“She got an invite, and it doesn’t make sense to take two cars—”
“Of course not.” He shrugged and then leaned down to kiss Letty’s cheek, unwilling to bear the burden of messing with her fussed-with makeup. “Plenty of room.”
One of the doors off the hall opened, and a magazine cover model wandered out. No wonder Javi had dated her during his post-divorce model phase. Elena Gonzalez was a straight-up dime piece. But Max still didn’t understand how anyone could look at her to see that both Gonzalez sisters were equally beautiful. Different, but beautiful.
Max extended his hand, forgoing the cheek-kiss Elena probably expected. When she took his hand, she smiled, possibly appreciating him keeping his distance. There was a less than zero chance he would risk fucking things up tonight with Letty, not after the conversation with his father had blown every chance of a future out the fucking window.
He may not be in any position to give her a future, but at least they would have tonight.
After Alejandro had left, he’d spent the morning in his studio. First, he’d looked at the drawings that he’d made of Letty the first night they’d slept together. Without meaning to, he picked up his pencil and finished the most promising one, the first one. Then, he’d sorted through the—helpfully labeled—materials all around his studio and picked out some pieces of metal. Not a planned project, but he couldn’t deny his muse, even if she wasn’t with him and he knew that he’d have to pull away again—permanently this time.
Standing there in her living room, he wished he’d made more drawings. And, more than that, he wished her sister wasn’t there. He needed to talk to his precious girl and let her know how much she affected him—he needed her to understand that he was in deeper with her than he’d ever been in with anyone before. She haunted his dreams and made him strong and weak all at the same time. She made him feel as though he was the man he wanted to be instead of the man he was destined to become.
As they walked out to the car he’d arranged for the evening, Elena walking behind them, attention firmly on her phone, Max shared the likely pall over the evening. “My father’s going to be there tonight.”
He only hoped that Alejandro would keep his mouth shut about the money thing. He would not stand for Letty being publically humiliated by his father’s selfishness—by his selfishness for wanting more time.
“Really?” He could feel Letty’s gaze on the side of his face, waiting for him to elaborate.
“He’s on the board, and I’m pretty sure that’s why I was even invited. A couple of years ago, he decided that if I couldn’t be useful in business, he’d use me to up his social standing another way.”
“Jesus, Max.” Her hand curled into his elbow and she squeezed him. Anchored him to the Earth, and to her and everything that was coming to matter to him. “That’s not how family should work. My mom is kind of a bitch about how we look, but I’m starting to think that it comes from concern.”
Max’s gut tightened at Letty making excuses for anyone, fearing that one day she’d have to make them for him. “Anyone who makes you feel anything less than beautiful and perfect doesn’t get to be part of your family.”
Letty snorted as he opened the car door. “We don’t get to pick who gets to be in our family. If we did, the only person I would choose would be Elena.” He could understand that. The sisters’ connection was kind of a palpable thing. “I’m more bothered by the fact that I’m going to meet your father in a hoochie dress than anything else.”
“Would now be a good time to tell you that my brother is doing the food?”
Elena slid in the front seat of the truck, next to the driver. Instead of sitting at the other side of the bench seat, Letty slid next to him in the center. He couldn’t articulate how good it felt—after so long with sparse affection—to have this woman who he cared about so much reach out and touch him at every opportunity. “I have to impress the gay brother? Maybe it’s a good thing that I am wearing the designer hoochie dress.”
It was Max’s turn to laugh. “Joaquin couldn’t give a fuck about fashion. His passion is food, always has been.”
“Good to know. Unfortunately, there’s no room for food in this dress.”
They were both silent for a few, short moments. Listening to Elena bitch about a photographer on the phone to someone who sounded like an agent.
The pause gave Max enough time to think about how to approach his other worry of the night. “Is that fucking douche Simon going to be there?”
“Yes.”
A sliver of anger worked its way through him, driving under his fingernail and making him grit his teeth. He had no right to feel this way because he was not better than that guy for Letty after all. “Is that dress for me or for him?”
Letty’s hand found his lap. His cock—always semihard around her—perked up immediately. “It’s for you.”
Max growled, deep in his throat, but Letty didn’t stop stroking him. “Your sister’s a few feet away,” he whispered.
“I’m not doing anything.” There was a sly smile on her voice that made even more blood rush to his lap where she absent-mindedly rubbed his now-painfully hard cock.
“You’re playing with fire, precious girl.”
“Is that what this is?”
“You want me to drag you into a storage closet or coat room when we get there so I can fuck you against a wall, knocking plates down, and shit?”
“That sounds like a kind of amazing idea.”
“I’ll mess up that pretty dress, fuck up that makeup that took all afternoon, and your ex-idiot is going to see my mark all over you.”
“Mmm-hmmm.”
