“You think I am on the water, thinking of surfing?” He slid off the board, the movement sending tiny waves over her that did nothing to cool her body temperature. Esme was surprised the water didn’t sizzle against her skin as his body heated the small space between them. He pulled her against him. “You do not know me nearly as well as you would like to think, Esmerelda.” He leaned in, his lips nearly brushing her cheek as he spoke. Esme’s toes curled into the sand. He smelled exactly like the shirt she stole from his closet not ten minutes before. She closed her eyes, breathing him in.
“I don’t pretend to know anything about you anymore, Saint.” She wanted, badly, to ask what he was thinking of. Why had he been staring out to sea for nearly an hour while she tried to make actual plans to restore the villa?
“You didn’t come down here because of the workmen or Velazquez or this ridiculous situation that Constance set up.”
She took a step toward the beach. “Of course I did.”
Santiago leaned forward, invading her space again and making her wish for the safety of her suit or even his paint splattered clothes. Anything to put a shield between them. What had she been thinking stripping down to her undies? His index finger slid under her bra strap, burning her skin. “You stripped down to your bra and panties for an entirely alternative reason.” He nearly echoed her thoughts, throwing Esme off balance even more.
Business, Esme, stick to business.
She swallowed. “Even if I wanted to debate the point with you, we don’t have time for this.”
He reached out, tracing his finger along her jaw, causing a slow burn to start in her belly. “We have time for whatever we choose, Esmerelda. Nothing Velazquez said changes what Constance laid out in her instructions. Nothing the workmen repair or replace will change what will happen here over the next few months.”
“It could. We have options—” Her breath caught in her throat as his finger played with her ear.
“The only option you have is to work with me, gain the experience you need to move forward.”
He had to be wrong. Saving the villa would save Constance, just as it had saved her when she was a little girl reeling from the deaths of her parents. It would heal Esme, too, once he was gone again. Her gaze caught on the gleaming white walls and salmon roof of the villa. She couldn’t lose everything. Esme reached deep inside for courage and then brushed his hand aside.
“Whatever. Now that you’re off the board, what do you say we go up to the office and come up with an actual game plan.”
This time he didn’t reach for her; he stood, arms crossed over his chest and an inscrutable expression on his face. “We’re going to wind up in bed, Esmerelda Quinn, and it won’t be less explosive than last time.”
She started for the beach, telling herself he was wrong. Falling for Santiago Cruz—again—was definitely not on her agenda. Rehabbing the villa, turning it into a hot destination getaway, that must be her focus.
Chapter Five
Santiago followed the trail of Esme’s footprints through the sand and onto the boardwalk leading to the terrace. He hadn’t lied. Esme might hate him for the rest of her life, but he was doing her a favor. They would turn Casa around, protect it from his father and then he would make sure she moved on. Esme would find other work. She was talented, good at her job. Only. . .
He looked up at the welcoming walls, the shiny windows looking down on the ocean. The best view around. He didn’t really hate this place, he hated what it represented. Obsession. Eduardo had turned his anger on Magdalena so many times before that last night—
Santiago closed off those thoughts. He didn’t need to go back there. Didn’t need to revisit his part in Magdalena’s collapse. He needed to focus on the present.
He took the outside stairs to his room so he wouldn’t drip on the floors. After changing into old jeans and a faded polo he checked his phone. No new messages from Charlie or the guests arriving Wednesday. Nothing to do but talk to Esmerelda—and he didn’t want to do that.
The whining of power tools and good-natured teasing of the work crew reached upstairs. Forget it. He could stay up here, hiding out, or he could push his plans farther along.
As he stepped off the stairs the last worker waved his goodbye. Standing alone in the vast room, no furniture to cozy it up, no artwork on the walls, no pretty flowers to look at, was Esme. Looking triumphant. Anger spiked. She couldn’t send off his crew.
Esme unhooked the power sander and he stalked over.
“I’ll just call them back.”
