“You—” Her voice was high and tight and that was fucking magnificent. “You said no talking.”
“No talking for you,” he growled, then pushed into his girl.
In the fragile darkness before dawn, Aish squeezed her in his arms and stroked her breasts and kissed her neck and took his time pleasuring this woman he feared he’d never touch again into an agonized, bliss-filled orgasm that rang off her mountains.
September 18
Two evenings later, Sofia stood on the hospedería pool deck with her sister-in-law and Henry and tried to be surreptitious as she watched Aish laugh with his manager and the interns. He held a club soda and lime now. But earlier when she’d led the toast, she noticed that he clinked with a glass of her Tempranillo rosado that she’d poured to celebrate the success of their “crazy idea.”
The shade cloth worked. The Monte would lose about ten percent of that year’s harvest, but the cloth had protected the majority of the vulnerable fruit during the next day’s harsh sun. Without it, the losses would have been catastrophic.
Last night, the winds from the Bay of Biscay—tucked between Spain and France and just north of the Monte’s mountains—had finally found their way through the Picos de Europa to sweep away the heat wave. Temperatures had settled back to their September norms.
Harvest would start within the week.
This party thrown together quickly, with a village band playing in the corner and a spread of pinchos and paella on the other side of the pool, was as much a sigh of relief before the madness of harvest as a thank-you to the interns. Without them, Sofia had told them during her toast, they couldn’t have covered the numbers of vines they did during the critical short window.
The video of Sofia talking to her growers as well as the success of the shade cloth was the cleansing her image needed. In forty-eight hours, she’d gone from “Princess Prick Tease” in the international media to “a shining light for the beleaguered Monte del Vino Real.”
In a surreal turn of events, she had her dark-haired ex to thank for it.
He looked like a bad boy tamed for the occasion in white denim pants and a cream summer sweater that showed off the width of his shoulders. When he threw back his head and laughed, his throat was tan and strong, so different from that strung-out rock star who’d shown up at her winery launch. The sunset cast a rosy gold glow and sparks of it caught in his hair.
“...so then I saw this dragon flying over and I thought, whoops, someone’s gettin’ canned, ’cause you know about dragons and fire,” Henry said and Sofia blinked and looked up at him.
“Sure, sure,” Roxanne murmured on Sofia’s opposite side. “But dragons usually hoard gold so if they’re in the vicinity, you’ve got to balance win-losses.”
Sofia swiveled to look at her. “What are you two talking about?”
“There she is!” Henry boomed, drawing a few looks with his Texas-size voice.
“We were talking about how devastated we were to be ignored while you were eye-fondling the rock star,” Roxanne said, grinning evilly.
Sofia scowled and lowered her voice, hoping the two would do the same. “I wasn’t—”
“Were,” Henry said.
“And don’t worry,” Roxanne said, tilting toward her. In an off-the-shoulder red peasant dress that highlighted how kickboxing was a good antidote to childbearing weight, Roxanne looked like a swimsuit model and not a mogul and mother of two. “He’s been sneaking glances, too. He looks at you like I looked at my first million.”
“Except when I do shit like this...” Henry said as he slipped his arm around Sofia’s waist and pulled her against his thick, muscle-y side, covered in a black polo shirt and jeans. She leaned against him, because it was easy and comfortable, because their friendship had always been tactile after an attempted kiss in the first few months let them know they’d never feel lust. “When I hug you, that little guy thinks he can take me.”
Henry was twice the width of Aish and Aish had never been jealous of anyone because men who perceive themselves as golden idols don’t envy ants and both of her pseudo siblings were acting like annoying teens so Sofia had no idea why the defense “He’s not little,” popped out of her mouth.
She was as shocked as they were thrilled.
Maybe turning to the boy she once loved for a distraction orgasm hadn’t been the best idea. But that’s all it was. Aish Salinger, more beautiful with hours of hard work on his long frame, had been a handy alternative to falling apart in the middle of a vineyard. An orgasm was an orgasm, and although this was the boy who showed her that she could have them, there was no reason it should outweigh other stress-relief orgasms she’d had in her life.
“I got a rule, too, Sofia. I’m not going to fuck you until we agree this is more than a one-time thing.”
It wasn’t going to be more than a one-time thing. She smoothed her hand down the hip of her white linen sheath dress as a reminder.
“It’s all pretend,” she’d told Aish, and she couldn’t allow their pretend flirtation to turn into real...itch scratching. Filling the 24-7 news cycle along with Sofia’s video was a photograph of Aish and Sofia. It showed him looking up at her on the truck bed while she’d looked down at him.
It was a photo Sofia didn’t want to see more than once.
But social media was raving about the warming temps between the princess and the rock star. Bodega Sofia finally had some good press, and Aish was too important to that continued momentum to allow their arrangement to get complicated.
As if he was the voice of el diablo on her shoulder, Henry drawled, a touch quieter, “You know, it’s okay if you want to try to get to know him again. When the cameras aren’t around.”
Sofia straightened and pushed herself out of his hold as she raised the wineglass to her lips, calmed and centered herself with the taste of the savory rosé she’d made from her brother’s grapes. For a second—unintended and unwanted—she wondered what Aish had thought of it. He’d said nothing about the half glasses he’d sampled.
