The Disobedient Virgin
“You see? Even you have to admit the truth. Once I have a lawyer, he’ll contact Javier Estes, demand a change in the terms of my parents’ will and—Have I said something amusing, senhor?”
“I’m not laughing at you,” Jake said carefully. “I’m laughing at myself. Just a day or two ago, I thought the same thing. I’d get a lawyer, he’d handle Estes and, pow, I’d be out of the picture.” His smile faded. “I was wrong. There’s no way out of this. We’re trapped. The will your parents wrote is airtight. So is the will my—” He caught himself. “So is the will that involves me.”
She stared at him, her eyes wide and shiny with tears he knew she didn’t want to shed.
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because I’m telling you the truth. Believe me, I’d love it if you were right. You think I’m looking forward to this?”
She didn’t answer. Jake couldn’t blame her. Why should she see the situation from his point of view when, to her way of thinking, he didn’t see it from hers?
“Look,” he said carefully, “it’s been a rough day. Here’s what I suggest.” He jerked his he
ad toward one of a pair of closed doors. “There are two bedrooms. You take that one. It has a private bath. Why don’t you wash up, maybe take a shower?” He glanced at the satchel he’d taken from the car. It seemed far too small to hold all her possessions but he had the feeling it did. “Change into something that’s more comfortable than that, ah, that dress you’re wearing, if you like.”
“What’s wrong with this dress?” Her jaw shot forward. “I made it myself.”
“Really? That’s, um, that’s…” Jake cleared his throat. “Go on. Freshen up while I order dinner.”
Dinner. Just the word made her salivate, but Catarina would sooner have starved than admit it.
“Don’t bother. I’m not hungry.”
“Yeah, but I am. You don’t want to eat, that’s fine. You can watch me pack away enough for the both of us.”
She’d have told him she had no interest in watching him do anything but exit her life, except he reached for the phone at the same time he shrugged off his suit jacket.
Padding, she’d told herself, that was what made his shoulders seem so wide.
Not true. They were like that all on their own.
He had on a pale blue shirt, spun of the kind of fine cotton that felt like silk. She knew about such things, thanks to Sister Elberta’s Home Economics class.
“How will you properly furnish your husband’s elegant home if you don’t know how to make the correct choices in materials?” the Sister said.
Catarina had tuned out. Who cared about the differences between Egyptian cotton and Indian cotton? One looked the same as another, draped over a chair.
Things changed when a fabric was draped over a man.
“Room Service?” Ramirez said into the phone. “Do you speak…? Good. Great. I’d like to order…”
She didn’t hear the rest. How could she concentrate when he had the audacity to start undressing as if she weren’t there? The nerve! she thought, as he undid his cuffs and rolled them back. Not that it mattered. She’d seen a man’s arms before. The old gardener sometimes rolled back his sleeves when he…
Her breath caught.
The gardener’s arms were ropy and wizened.
Her guardian’s were a golden tan, hard with muscle and lightly dusted with fine black hair.
Now he was peeling off his tie. Wait a minute, she wanted to say, can’t you see I’m still standing here? Instead, she stared, transfixed, as he opened first the top button of his shirt, then the next two. Three. Four.
His throat was a tanned corded column, leading down to a flat, muscled chest. Still talking, he started tugging his shirt from his trousers.
“Yes,” he said. “Right. A pot of coffee. American coffee. And a glass of milk—”
Catarina saw a silky arrow of dark hair, a flat belly, that arrow of hair again…
He swung toward her. She looked up, their eyes met, and she turned on her heel and fled into the bedroom.