“No, you won’t. You gave me the magazines to torture me. To see if I’d actually change my home to your liking. I won’t.” Tears hovered in her eyes and Santiago shoved his hands into his pockets to keep from reaching for her.
Dios, this wasn’t what he expected. His heart clenched at the pain on her face. Her feelings weren’t part of his plans.
She pushed past him. “I won’t turn this place into another paint-by-numbers resort. I’ll update it my way. That means original flooring, not whatever the color of the moment is according to magazine editors. I’ll update the art but it will be local and—”
“Esmerelda, I wanted your opinion—”
“No. You wanted me to prove that I’d do anything to win, that I could be as ruthless as you.” She turned to him, hurt flashing in her eyes. “You want to take the good parts of this place and make them ugly and I have no idea why. You escape at every chance, you spend more time in the water than in the office. You obviously don’t want to be here and in six months you won’t be. But this is my home. I have to live with it, so the reno is my vision, not yours.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to sand the floors and paint the walls yourself. Let the workmen do their jobs.”
She sniffed but the tears threatening her lashes didn’t fall. “It means exactly that, Saint. Now, I have work to do. If you’d like to help, grab a paintbrush, otherwise go back to your precious surfboard and brood.”
She picked up a roller, dipped it in a carton of ugly grey paint and started rolling over the rustic walls. Stripes of grey obliterated the red. Without understanding why, Santiago picked up another roller and started on the opposite wall. Dip, roll, make the red disappear. Dip, roll, repeat.
He felt her eyes on him again. He’d seen her watching him closely over the last few days. Felt her gaze land on his mouth and then watched as she wrenched it away. He’d teased her, flirted and tempted, and she’d parried. But for just a second before that parry came, her eyes were hollow. No feeling. Just as they’d been empty a few moments ago. A beautiful green shell that told him something else was going on with her. All of this focus on the rehab wasn’t about getting it in shape for Constance’s return. It wasn’t even about taking on more responsibilities or keeping this place away from his family. She hated him because of Napa, but that wasn’t it, either.
“Why haven’t you gone off to some surfing competition yet?” The soft words were loud in the empty room. “I saw the roll you took in Tahiti, but a year is plenty of time to heal. And on the beach just now I know you were thinking about the waves off Africa this time of year.”
“You would be surprised what I was thinking about out there.” Not one thought of waves had distracted him from Esmerelda since she arrived home. He’d tried to fool himself that he wanted to escape but in reality he could leave any time he wanted. Paying Constance’s bills assured him of that; she wouldn’t allow the place to be sold after he put so much cash into it. But Esme didn’t need to know that on the water just now he’d been thinking of her and a night beneath the vines in Napa rather than their supposed debt crisis.
“I’m not dumb, Santiago. That roll was bad, but I saw the news coverage. A couple of bruised ribs, bruised hip, torn ligaments in your knee. Bad, but not career ending.”
His shoulder twinged. “The papers didn’t get everything right.” He swiped more grey over the red walls. When he turned, Esme looked expectantly at him. “All the gory deta
ils?” She nodded.
“I saw the wave, knew it was too big. Too much power, but I couldn’t not take it. I was up for a second, maybe two, and then it was just water. Over me. Surrounding me. In my mouth, my lungs.” He swallowed, feeling the weight of the water press against him, keeping him down. Ripping at his arms and legs as if it wanted to tear him apart. He pushed the memories away. “I wasn’t thinking of another competition, Esme.”
“So you’re here because you can’t be there?” The words sounded hopeful and Santiago couldn’t let her have hope. He wouldn’t return to surfing but he also wouldn’t stay in Vallarta. He needed to be free. So did she.
“No. I’m here because Constance was kind when I needed a place to heal. I owe her, but I won’t stay, pequeña. I was a surfer and a property developer before this crisis; now I’m just a property developer. I float between deals and I like it that way. When we’re done here, I’ll leave. Anything that starts between us again, it won’t make me stay.” He pushed more paint across the wall.
