Her Claim: Legally Bound Book 2

by Rebecca Grace Allen

  Another reason he hadn’t wanted to leave.

  “How long were you with her?”

  “Six months.” The second half of the happiest year he’d ever known. He had a job he liked, a family to spend time with, albeit borrowed. And love, or so he’d thought. “It wasn’t all sex, although that was a big part of it. We spent countless nights together, talked about everything—books, politics, art. She opened up a world of intimacy to me, and I loved her with every stupid, hopeful bone in my body. But none of it was real.”

  “What do you mean?”

  His pulse pounded. “I wanted to stay in Spain, to spend all my time reading and discussing books, work in the shop and marry her. It was my childish version of a happily ever after, and I spent every cent I had on a ring.” Patrick could feel his heartbeat in his throat. “Turned out, she already had one.”

  “What?”

  He turned around to catch Cassie’s startled expression. “Yeah, turned out she was engaged, and had been the entire time to a businessman her father had set her up with. That’s why she was never around on the weekends. She went back to the countryside to be with him.”

  “She told you when you proposed?”

  That would’ve at least been decent. “No, she waited until after we’d made love, and I’d fallen asleep beside the woman I thought was going to be my wife. I woke up the next morning alone, the ring on top of a note explaining that she wasn’t in love with her fiancé, and had wanted one last fling before she tied the knot. She never expected to care for me, but she wasn’t going to run off with me, either.”

  He could recall every detail of that morning. The quiet of her being gone. The anguish. How devastated he’d been to read her words, the future he’d imagined with her evaporating like warm breath on a cold day.

  “She ended the note with the words ‘Lo siento, y adios para siempre, amante mío.’”

  “I’m sorry, and—”

  “—goodbye forever, lover of mine.”

  The shame was thick on Patrick’s tongue at the translation.

  “A Spanish woman was your first love and your first heartbreak,” Cassie said. “No wonder you freaked out on me.”

  Patrick winced. Hearing her speak Spanish had sent him catapulting into the past. “I’m sorry about that. It was a knee-jerk reaction. Emphasis on the jerk.”

  “It’s okay, I guess.” She shrugged. “At least I understand now.”

  Okay I guess didn’t mean she was okay. She still had her back up, and that guard didn’t come down easily. Which was why he was surprised as all hell when she pushed back the covers, inviting him back beside her.

  A small gesture, but one he hadn’t known he’d been waiting for. Gingerly, he sat on the bed and stretched his legs out. She curled up beside him.

  “What happened then?”

  He’d stopped being the boy he was. Started being the man he became, whoever that was. “I packed my things the next day. I couldn’t be there anymore. Everything about Spain, about books, reminded me of her. Of how foolish I was.”

  It still did.

  “You weren’t foolish. You were in love.”

  “And foolish. I was so focused on this life I thought I had that I couldn’t see how badly I was being played.”

  Cassie held him more tightly, and her arms felt like a brace, holding down that need to move. Gustavo had been sad to see him go, but had given him that tattered old copy of El Viejo y el Mar as a goodbye gift, saying one day he’d find more meaning in it.

  It had been untouched on his bookshelf ever since.

  “So I sold the ring, bought a plane ticket and went home, only to find out my father had died, and the CEO position at Dunham and Strauss was waiting for me. And he’d put a stipulation in his will saying if I didn’t work for the business, he’d deny me my inheritance and cut my mother off from her monetary support as well.”

  “Nice guy.”

  “Yeah, he was a real winner.” Her humor lifted his mood, as did her cheek, warm against his shoulder. “I didn’t care about the money. I would’ve walked away from it all. But my mother would’ve ended up on the street. I wasn’t going to abandon her.”

  Even if she’d never offered him the same courtesy.

  “You couldn’t challenge the will?”

  “Trust me, I tried. There was a no-contest clause.”

  “So if you fought it and lost in court, your inheritance would’ve been forfeited.”