“Why would I do that?” she said quietly.
She could feel the telegraphing messages being sent between Henry and Roxanne over her head.
“Well, I know we don’t talk boys or curl each other’s hair,” Henry said, and was that a dig for her not sharing with him what had happened with Aish all those years ago? “But I’ve never seen you look at a guy the way you look at him.”
“He hurt you,” Roxanne said. A lo hecho, pecho, what was done was done and her sister-in-law never hid from it. “Maybe spending some time with him would help you let go of some of that hurt.”
It wasn’t their fault. They didn’t know how cruel they were being. But if Sofia told her and Henry what had really happened, how he had left her alone and terrified in a hospital in a foreign country, neither of them would be talking about reacquainting herself with Aish Salinger. They’d be dragging him up into the mountains and throwing him from the highest peak.
If they knew what Sofia had begged of him—in the vineyard, in her cellar—despite what he’d done to her, they might throw her off right behind him.
Sofia had to be better than a lost cause.
It was of course now, when she was submerged in dark emotions, that Henry tapped her hip and she saw Aish and his manager making their way across the pool deck toward them. Aish looked flinty-eyed at Henry.
Sofia focused on Devonte so she wouldn’t get caught up in the ludicrous idea that Aish was jealous.
“Princess, I’ll be taking off in the morning. Just wanted a chance to say goodbye,” the manager said.
Surprised, she let Roxanne and Henry murmur their thanks and move away to join the party before she took Devonte’s huge hand between both of hers. “¿Te vas? I can’t believe you’re leaving just when we’re starting to have fun. You’ll miss harvest.”
“Duty calls,” he
said. He really had a charming smile for such a bulwark of a man. “And this one—” he nodded at Aish “—claims he doesn’t need his ‘lap dog’ anymore.”
Sofia refused to cringe at what she’d called the manager during that confrontation in her office. Her assessment hadn’t been wrong. What was striking now was how it had evolved. Aish had christened the vines and winery with a decent amount of his sweat, and Devonte had taken off his suit jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and sweated right alongside him.
“You’ve been a tremendous help when you could have just been a tremendous dolor en mi culo.” Devonte chuckled. Pain in the ass was understandable in all languages. She went up on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “You’re the only friend of Aish’s I’d let in the kingdom.”
Devonte stepped back and eyed her. It was a long pause for such a flippant remark.
Sofia glanced at Aish. He shrugged.
Finally, Devonte said, “You weren’t a big fan of John’s, either?”
“What?” Aish scowled. “What are you doing?”
The majority of partygoers were on the other side of the pool deck around the food table, leaving Sofia, Aish and Devonte alone by the second-story railing. Twilight was settling in around the foothills and lights strung around the deck sparkled on.
“Getting another perspective,” Devonte said, his jaw set. “I can’t be the only one who never trusted John.”
Aish’s head snapped back. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Devonte rubbed his hand over his jawline as he reached for words. Whatever was happening here, Sofia didn’t want to be involved.
She raised her empty wineglass. “I’ll just...”
“Sorry, Princesa, but I gotta know.” Devonte looked resigned to the course he’d set. “Why didn’t you like John?”
She glanced at Aish’s hurt expression. “I don’t really think it’s my place to—”
“Don’t be shy,” Aish said, and now there was anger building behind his words. He glared at Devonte. “We’ve had nothing but one-on-one time for an entire fucking year but at a party when he’s about to leave is when he decides to drop a bomb. Go with it. Tell Devonte what you told me.”
In her room that night, when she’d apologized for using him, was the only time she’d revealed her true feelings about Aish’s best friend since diapers.
“John didn’t like my connection with Aish,” she said, dropping her eyes to her empty glass. Acknowledging their past in this intimate way felt treacherous. “I think he actively worked to break us up.”
“No way,” Aish interjected immediately. “No fucking—”
“It wasn’t overt,” she said, looking directly at Devonte. He was a better friend to Aish than John. If he needed something from her, she would give it to him. “It was cuchicheos. Whispers. He wasn’t a good person.”
“Sofia, how can you—”
“He made me pay off a family once.” Devonte’s cold words shut Aish down. “A single mom making threats and her sixteen-year-old daughter. I had to bring an envelope to this apartment outside St. Louis that was just...” He shook his head. “The girl had gotten backstage, wanted to show him some lyrics she’d written. He let her show him the lyrics...then he showed her a few things.”
“What are you saying?” Shock and betrayal ravaged Aish’s whisper. Sofia nudged their little group until Aish’s back was to the party. He didn’t deserve onlookers to this.
Devonte made a disgusted snick with his tongue. “The girl tried to rip the check out of her mom’s hand and give it back, told me she loved him. But she was sixteen. An obvious sixteen. Two weeks later, he’s showing you those lyrics in the studio and telling you they’re his. I realized then I wasn’t paying for statutory rape. I was paying for those goddamn words.”
Sofia’s shock was a cement block in her chest, suspended as she watched this terrible truth play out between Aish and his trusted manager. She wanted to leave; she wanted to believe she didn’t belong here. Instead, horribly, she knew she had to stay.