“Well, thank god we got that settled. Here I was thinking you wanted to stay at Casa after and, frankly, I saw what you’ve been paying in rent and it’s not nearly enough. I would’ve hated to fight over rental increases in six months.” Her tone was teasing but he sensed another emotion underneath. Pain, maybe, anger. But he let the underlying tension slip away so that her words could lighten the mood.
They pushed more paint for a while, each lost in thought. Santiago wanted to know why Esme was back in Vallarta but didn’t ask. He didn’t want any half-truths from her, the way he’d given half-truths to her. Besides, this was their first semi-normal working moment since the meeting with Velazquez. Whatever brought her back from California didn’t matter.
“You got my answer. Why are you really here?” he heard himself say. The words shocked Santiago into silence for a few seconds. He hadn’t intended to ask that. Not now. Hell, not ever. He didn’t need to know her reasons—he only needed to show her she could thrive anywhere, not just at Casa. That way it wouldn’t hurt her so much when he took Casa away.
“Um, my aunt was sick—”
“You may not have your life splashed across the tabloids, but it was simple enough to call Bristol Bay and learn you’d quit your job a full week before Constance called.”
“I can’t believe you called my old boss. For what? A reference?”
“Just doing my homework.”
Shoulders stiff and back straight, Esme turned back to the wall, making a show of painting over the red walls.
“You landed in Vallarta less than five hours after she called,” Santiago pushed. “Not an impossibility if you had special dispensation from the U.S. Government to skip airport security. But I’m guessing that didn’t happen. Why were you coming back, Esmerelda?”
“Vacation?”
Even Santiago heard the question in the word so he said nothing, just waited.
“Fine. I broke up with a guy I was seeing and I wanted a change of scenery.”
“So you left comfortable, eighty-degree weather in Northern California for the refreshing one-hundred-ten-degree heat of a Mexican summer.”
“A Mexican summer on the beach,” she said triumphantly.
“You worked at a B&B on a beach.”
She painted a few more grey stripes over the red wall. “Are you going to tease me about this mercilessly over the next six months? Because, seriously, if I tell you I don’t want to hear one word about it.”
“Cross my heart,” he said, just as he’d said a million times when they were kids.
“He cheated with me.”
“Did I miss something in that translation?”
Esme rolled her eyes. “Your English is as good as your Spanish. I said cheated with me. I was his ‘other woman’ and I didn’t know it. Not for a year. Not until his wife came screaming into the B&B. . . it was brutal. When I confronted him that night, he said I should consider myself lucky. That I got all the good parts of him and none of the hassle of keeping a clean house or cooking dinner or having children.” Her voice caught over the last words.
“He used you?”
“The funny part is that I was using him just as badly.” Esme tried to laugh but the sound was hollow. Her mouth twisted and Santiago wanted to cross the room to hold her. He knew that would only result in her pushing him away, so he stayed beside his wall. “I didn’t love him. He was easy to be around because he didn’t make demands on my time. It isn’t like he broke my heart or anything.” She twirled a loose lock of hair around her finger. “I wanted to come back to help Constance. To make some plans. I guess I wanted to float for a little bit before I started my life up again.”
“And here you’ve been whacking me with the No Floating Allowed stick since you moved back in.”
“Ironic, isn’t it?”
Santiago shrugged. “Not really. It’s simple enough to tell someone else how they should live. Harder to see the answers in your own life.”
“A philosophical surfer? Be still my heart.” She batted her eyelashes at him, a move she’d perfected as a teenager, and for a second it seemed they were back where they’d started all those years ago. She sighed. “We’ve started over at least twice now. But this time, could we just agree to leave the past in the past and try to save the villa? As friends?”
Friends. She was fooling herself to think they could ever be anything as innocuous as friends. But she had a point. If they kept fighting over the same things, Eduardo would win. Casa would be lost. He nodded.
“Speaking of philosophy, what message are we sending our well-to-do guests with ugly grey walls?”
This time her laugh was real and Santiago felt the tension drain from the room. Time to get back to work, a voice inside him said.
