Her elbow gave way, but Ruben caught her before she could fall back against his writing implements. He pressed her against his body, her nipples rubbing pleasantly against his cotton shirt.
“Tell me, Miss Del Valle,” he said softly into her ear, “have you enough material for another installment?”
“Not quite yet.”
She touched the waistband of his trousers and he stilled, breathing hard against her as she undid the buttons that kept them closed. His skin felt very hot, even through his smallclothes. “Emilia…” he said, and she didn’t know if he meant it as a plea or a warning.
“May I?”
His only answer was to release her and help her ease his trousers and linens down over his hips, his eyes steady on hers. His hard length tumbled out between the tails of his shirt. She held it a little clumsily, stroking up and down the soft skin. “Like this,” he said, wrapping his hand around hers until she grasped how to do it. Then he leaned his palms against the desktop, much as she had moments before, and pressed his forehead to her shoulder.
Her palms grew slippery, and she was aware of her breasts bouncing in time with her movement, beads sweat collecting underneath them. But it was his hitching breath against her skin, which turned into a string of kisses against her clavicle, that made her realize she hadn’t known just how sweet and overwhelming and intimate this could be.
She hadn’t known she would be able to feel the precise moment when excitement and desire and, yes, loath as she was to admit it, her burgeoning attraction to Ruben, would coalesce into something much deeper. It was strange, and a little frightening, but Emilia was able to brush the sensation aside in order to concentrate on the task at hand.
A few moments later, she had found a good rhythm, quickening her pace when she realized Ruben enjoyed it, if the breathless curses against her shoulder were any indication. She could tell when he was close because his appendage—none of the flowery names she’d used for it in her stories felt quite right now that she had seen and touched the real thing—grew stiffer and hotter.
“Emilia, wait,” he gasped out suddenly. “Don’t want to ruin your—”
A thick liquid spurted over her hand, splattering over the hem of her dress. He threw his head back, breathing hard.
“Dress,” he finished, leaning his hip against the desk, between her still-open legs.
Shakily, he cleaned her hand with his handkerchief, dropping his head to place a kiss on her palm, then attended to himself.
After what they had just done, it seemed silly to hesitate, but Emilia found herself pausing when the impulse came to wrap her arms around him and tuck her face into the place where his neck and shoulder joined to better inhale his scent. She settled for running her fingers through his hair, which was disarrayed from her earlier touch.
His eyes still looked golden in the lamplight and they were filled with an emotion she couldn’t name when he turned and gathered her close, saying again, “I’m yours.”
Chapter 14
The booths had been built and all who were responsible for one gathered at the park on the day before the fair was to open, in order to decorate the wooden structures.
Susana had made paper flowers out of torn-out pages from a box of damaged books they’d found among their father’s things, and Emilia was helping her string them into garlands to hang on their booth. They had been working for the better part of the morning. The fair organizers were flying from booth to booth, borrowing hammers and string from each other, and the municipal band was practicing in the bandstand, adding to the cheerful chaos. In the booth beside Emilia and Susana’s, Ruben’s sister was laughing with Carmen and Ana Maria about some dreadful thing Cristobal had said as they tried—and failed, repeatedly—to straighten the cloth banner they had hung crookedly.
Emilia, who was still working out how to impeach Ana Maria and wrestle control of the WSA from her priggish hands, ignored the fun, concentrating instead on the garland. Susana was quiet as well, the hint of a smile on her lips. Emilia eyed her. It had taken Luis’s arrival for her to realize that Susana, while not exactly unhappy, had not really been happy either. These days, contentment radiated from her like chill from a block of ice and Emilia, suddenly, could see the difference.
She could feel the difference in herself, too, even though she wasn’t sure if what she felt for Ruben was the same as Susana felt for Luis. There was lust, yes, and admiration, and even a little grudging respect, but love? The thought of it made her feel a little squirmy.
As it turned out, Susana’s expression had more to do with the altruistic than the romantic. “Mrs. Espinosa asked me to head the literacy program.” Susana thrust her needle through a paper bloom. “She said she’ll announce it tonight, at the opening ceremony.”
“Susana, that’s wonderful!”
“I’m so pleased about it,” Susana confessed. “I thought she meant to do it herself but she said that as benefactress to the library and all those other charities she runs, she hasn’t enough time to handle the particulars.”
Emilia let out an unladylike snort. “Busy, my foot,” she said, prompting Susana to raise an eyebrow. Emilia elaborated. “Mrs. Espinosa never does anything unless there’s an audience. She’ll put together fairs and host fundraisers but I can’t see her hunched over a reader, listening to a penniless farmer sound out lines from El Gato de Lola.”
Susana laughed. “When did you get to be so cynical?”
“I’m not cynical,” Emilia said. “Only observant. Here.” She hopped on a stool and held up her end of the garland. “Is it long enough?”
“Almost.” Susana cocked her head to the side. “We ought to add leaves,” she said, frowning at the garlands. “Or something else to give the garlands some color. I’d hate for people to think our stand looks dreary.”
“We’ve some yellow and green paper at home. Do you want me to go fetch it?”