He grabbed her hand and put it on her thigh, not angry, just not able to take one minute more of this cock tease torture she was wearing just as sure as she was wearing a few scraps of red satin and calling it a dress. “If we were alone in this car, I’d tell you to touch yourself until your eyes went all glassy and your breath got short.” He had his arm wrapped around her shoulders, and he dropped one finger to her graceful collarbone. “You’d get all flushed here, and then I’d tell you to stop.”
“Why would you do that?” She was still with him, her open curiosity not doing anything to stop him from making a tent in his pants.
“Because I’d want him to see how strung out you are for me.” He palmed her throat lightly, in an echo of what he’d done the night before. “Even when you thought you were in love with him, he never got you as close as I get you, did he?”
She shook her head, and he couldn’t help the dark satisfaction that rolled through him. He was about to kiss her, but the car stopped in front of the hotel.
* * * *
Max had so thoroughly distracted her with his filthy talk in the car on the way over that she forgot to be nervous until they walked into the banquet room where the gala was held. She couldn’t help but notice that it wasn’t as nice as the event she’d planned last year. Simon had gotten the ice sculptures from the cheaper place, and they looked janky.
They’d used the fairy lights and rented furniture from last year, though. So, it appeared the Simon had used her notes and simply thrown out anything he’d thought was too expensive.
Letty’s gaze darted back and forth across the entire ballroom, the only thing keeping her from running out of the room was Max’s huge palm on her lower back.
Ahead of them, Elena swiped a glass of champagne off of a server’s tray and disappeared into the crowd. In the crush of bodies, there were a lot of faces that she recognized. A few people stopped them, and said hello, leading Letty to believe that maybe Simon hadn’t followed through on his threats to make sure she’d never work in the Miami art world ever again.
“Letty, I was so sorry you quit working for Art Basel,” one of their big donors, festooned in Botox and huge diamonds said. “I’m glad to see you, here though.”
To Letty’s surprise, Max smiled broadly and shook hands with the Nassars. They asked him what mediums he worked in, and he answered more eloquently about his work than she’d ever heard him speak. To think, she’d thought he was almost feral when they’d met. Maybe he’d only been so surly when she’d walked into his studio because he’d been as affected as she had been?
They shook hands and made introductions for a few minutes, and the reality that Max wanted to be with her sank in. He was never not touching her, and it felt so good. And markedly different from what she’d had with Simon.
She was so absorbed in being at a party with a man she could really love that she didn’t see Lola barreling in out of nowhere. But, all of the sudden, Lola’s bony, aged hands were on her waist.
“You. Look. Gorgeous.”
“Th—thank you.” Letty wasn’t quite sure what to say when people complimented her on her looks. Max’s earnestness had her accepting compliments from him. But what he said about her was filthy.
“The only not gorgeous thing about you right now is your empty hand.” Letty wasn’t quite sure what to say. Was Lola alluding to her empty ring finger? “You don’t have a drink.”
That made much more sense. The septuagenarian then grabbed her arm and dragged her to one of the three bars strewn around the ballroom. She lost Max in the crowd and hoped that he didn’t smash Simon’s face in if they ran into each other before she returned from her sojourn with Lola.
* * * *
Max lost Letty in the crowd, and his skin itched because he couldn’t see her. Surrounded by the kind of people his parents had hung out with for all his life, his tuxedo was threatening to strangle him. He’d been nervous the whole night that they’d run into his father, that he would have to subject Letty to him. That he would have to deal with his disapproval in another area of his life.
Not that his father would have a good reason to disapprove of Letty. She was so magnificent that he hadn’t been able to keep his hands or thoughts to himself. He’d needed to make her squirm and wanted nothing more than to rent a room at the hotel and skip the party altogether.
Now, that wasn’t a bad idea. Maybe they could cut out early—early, as in now—and he could get a room. The red dress would be history in seconds, and he’d have her bent over the closest piece of furniture in under a minute. The way she responded to him was like nothing else. He craved it like a drug, as though her scent was in his blood and she’d imprinted on him permanently. In that way, maybe he did have something in common with his mother—his addiction to Letty would no doubt destroy both of them the way that his mother’s disease had cost him and his siblings their childhood.
After a few minutes with no sign of Letty or his grandmother amidst the crush of people, he went into a back hallway, and saw something he’d hoped never to see again—his parents talking intimately.
“What the fuck is this?” Max didn’t mean to yell, he really didn’t, but the words just came out.
His mother jumped away from his father and didn’t meet Max’s gaze. His father, on the other hand, appeared defiant. “None of your business.”
Max ignored his father’s condescending pronouncement and turned his attention back on his mother. “Are you drunk? On pills?”
She shook her head.
“Then what are you doing here with him?” Max put his hands on his hips, never feeling more like the man standing a few feet away from him. He didn’t want to lecture his mother. Even dressed in a sequin gown, with sparkling jewels in her ears and around her neck and wrists, she looked small next to her soon-to-be-ex-husband. “This can’t be good for your sobriety.”