  “Bingo. Not a risk I was going to take. Jack pored over the will until he found the loophole—I only had to be in a position of authority to satisfy the conditions, not run the ship. So Director of Sales, I became.”

  And resigned himself to being trapped in his life, his fancy home and his steady cash flow.

  “You never wanted to be in charge?” Cassie asked.

  “I’m not in charge now. I just have a larger share of the stock. And the joy of doing something I hate.”

  “I didn’t know you hated it.”

  “It’s not what I imagined doing with my life. That’s for sure.”

  “You wanted to continue your love affair with literature,” she said. “Sex isn’t your only passion.”

  But it was his escape. “Maybe, but since Sofía, I don’t get involved. No emotions, no one gets hurt.”

  Especially not him. Because not a day had passed when he hadn’t thought about her, and he’d spent his life since avoiding connections, leaving women first because he couldn’t stand the idea of waking up alone like he had that morning long ago, and making damn sure he knew how to protect himself from something like that ever happening again.

  “What’s your fantasy?” she asked quietly.

  Patrick searched his mind and drew a blank. “I don’t know that I have one.”

  “None?”

  “I prefer fulfilling other people’s fantasies. It…gets me out of my head. Anyway, it’s too late for me to pursue my passions. I’ve sold my soul to Dunham and Strauss. I wouldn’t know how to start over now.”

  He wouldn’t know how to change either, how to break from the life he’d started living, spending money because he figured he was stuck in this situation, so he might as well get what he could out of it. Expensive clothes. Lavish apartment. His home was as closed off as he was, luxurious and lonely.

  Except when Cassie was there.

  He hadn’t realized it until now, but that was another reason he hadn’t wanted to walk out her door. He didn’t overthink when he was with her, didn’t worry about the future or fixate on the past. He didn’t need to become someone else either. He was just…himself.

  Cassie touched him, slim fingers against his chest. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”

  “I’ve never told anyone about Sofía.”

  “Not even Jack?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why tell me, and not your best friend?”

  “I didn’t want to talk about it.” He rubbed her knuckle like it was a worry stone, then turned her hand over and ran his thumb along her palm. “I told you because you needed to know my reaction tonight wasn’t about you. And because I trust you, which is weird as all hell, since I’ve spent the better part of this year seeing how angry I could get you.”

  She smiled and melted into him. Patrick liked it, knowing he’d made her feel better. And telling her everything had made him feel better. He hadn’t realized how much that story had been eating at him until he’d finally told someone.

  Not someone. Her.

  It was like exposing a wound that refused to heal, somehow helped by contact with the air. The anger had festered in the darkness, growing more bitter as it flowed through his veins. He’d been so ashamed, unwilling to explain to anyone how badly he’d been duped, why his future was meaningless and his past was a mess. But it had felt right to tell Cassie. The sense of calm now that he’d done so was palpable.

  He nodded in the direction of her living room. “My mother is also the reason I don’t drink much. Hence the one g
lass of wine.”

  “That makes sense.” She nuzzled his chest, a tiny, sweet motion. “Thank you for telling me all that.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  She got up on her knees, the sheet giving way to curves and soft skin as she kissed him. She took control, tongue sweeping into his mouth, and as she got more demanding, suddenly it all made sense—her feisty temperament and zero tolerance for bullshit. How she radiated femininity and sex appeal, even when she was being impossible. Her ability to chew someone up and spit them out while still being seductive, provocative and fiercely loyal to her friends.

  Cassie was Latina. Maybe only half, but still.

  He didn’t understand why she kept it under wraps. He was caught between wanting to get her talking, and to find the best ways of shutting her up.

  He’d seen her with her clothes off, but Patrick had a feeling he hadn’t truly seen her naked. Now he was getting to see the real her—the woman behind the defense she so often kept in place. A whole new Cassie was in front of him, and he wanted to know everything about her.

  He eased off the kiss and tapped her bottom lip.

