías
Eleven Months Ago
Matías smiled in his kitchen as he smelled the ripe tomato in his hand. Meeting Claire last night had been an unexpected highlight of the gallery opening. The exhibition itself had been a mélange of emotions, as it was anytime Matías had a show—the stress of sharing his work with a new audience and the rush of mingling with art lovers, the high of a sale, the low of haughty comments about his style. But that brief time he’d spent with Claire had been pure joy.
She got him.
And now she’d agreed to dinner. Matías hadn’t been on a first date for years—his last relationship had been quite long, and only recently ended—and he didn’t know if there were differences in how things were done in the States versus in Spain, but there was one thing he knew: Food was a universal language.
So Matías had spent all morning and early afternoon visiting different purveyors around New York. He’d stopped into four different cheesemongers to sample their offerings before he circled back to Murray’s for the Manchego that tasted closest to his favorite one at home—nutty and tangy, with just the right crumble. Then he’d browsed through Despa?a for olives and Marcona almonds, and chatted his way through a local farmer’s market, taking time to talk with each grower about where they were from and what they grew and why. It was the way he had been taught by his mom, Soledad, and his abuelita, Gloria. Meals were not just nourishment—they were love letters to the sun and the earth that grew the vegetables, to the farmers who nurtured the fruit and the artisans who pressed the olive oil, and most of all, to the people to whom you served the food. If you put love and care into your cooking, it would show with every bite.
It wasn’t that far off from how Matías approached painting.
He glanced over at the open notebook on the counter: a collection of family recipes that his mom had compiled for him before he moved overseas. She’d been worried he would feel homesick, especially not being able to come over for family dinner every Saturday, so she and his abuelita had painstakingly handwritten over a hundred of the de León favorites. Aracely had gotten each recipe protectively laminated—because Matías’s persona in the kitchen was best described as Chef Chaos—and then bound them into a single, neat book so he couldn’t misplace any of them.
He was making empanadillas de atún con sofrito . He already had the half-moon pastries in the oven (some families fried theirs, but his had always baked them), and now he was working on the sauce of tomato, onions, garlic, and bell peppers. The onions were already browning on the stove in Spanish olive oil, filling his small apartment with their rich aroma while he chopped tomatoes.
What Matías knew from the art world was that first impressions meant a lot, so he was throwing everything he had into cooking for Claire.
He hoped this dinner would show her as much about him as his paintings had last night, and that she would like what those flavors revealed.
—
Her world was so different from his. Inside this tower of steel and glass was an entire industry Matías knew nothing about—high-powered corporate attorneys who helped drive the global economy. While he made pieces of art one by one, Claire and her colleagues helped build new companies and cement landmark deals for everything from cutting-edge windmill technology to fish hatcheries, luxury hotel mergers to Super Bowl beer distribution rights.
Increíble, Matías thought as Claire led him through the Windsor he was watching Claire look at it. Just like last night when she was studying his paintings, there was so much going on behind those eyes. Her intelligence was palpable, and he wanted to know every single one of her thoughts.
“Anyway,” Claire said, “let’s go deeper into the library. There are some tables back there where we can spread out and have a proper dinner. It would’ve been terrible if we’d tried to eat squeezed between all the stacks of paper in my office.”
She turned to a corridor to the right, but before they left the library’s foyer, Claire flipped off the lights.
“To save on the energy bill,” she explained when she caught Matías glancing back over his shoulder at the dim room behind them.
He liked that she cared, even though the firm was the one paying for the lights.
When Claire had found the perfect table in the back corner of the library, Matías unpacked the bag and cooler he’d brought with him. A tablecloth his brother Luis had given him as a New York housewarming gift. A set of plates and silverware, which seemed to surprise Claire, probably because she was accustomed to eating off of paper or from disposable plastic containers. And of course the food—a tart apple salad with that delicious Manchego cheese, and the empanadillas and sofrito.
Claire ate with the same quiet expressiveness Matías was beginning to adore. She would take a bite, then close her eyes to let the flavors roll around in her mouth, and then she would swallow and a small smile would blossom across her face.
“This puts my cafeteria salad to shame,” she said.
“I hope so.” Matías grinned. She liked his cooking. She could —he was pretty sure—taste the passion he’d put into it. And he thought she might like him, too.
Claire asked him about painting and Spain, but he felt like they’d had plenty of his work last night at the gallery, so he asked about her life and her work instead. She gushed about the exhilaration of putting together multinational deals, of bringing together teams from different companies and countries. Her zeal for her work was something he understood, too—that thrill of losing yourself in something exciting.
But as they bit into the tuna pastries, Claire seemed to lose the thread of what she was saying. She went still for a moment, staring at his lips. The little hollow at the base of her throat turned a darker shade of pink.
Matías wiped away the bit of tomato sauce at the corner of his mouth.
She inhaled sharply, then shook herself out of her momentary trance. She creased her brow, as if having an argument with herself. The blush crept up her neck and bloomed onto her cheeks.
Yes, Matías thought. She likes me.
He had promised to take only thirty minutes of her evening since she still had work to do, but it would be hard to leave her.
When he unveiled dessert and fed the sweet almond confection to her on a spoon, she moaned. Then Claire bit her lip, contemplating for just a second, before she swiped aside the dishes in front of her, climbed over the table, and kissed him.
She tasted of sugar and heat, almonds and yearning.
Matías pulled her onto his lap and kissed her deeper, her lips parting, his tongue finding hers. And that would have been enough for him, just to hold her there, feeling her body against his, the pleasure of the meal he’d made her swirling through her veins.
But Claire’s skirt rode up her thighs, and she pressed herself harder against him.
“Make me yours,” she whispered.
Dios mío.
“Are you sure?” Matías asked, because even though he ached beneath her, Claire didn’t strike him as the type to make love in a public place, even if it was an isolated corner of a locked library after hours.
“Some people are worth breaking rules for,” Claire said.
He picked her up in a single, swift motion, and lay her down on the plush carpet between the shelves. Their clothes flew off, and for the next hour, they made love so fiery Matías was surprised the pages of the books didn’t all light aflame.
Afterward, he cradled her against him, his body and mind the most relaxed since he’d arrived in New York.
She laughed nervously. “So, um, welcome to the Big Apple. I’m your tour guide, Claire.”
Matías pulled her closer and kissed the top of her head. “I wouldn’t want any other guide but you.”