Before Susana could answer, they both spotted Ruben making his way through the park.
He had been in town for several weeks, and already was so well known that he was stopped several times on the path, first by Don Octavio Molina and then by Mrs. Espinosa and Ana Maria, and even Cristobal nodded at him as he went past. Emilia couldn’t hold back a smile.
When he saw her, he all but charged her way. Emilia would have teased him but as he neared, she saw from his face something was amiss.
“What happened?” she asked quickly.
He stopped in front of her, panting, and leaned one arm against the side of the booth as he struggled to catch his breath. “I’ve just had a telegram from Lopez.”
“Was it about the books? Will they not arrive in time?”
“They’ll be here tonight,” Ruben said. “But that wasn’t what he wrote about.” He glanced around him and realized, as did Emilia, they were attracting curious looks. “Can we talk elsewhere?”
Emilia glanced at Susana, who nodded and said, “Go. I think I see Rosa. She can help me finish here.”
“I’ll come back with the colored paper,” Emilia promised.
Shooting her sister a grateful look, Emilia brushed the pieces of colored paper off her skirt and hurried after Ruben. He led her away from the park, through a narrow street, without any destination in mind. They walked quickly, and when they had put enough distance between themselves and the crowd, he stopped and drew her closer.
“Did you bring me all the way here just to steal a kiss?” Emilia murmured, but the words died on her lips when he squeezed her wrists to convey the urgency of his message.
“Manuel Vega knows you’re Miss Del Valle. And I think he means to expose you.”
“He’s written a piece for the latest issue of Blanco y Negro, which comes out tomorrow. Lopez is the one who prints the magazine and when he saw the article and your name in it… He recognized it from the books he printed for us and he thought…well, it doesn’t matter what he thought, but he cabled me an hour ago to warn me the issue was being printed.”
Ruben continued to speak, and Emilia found herself unable to do anything more than stare at him.
Manuel Vega had written about her for Blanco y Negro? But that would make him…
Fernandez. Manuel Vega was Fernandez.
Though it may have looked like his words had little effect on her, inside, Emilia was reeling.
She had met him twice—first at the theater, and then at Carmen’s party. They had barely spoken, barely exchanged anything more than the usual pleasantries. He’d seemed nice enough, if a little quiet. Emilia found it almost impossible to believe that behind that pleasant facade was the man who’d been plaguing her for over a year.
In all the times she had pictured him, Emilia had never imagined that he would be someone so…ordinary.
Emilia had been writing The True Accounts for well over a year now—almost two. It had been two years of damnation and praise, two years of reading all sorts of things written about her tales, by all sorts of people. But of them all, Fernandez was the only one who’d gotten under her skin. Malicious though his columns might have been, he’d been the only one to provoke her into striving to be a better writer and storyteller. And, yes, she’d admit it, he’d been the only one that made her want to tear his damn paper to bits and stomp on the pieces.
And to think that Manuel Vega, of all people, had been behind it all…
After a while Emilia became aware of the pressure of Ruben’s fingers around her wrists. The sensation brought her back to herself.
“It’ll be ready tomorrow and by Sunday morning…” he was saying. “By then, everyone will know.”
The words reverberated inside her skull. In less than two day, everyone she knew—and hundreds of people she didn’t—would know she was Miss Del Valle.
“Are you all right?” Ruben asked, concern knitting his brows together.
“Perfectly,” she said briskly. She straightened, and gave him what she hoped was a reassuring look. “Only thinking about how to best handle this.”
“You don’t have to do a thing. I won’t let him do anything to hurt you,” Ruben said grimly. “I only told you because I wanted you to be prepared. There are things I can do to keep Manuel quiet. He owes a great deal of money to a thug called San Miguel—”
San Miguel. There was something familiar about that name, and at any other moment she would have seized on its meaning. Now, however, she felt too numb to think properly.
“No,” she said. “He’s only doing what any journalist would do. It’s what you should have done, if you’d been smart.” She bit her lip. “Maybe it’s time everyone knew.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Not a bit. But I can’t spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder. If it’s not Vega, then it’ll be someone else.” Emilia took a deep breath. “I want to make the choice while it’s still my choice to make. I want to stop hiding.”
He didn’t ask her again if she was sure. He examined her face, and whatever he saw there made him nod. “All right. What do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know yet. But I’ll think of something.”
“If Vega means to expose me,” Emilia said later that afternoon as she tore a bun in half and dipped one of the pieces into her cup of coffee, “all I have to do is step forward before he can do it. Steal his thunder and all that.”
Ruben, sitting across the table from her at La Tacita, was giving all the appearance of outward calm as he listened to her put together a plan. The coffeehouse was fairly empty; it seemed to Ruben that half the inhabitants of Arroyo Blanco were scurrying to and from the park, putting up the last of the decorations or helping set up the booths.
As he sipped from his cup and answered her questions, nodding along with everything she said, he was making plans of his own.
He never should have trusted Manuel to stay quiet. He should have known that even the threat of being turned over to San Miguel wouldn’t be enough to keep Manuel from such a juicy tidbit. He should have known better, he should have done better. But he hadn’t, and now Emilia was going to pay for it.