  “And now that I’ve told you all my secrets, it’s time you did the same.”

  19

  Cassie inched backward, pulling away from him. “What secrets?”

  She’d thought the last hour of talking had been about him. And absorbing all that new information had been more than she’d expected—hearing about his family, his time in Spain and Sofía. She’d always assumed Patrick was too callous to have given his heart away, and never having been in love meant Cassie didn’t know what it felt like to have your heart broken. But his story proved that not only was he not the man-whore she’d thought he was, but he’d had a relationship the depths of which she’d never known.

  “Why do you hide your Cuban side?”

  Cassie hooked a hand over the back of her neck. “I don’t know that I hide it. I just don’t flaunt it.”

  But she didn’t exactly embrace it either.

  “Why not?”

  “Because.”

  Her hackles were rising, and she kneaded harder at her neck. It was impossible to explain this—the stress of growing up with two identities, the murky area of who she was.

  Patrick reached up and covered her hand with his.

  “I won’t judge you, Cassie. I hope that much is obvious by now. And I told you my story, so I’d love it if you’d share yours.”

  She looked at him, at the sudden sincerity in his eyes. That mask of his was gone, and he had just bared his soul.

  Why did she always see a problem where there wasn’t one? She lowered her hand, the heavy weight of her guard dropping.

  “It’s…personal. It’s hard for me to put into words.”

  “I understand.”

  Instead of her rigid massage, Patrick’s fingers smoothed over the tendons in her neck, slow and calming. “How’d you know this would calm me down?”

  “Easy. You always rub the back of your neck when you’re nervous.”

  Of course he’d noticed that. It was her stress response—what she did when she wanted to fight but knew she couldn’t.

  “I don’t know where to start,” she said. “They call being Cuban-American ‘life on the hyphen’ because you’re not one or the other. I’m not Cuban or Anglo. I’m a hybrid—a Cubanglo. I have two cultures, but I don’t belong wholly to either one.”

  He waited, continuing to coax the tension from her neck. Cassie snuggled a little closer. “Growing up, we only spoke Spanish at home—well, Spanglish, really. A mix of Spanish and English. But I’m fluent in both, and it was hard to know which language to speak, which Cassie to be.”

  And no one who saw her outside the house knew which Cassie she was either.

  “Hey mami, you white or Latina? With that skin and those hips, I can’t tell.”

  “My Dad speaks Spanish too, albeit a bit softer than my mom. He was always this quiet, logical voice of reason in a very loud house.”

  “Loud?”

  “Cubans have two decibels: loud and louder.”

  Most of the time, she loved the quiet, the peace and privacy she had in Boston. The only way any of her family got up in her business was by text or phone. But now, talking about it, she missed them. Missed the ease of talking to her father, who rarely was the one who called. Missed her brother, so busy with his own family they only connected every once in a while. Missed Elísa and her mother yapping at each other, the bustle of home, the noise.

  She missed the part of her she’d left there, but it didn’t fit anywhere else.

  “Finances were tight,” she continued. “Dad worked a lot while Mom stayed home. He tried to retain our Cuban culture, but snuck me and my siblings out for fast food whenever we needed a break from rice and beans.”

  Patrick chuckled. “That was a staple growing up?”

  “You couldn’t tell?” Cassie asked dryly. “This thick Latina body came from years of fatty and high-sodium food.” How anyone was expected to stay trim and fit on a Cuban diet was beyond her.

  Patrick slid a hand beneath the blanket to graze her thigh. “I like your thick Latina body.”

  She grinned and shivered. Good to know.

  “Did you ever go to Cuba?” he asked.

  “Nah.” She’d skipped out on the trip her family had taken together after Castro died, saying she was too busy.

  Maybe that had been her excuse.

  Maybe it was always her excuse.

  “My whole life, Cuba was this paradise, this homeland my grandfather had been exiled from, but meant nothing to me other than the stories he told.”

  “He left when Castro came to power?”