His mother’s gaze snapped up to his. “What do you care about my sobriety?”
Max blew air threw his lips. His mother’s words were a gut punch. Sure, he didn’t want to sit in the car and talk about feelings all day long, but he didn’t want his mom to start using again. And spending any time at all with his father was a sure recipe for her to start doctor shopping for pain pills. “I care, Mom.”
His father chose that moment to step in. “No one cares more than I do about your mother’s sobriety.”
Max couldn’t breathe but for the anger pulsing through his body. “You don’t care about anything that doesn’t directly benefit you.”
“That’s not true.” Of course, his mother was back to defending him. Why he’d ever thought she would make a clean break—
“I can’t be in your life if you’re going to be around him.” He hadn’t known that he was going to draw that line in the sand until he’d done it. If he was going to lose his studio, if he was going to lose Letty, he wouldn’t do it for a woman who couldn’t even bring herself to leave his monster of a father.
“You don’t mean that.” His mother’s eyes glossed over with tears, and he almost broke then. Being around Letty had really softened him. Before he’d met her, he wouldn’t have been moved by a woman’s tears. But now, he wasn’t sure that his resolve would withstand his mother’s breakdown.
“You’re being childish.” Being “childish” in the eyes of his father was only one step above being “a girl.” His whole life, he’d been indoctrinated into what it was to be a man, and he’d been led to believe that being a man meant becoming a carbon copy of the man in front of him.
For the first time in his life, though, he didn’t care what his father thought of him. “You’re poison, Dad.” He pointed a finger in his father’s face and relished the other man’s flinch. “To all of us. Not just her.”
“This is not the time or place for this discussion.”
“No, you want to get behind closed doors so that you can push Mom around, don’t you?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know exactly what I’m talking about.” He stepped closer to his father. “Joaquin has scars that say I know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“Your mother and I are here to keep up appearances.”
“Keep up the appearance that she’ll stay with a man who she has to be blitzed out of her mind to remain married to?”
“That’s not true, Max.” His mother stepped between them. He wanted to put her behind him but resisted the urge to escalate the situation. “You don’t know the whole story.”
“I don’t care to know the whole story, Mom.”
“Your father has my best interests at heart.”
“He doesn’t have any other interests but his own.” Max looked down at his mother. He should tell his mother right now that Alejandro didn’t care about her, didn’t care about his children, and only cared about controlling all of them. “He doesn’t love you. He loves no one but himself.”
“You don’t understand.” His mother sounded like a petulant child, and that hotel room with Letty was feeling further and further away.
“I understand perfectly.” Max stared his father down. “I understand that he doesn’t think he’s taken enough from us, from you. He got your youth, and he did his level best to destroy your children. If you let him, he’ll take everything else—your health, your sobriety, your life.”
“I’m not going to be alone for the rest of my life, Max.”
“And it’s better to be with him?”
“It’s not your business.” His father didn’t state things; he announced them and expected everyone around him to listen. In the past, Max would have said nothing and walked away. “What are you doing here anyway? You’ve gotten invitations for the past five years that I’ve been on the board, and you’ve never come. Why show up now?”
He shouldn’t have said anything. He needed to keep Letty safe—keep her away from his parents. But lying to his parents about her wasn’t an option. He was different from her ex-ass
hole in one important way—he knew he was lucky to be here with her. “I’m here with someone, Letty Gonzalez.”
His father’s laugh was like a harbinger of doom. “So, you’re going to use her to get out of your mess?”
Max clenched a fist but didn’t move forward. This was one of his father’s favorite plays—he would goad someone into throwing the first punch or the first serious insult. His father was a school-yard bully, and he finally had a reason to want to be better than the man who’d raised him.
“No. I really care about her.” That was more weakness than he wanted to reveal to his father, but lying wasn’t going to make the situation any better. He might be willing to omit the full truth to his mother for the sake of her sobriety, but he couldn’t say that he didn’t care about Letty out loud.
“You mean you just can’t do any better.” There, his father was talking about the real problem he had with him. Alejandro Delgado hated that his sons weren’t wealth-creating automatons. That they weren’t like Javi Hernandez, who’d followed in his father’s footsteps like a good boy. Difference was that Javi’s father was a man you could look up to. Hector had interfered in his children’s lives and relationships, but he’d never hit his children.
“There’s no one better than Letty.” And he meant it. Letty may not see it, but she would be the best thing to happen to any man she was with. In a matter of weeks, she’d reinvigorated him and turned him inside out. He hadn’t always liked it, but he liked her.
“You know why she was fired, right?”
Max nodded.
“She was fired?” Of course, his mother would still be worried about appearances. He wondered how many years of therapy and meetings it would take for her to give even an iota less of a fuck about what her garden party ladies thought about her and her kids.
Night and Day Page 15