“The room isn’t going to be grey. Have you never painted before? This is a base coat. It will cover the red so that no streaks bleed through the top coat.”
“And the top coat will be?”
“White. A nice, clean, white canvas.” She looked around the room, excitement growing in her eyes. “Brilliant white. Just what your New York designers would order.”
“The hospital ward of your dreams?”
The frown only lasted a minute, and then was replaced by a smile as she remembered him down the hall when she informed Constance that white walls and white furniture were too much like hospital wards to be relaxing. “Broken up by pops of color,” she said, echoing Constance’s retort from all those years ago. Lost in her imagination, Esme said, “Blues and greens and maybe a little yellow. Happy colors.”
Santiago could almost see the brilliantly white room with white furnishings. Could imagine sitting on one of the terraces in newly cushioned chaises and drinking a beer. He stopped that train of thought, fought the urge to cross to her side of the room and kiss her senseless. “Well, as you said, I’m not much of a painter. Before I do something unfixable to your walls, I’ll go.”
Santiago stood, and placed his paintbrush back into the bucket. He needed to get a bit of distance from her before dinner tonight, to keep all the walls in place.
*
Esme watched the clock take another tick toward the six and barely repressed a shiver. Not only had a cold shower not worked, but with every twist of her hair or swipe of Cori’s blush brush she felt her skin tighten. She had to get a grip. If she was this worked up at four minutes until six, how would she survive an entire dinner in Santiago’s presence? Everything would have been fine if they hadn’t had that stupid heart-to-heart downstairs. If he hadn’t helped her paint. Why couldn’t he have stayed in his precious ocean for a few more hours?
This is not a date. It’s dinner with a business colleague. Just dinner, calm down.
“Ow!” Esme flinched as Cori’s hot iron tapped against her forehead. Best friends since childhood, when Esme realized she needed more than emotional armor to take on Santiago’s dinner demand, she called Cori who closed her confectioner’s shop early to help.
“Well, if you’d stop fidgeting like a toddler,” Cori said, blowing out a breath. “I know this is Santiago and I know you’re nervous about the villa, but Esme, you’re blowing everything out of proportion.”
Only she wasn’t. Esme hadn’t told Cori about the deal. Hadn’t told her that the flames Santiago ignited all those years ago had been reignited to a blazing fury by a single kiss. She didn’t want to hear another lecture from Cori about the Cruz men. Her brain knew all about Santiago, Tobias, and Eduardo. It was her heart that was the problem. The Santiago who watered Constance’s flowers and who was upset about firing a friend was the boy and almost business partner she remembered from Napa.
But the man who made that deal with her, who smirked as he shook her hand and ordered her to dinner. . . That was another man entirely. Esme needed to figure out which was the real Santiago. She was out of her depth and sinking fast. Worse yet, she had the feeling her keep-him-at-arm’s-length resolve would crumble before she sat in the soft-as-butter seats of his midnight blue Porsche.
“Why are you so nervous?” Cori asked as she pulled the iron from Esme’s hair and began arranging sections on her head. “It’s just dinner.”
“Just like it was only dinner in Napa. Only it wasn’t. That dinner led to a lunch and a vineyard tour and in just a couple of days Santiago was the center of my life.” The words rushed from Esme’s mouth even as she struggled to stop the flow. She could still smell the scented candles he’d arranged in one of the wine cellars where they met. Could hear his breathing in the middle of the night. Smell the musky, male scent of him as they walked row after row of grapes. She barely held back a sigh.
What she needed to remember was how he’d turned on her, not how he’d turned her on. Santiago had disappeared when she’d needed him most, leaving no one to fight his family. She couldn’t let the same thing happen to Constance.
“Let me guess, picnic dinners before a fire and last minute changes from fancy dinners to rides along the coast?” Esme could only nod as Cori continued. “Sounds like a Cruz man to me. Making plans, keeping you on your toes, never letting you relax. That’s how they wear you down, make you fall—”
The Saint's Devilish Deal Page 6