  Cassie nodded. “He ran a casino in Havana but had to leave when the government was overthrown and the gambling establishments were seized. He talked a lot about the fall of Batista, how dangerous it was for him and my grandmother crossing the Florida Straits in a flimsy watercraft.”

  “They abandoned everything?”

  “Everything. They arrived in Miami with nothing but their clothes. But my grandfather found a way to work the system. The nightlife was booming there, so he took out a loan and opened a bar.”

  And despite all his success, he seemed to live with his bags packed, yearning to return to La Cuba de ayer, the Cuba of yesterday.

  Patrick turned on his side so they were face-to-face on the bed. A smattering of his chest hair was visible above the sheet, and Cassie longed to rest her face against it, to feel the coarse hairs and his warmth on her skin.

  So she did.

  Her tension deflated on an exhale as his arms came around her.

  “Sounds like a pretty cool guy,” he said.

  “The coolest. He was a proud man—he didn’t like taking charity—and had to enlist in the Cuban Refugee Program to get the loan. But he made sure to pay back every dollar with interest. He’s the one who drilled that ‘stand on your own two feet’ mantra into me. And taught me how to dance too.”

  Patrick’s chest rose and fell, a quiet pause she couldn’t read, but she let herself fall into the pattern of his breathing until he asked, “Is your grandmother still alive?”

  “No, she passed away before I was born. It’s part of what made my grandfather retire.”

  “Is the bar still there?”

  “Yeah, our extended family runs it. I think he was happier actually, not being in charge. He spent most of his time being ‘Señior Casimíro,’ a Miami legend, content to do nothing but play dominoes and smoke cigars. Which weren’t even Cuban. They were Dominican.”

  She tried to recall the scent, the heady mix of tobacco and leather and smoke. The smell reminded her of him, of innocence, of a time before grades and boys. Before she realized there was such a thing as being biracial and having to figure out how to blend all the parts that made her up. Before she had to learn how to decide which side of her ethnic background she viewed things from.

  “Sometimes, when no one is
smoking nearby, I swear I smell his cigars and I know he’s there, watching over me.”

  “That’s a nice thought to have,” he said. “Tell me more about him.”

  Cassie sifted through memories, picking happy ones instead of the ones that brought the wistful pinch of tears. “I made him teach me how to play dominoes when I was seven. I insisted not teaching me was communism, even though I had no idea what that meant.”

  “Sounds like something you would do.”

  She grinned. “He gave in, and every day after school he’d wrap the ring from his cigar around my finger and teach me how to match the tiles, to strategize and guess my opponent’s moves. It was kind of my early introduction to the legal battlefield.”

  “Is that when he told you that you were going to change the world?”

  She blinked a few times, astonished that he remembered. She shouldn’t have been. Elephant memory and all. “It was. It became the driving force in my life, propelling me toward my goal of becoming a lawyer.”

  She valued the struggle her grandfather went through. It was why she was trying so hard. To show she was thankful for his sacrifice.

  If she didn’t do that, she’d have failed him.

  “So why law?”

  “Laws change the world,” she said simply. “I wanted to become one of those badass women who blazed trails and influenced history forever. Like that statue on Wall Street of the fearless girl and the charging bull, braving the discrimination and gender gap.”

  “I wanted to run with the bulls.”

  “In Pamplona?” She lifted her head in disbelief. “You’re crazy.”

  “I always regretted not doing it.” He put his fingers up in horns. “Toro, toro!”

  She laughed, appreciating the break in the heavy even as she batted his fingers down.

  “You were saying?” he asked.

  “I didn’t want to be a famous Cuban-American actor or a musician. I looked up to ambassadors, cabinet members, congresspeople, and journalists. Gilda Oliveros, the first Cuban-born woman mayor. Raoul G. Cantero III, the first Hispanic Justice on the Florida Supreme Court. Jim Acosta, Soledad O’Brien. Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio. All Latinos.”