Two in the Morning

“Hey—are you all right?"

A familiar voice broke through the silence of the executive corridor. I flinched, spinning toward the sound. In a panic, I scrubbed the tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand—rough and graceless—then hurriedly pressed a thin smile onto my face for the benefit of the man I knew well: Lio, Javier’s personal assistant.

“Wait—Camila? What are you doing up here?” Lio asked, his brow furrowing in surprise as recognition settled over his features. He remembered me from the handful of times he’d come to the house on business for Javier, when we’d exchanged a few friendly words in passing.

“I was just delivering this,” I said, my voice slightly hoarse, holding up the thick folder I’d been clutching against my chest. “A financial report for Mr. Javier’s office.”

“You work here now?” he asked, tilting his head as though confirming what his eyes were telling him.

I nodded slowly, doing my best to appear at ease. “Yes—I just started today, in the marketing division,” I answered.

Lio nodded in understanding and extended his hand to take the folder from my arms. “Ah, I see. Leave it with me—I’ll take it in myself. And as it happens, I’ve got a free slot this afternoon. Want to grab lunch together?”

The moment the invitation left his lips, I shook my head—quickly and without hesitation. I didn’t want a single person in this building to learn of my connection to Javier. To keep a safe and deliberate distance, I had resolved not to form any close ties within this workplace—not even with the personal assistant of my own foster brother.

“That’s very kind, Lio, but I think I’ll have lunch with the rest of the team,” I declined, keeping my voice as gentle as I could, before excusing myself and making my way back to the elevator.

****

That evening, the atmosphere inside the Villareal household had shifted into something I didn’t recognize. The dinner table, usually warm and unhurried, had transformed into a stage—and every scene playing out across it was quietly tearing me apart.

“So, how was your first day, sweetheart? Did everything go smoothly?” Mama asked, her voice soft and unhurried, cutting through the clink of cutlery.

I smiled—wide and deliberate—working hard to project the image of someone who had thoroughly enjoyed her day. “Wonderful, Mama. Everyone on the marketing team has been so welcoming and helpful,” I replied, my tone carefully level.

“Oh—Camila’s working? Where?” came Adriana’s voice, light with surprise. She had appeared tonight without warning, joining the family for dinner with the ease of someone already quite at home.

“She’s working at Javier’s company, Adriana. Today was her very first day as a marketing staff member,” Mama explained, unmistakable pride threading through her words.

I answered with a polite smile and a small nod in Adriana’s direction. Behind that smile, my chest remained compressed, still aching with a bruised, persistent pain every time the memory of what I’d witnessed in Javier’s office that afternoon circled back through my mind.

“Darling, why didn’t you tell me?” Adriana exclaimed, slipping into her playful register as she curved a hand around Javier’s arm where he sat beside her. “I was at your office today—if you’d said something, I could have stopped by to say hello to Camila.”

Javier set his fork and spoon down against his plate with a soft but distinct clatter. He glanced at me—briefly, his expression unreadable—then returned his attention to Adriana. “What for? She’s there to work, not to socialize,” he said, his tone cool and clipped. He was already pushing back his chair. “Come on. I’ll take you home now,” he added, his baritone brooking absolutely no argument.

“But I’m not ready to leave yet. I’ve missed you—I’ve only just come back from France,” Adriana protested, pouting up at him with practiced charm.

“Then get married sooner, so you can be together every single day,” Mama teased, laughing warmly at her own suggestion.

“That’s exactly what I want, Auntie—as soon as possible. But Javier keeps dragging his feet,” Adriana complained, casting a pointed look at him as he stood tall beside the table.

“Then give up the modelling work if you want to get married. I won’t have you flying in and out of the country on assignments once we’re husband and wife,” Javier replied, steady and unyielding, making his expectations perfectly clear.

“But I’ve signed contracts, Javier. I’m bound to them.”

“I can pay out every last penalty clause to your agency,” he said with easy finality, the full weight of his financial power settling behind the words like something immovable.

Mama gave an approving nod. “Javier is absolutely right, Adriana. He’s more than capable of providing for every need you’ll ever have—you won’t need to work another day. Why exhaust yourself chasing a career when you could be focusing on your future? Especially once children come along.”

“All right, then. I’ll give you plenty of grandchildren, Auntie,” Adriana declared brightly, looping her arm through Javier’s once more with a beaming smile, before the two of them walked out together toward the car.

Her words landed in my chest like a stone dropped into still water, and the ripples would not stop. Plenty of children. That meant they were… intimate. Regularly. The thought unfurled through my mind without permission—Javier’s hands on another woman’s body, moving the way they moved in my dreams. Jealousy and revulsion coiled together into something that nearly choked me, a pain so acute I nearly swallowed it whole.

****

“Ah … yes, I love the way you touch me … touch me there … deeper …”

I was murmuring again in my sleep, tangled in the sheets of my own undoing. In the world beneath consciousness, Javier’s lips had found their way back to the surface of my skin, tracing a burning, addictive path that I could never bring myself to want to end. His hands moved slowly but with demand—claiming, possessive—while his mouth worked at the most sensitive places with a skill and tenderness that undid me completely. I savored every inch of his intoxicating touch.

“I want you … I want to carry your child …” I breathed in the dream, an almost desperate plea for him to settle his weight over me, to finally make us one.

But at the precise moment that sensation crested—at the shimmering, unbearable edge of completion—my eyes flew open.

I lay gasping, staring up at the pitch-dark ceiling of my room. My heart thundered like a war drum, battering the walls of my chest as my lungs fought for air. Damn it. Another erotic dream about him. Again. For what felt like the hundredth time.

My throat was parched, scorched raw by the intensity of it all. I decided to get up. The clock on the wall read two in the morning. I had always been a sound sleeper, but tonight Javier had thoroughly dismantled every last nerve in my body, and rest refused to return.

I moved through the darkened house with slow, deliberate steps, navigating the shadows toward the kitchen. I needed cold water—immediately—something to douse the heat still smoldering in my skull. At the refrigerator, I pulled out a large bottle of mineral water, unscrewed the cap with impatient fingers, and drank directly in front of the open door, letting the cool mist drift up against my flushed face.

But when I turned to make my way back to my room, my body locked up entirely. My heart nearly lurched clean out of my chest.

Javier was already there.

He stood in the dark mouth of the kitchen doorway, perfectly still, watching me with an intensity that offered nothing away. And—far worse—he was shirtless. He wore only a pair of thin cotton sleep trousers, leaving his broad chest fully exposed: the wide, sculpted plane of it, the firm ridges of his abdomen, the clean lines of a body honed by discipline and kept in ruthless condition.

In the thin, inadequate glow spilling from the open refrigerator, I swallowed with great difficulty. In the same instant, the phantom heat of my dream—barely minutes old, barely cold—came flooding back through my memory and collided without mercy with the very real, very present, very bare-chested man standing before me now.

Of course. Of course he had to appear at a moment like this, my thoughts screamed in silent, mortified panic. The quiet of the night, which had been merely still a moment ago, had curdled into something thick and charged—dense with an unspoken tension that hummed between us in the dark, refusing to be ignored.

****