“His story won’t have much of an impact if I divulge the truth of Miss Del Valle’s identity before he can,” Emilia continued. “The trouble is finding a way to reach enough people. I could find a way to do it during the opening ceremony at the book fair tomorrow, but there won’t be enough people in attendance.”
“I can wire some reporter friends of mine who’ll want to cover it for their papers. Manuel will lose his advantage if the news isn’t exclusive to Blanco y Negro. I can even have a friend print a notice in tomorrow’s Diario, announcing that Miss Del Valle will attend the book fair. That ought to draw a fair-sized crowd.”
“I’d appreciate that,” she said, and Ruben saw the gratefulness in her eyes. It turned his stomach. She wouldn’t look at him like that if she knew he was the reason Manuel knew her secret. He was fairly burning with the need to tell her the truth, but even as he disgusted as he was for having allowed himself to take his pleasure with her, the certainty that she would hate him when he revealed the role he’d played in her current difficulties held him back.
He was a coward, and she did not deserve to be lied to.
Roberto took a fortifying sip of coffee. He would tell her—tomorrow, as soon as he could find a quiet moment in which to do it. Not tonight, when she might still need his help, which she was certain to spurn if she knew the truth.
She finished laying out the details of her plan and Ruben’s part in it, then grinned at him, suddenly, as something occurred to her, not noticing the coffee dribbled on her sleeve.
“Ana Maria is going to have an apoplexy. Did I tell you she put together another organization—the Decency League—just to protest sensational literature?”
Ruben frowned. “Will she be protesting your stories during your announcement? That won’t look good.”
“Nothing I can do about it. And anyway, the newsmen will like it— a little controversy will sell more papers.”
“You might be the most fearless woman I’ve ever met, Emilia,” he said, not bothering to hide his admiration.
“I’m not fearless at all.” She reached to dab at the crumbs strewn on her side of the table with her fingertips. “I’m dreading the thought of having to tell Susana. She won’t like it a bit. She’s the only reason I’ve kept this a secret for so long.”
Ruben leaned forward. He wanted to cover her hand with his but there were too many people around and in this town, even a touch as casual as that would be tantamount to his serenading her from a rooftop. So he settled for nudging her foot with his own. “She’ll understand. And she’ll forgive you. Because if there’s anything I’ve come to know about your sister in the last few weeks it’s that she’ll do anything to see you happy.”
“I hope so,” Emilia murmured. “I hope I’m doing the right thing. I’m not afraid of talk, or even of scandal—it was for Susana's sake that I wanted to avoid it. Most of the time I did, anyway. Sometimes I wanted to shout it from the rooftops and watch everyone keel over from the shock of it. Of course,” she added wryly, “I doubt anyone who knows me would be shocked at all.”
Ruben’s mouth twitched into a smile. “I wasn’t.”
“But you’re a Modern Man, and you know what they say about Modern People.” She raised an eyebrow at him before continuing. “Susana has had such a hard time already. What with Mama’s death and Papa’s…condition. It’s been only recently that she’s been able to go back to her old life. And now I’ll ruin everything for her. I only hope the news doesn’t deter Luis from continuing to court her.”
Earlier, Ruben had promised her he wouldn’t let Manuel hurt her. It seemed he was too late—her effort to sound unconcerned had dissolved at the prospect of her sister’s unhappiness and she looked as close to miserable as he had ever seen her.
Ruben glanced around the crowded cafe and silently damned everybody in it. Then he reached for Emilia’s hand and squeezed it between two of his own. “Susa
na will be fine. And so will you.”
He would make sure of it. Because despite, or perhaps because of, her infuriating obstinacy, her untidy hair and ink-splattered cuffs, her daring and her boldness and her expressive eyebrows and fine bottom and her irritating tendency to contradict everything he ever said, Ruben had—heaven help him—fallen in love with Emilia Cruz.
Chapter 15
It was close to dinnertime by the time Emilia got home. She and Ruben had worked out the particulars of their plan for the next day and, after a visit to the post office to send out all the telegrams he’d suggested, the only thing left for Emilia to do was to speak to Susana.
She had told Ruben that Susana wouldn’t care for their plan; in fact, Emilia didn’t know how Susana would react.
If she had been horrified when Emilia had argued with Ruben on the day of Ana Maria’s boating party, learning Emilia was not only facing the risk of exposure, but meaning to do it herself, was likely to make her… what? Angry? Terrified?
The house was dark, and Emilia felt a momentary sense of reprieve as she walked up the front steps. The she saw Susana sitting in the porch as the day faded around her. There was a book in her hands but not enough light to read it by; in any case, it didn’t appear that Susana was reading at all. She was looking off into the distance and the expression on her face told Emilia she was minutes from humming or singing out loud.
Emilia dropped into her favorite armchair. An inquisitive mosquito immediately started buzzing around her ear and Emilia swatted it aside as she looked at her sister in the growing dark. “You look happy,” she said.
“I’m leading the literacy program. I’ll have the opportunity to make some changes that will benefit the students. Things are going well with Luis. I suppose am happy,” Susana replied.
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