“Why is this the first time I’m hearing about it?” Aish asked, leading with anger and defensiveness, the animal snapping his teeth from the corner. “Why didn’t you tell me then? Why did you agree to deliver the money?”
Devonte slid those bone-crushing hands into his expensive suit and looked Aish straight in the eye. “I have a juvie record. I was told to hurt a couple of guys...and I did.” Finally, like that was all he could risk, his dark eyes dropped to the tile. “My record was expunged but somehow John found out. If I didn’t keep his secrets, he threatened to tell everyone. Tell you.”
And that was the worst threat, wasn’t it? That Aish, with his perfect upbringing and gleaming American ideals, wouldn’t understand a life of hard choices. That he would take himself away.
“There were more secrets?” Aish asked, his voice cracking. Even when she’d glimpsed him in that video, even when he’d emerged from his town car in her courtyard—pale and worn—Sofia had never seen him look this devastated.
“That was the worst one,” Devonte said.
“Why are you telling me now?”
Instead of looking at Aish, Devonte looked at Sofia. “Because she knows what I know about John. He wasn’t good enough for you. He didn’t deserve all the devotion you gave him.” He took two steps and propped his arms on the railing, looked out over the darkening foothills and the still-white peaks of the mountains.
She leaned on the rail next to him, felt the railing shimmer as Aish fell back against it on Devonte’s opposite side.
“You buried yourself in your house and worshipped at the shrine of John for the last year, and I had to nurse you through it knowing he was a piece of shit,” Devonte said quietly. “Committing suicide and somehow making you feel responsible for it was his last ‘fuck you.’ And I couldn’t tell you because, if you kicked me out, you’d be all alone. I wasn’t going to leave you all alone in that house.”
Sofia pressed her lips together to hide their trembling.
“Now you’re finally getting better and I’ve got to go so you can stand on your own two feet. But you need to know the truth so you can heal the rest of the way, even if it means you’re gonna fire me. I’m telling you in front of her so, if you do fire me, she understands what you’re going through. I’m leaving you in her hands.”
She refused to look at Aish, but felt Devonte squeeze her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Princesa, but I’m asking you to keep an eye on him. Just...call me if you need me.”
He let her go and thunked Aish’s chest. “Sorry, man,” Devonte murmured. And then he left, leaving a Devonte-wide space separating the two of them.
A breeze pushed the scent of the ocean past her, and Sofia knew that wasn’t coming from the Bay of Biscay. She couldn’t look at the torn-apart man standing two feet from her.
“I can’t—” he started then stopped.
Sofia was squeezing her glass so hard she was afraid it might shatter.
“I gotta go.”
The smell of salt and sand dissipated as she listened to the slap of his shoes against the tile. Sofia wrapped a hand around the railing.
She couldn’t follow him. She couldn’t help him. She had duties and responsibilities here. She knelt to put down her glass then gripped the railing with both hands.
Aish now had to face what Sofia had proof of all along: that John stole songs. After Aish had broken up with her, she’d been a mess, weeping as she’d grabbed her things from the piles between his and John’s beds and thrown them into her footlocker. Only later had she realized she’d grabbed a flash drive that belonged to one of them. She’d been falling apart in a high-end San Francisco hotel when, wanting any connection to Aish, she’d opened it to discover audio and video recordings of other people playing songs she knew John had passed off as his own. The recordings even captured John hitting on girls or ordering a
beer as the street musician or open-mike band played. She hadn’t cared about the thievery; she’d kept it and—shamefully—put it in her treasure box because it also had recordings of Young Son performing. Of Aish.
Now Aish had to face that song stealing wasn’t John’s only crime. He’d blackmailed Devonte, slept with an underage girl. What else had the friend he’d built a life around, the partner in his life’s passion, been hiding? Sofia hadn’t had proof of John’s manipulations, but she’d sensed them. Why hadn’t Aish?
Feeling the cold iron dig into her palms, Sofia convinced herself that she would deny Devonte’s request and let Aish be. She would leave him alone with his shock and sorrow. In a hotel. In a strange land. While his family was a world away and his friend was headed to the airport.
It was a cool, calm, deliberate decision.
Sofia was across the pool deck and pushing open the door into the hospedería before she’d fully settled on the cool, calm, and deliberate decision that—regardless how much she’d hated him over the last decade—she wouldn’t leave him alone now.
September 18
Part Two
The third time Sofia knocked on Aish’s suite door, she quietly called his name.
With the party in full swing, there was no reason any of the interns should be in their rooms. Still, it was best if no one caught her pawing at the rock star’s door.
When he still didn’t answer, she pulled out her master key card.
And saw him across the room in the lamplight, angry amazement overtaking the haggard look on his face as she pushed the door open.
“What the fuck, Sofia,” he said, glowering at her.
She stepped in and shut the door behind her.
“I knocked.”
“I know.” He turned his back on her and continued to pace. His stride was too long, too fast, for his hotel room, causing him to double back too quickly in front of his balcony door. The stone walls caged frenetic energy that needed to get out.
Hate Crush (Filthy Rich) Page 18
