ANMELDENThere was a door cracked open somewhere I’d spent years nailing shut from the inside, and the wind came through carrying the smell of the ocean, lemon soap, and an old sin with a face far too handsome for its own good.I looked at him and laughed sharply. “Wow,” I said. “Truly incredible. Five years, one child, one fiancée, a wedding contract buried under NDAs, and you finally managed to put together a sentence that makes me want to slap you with something organic.”Rhysand didn’t smile, but something in his eyes shifted. “Organic?”“I have lavender outside.”“Old threat.”“I’m sentimental.”“Are you angry because I said it, or because I said it too late?”I stared at him flatly. “I’m angry because you said it in my kitchen while my son is sleeping upstairs and your fiancée is waiting for dinner tonight. See? I can multitask. Modern woman.”“Our son.”The air left my lungs slowly.I put both hands on the counter. “Don’t.”Rhysand didn’t back down. “He’s our son.”“I said don’t.”“I’m
I stared at him.One second.Two.Then I laughed. “Sorry?” I said. “Did you suffer some minor brain injury while Aiden was in the bath? Because I can call a doctor. Or an exorcist. Both have difficult schedules, but for your face they might be willing to squeeze you in.”He leaned his hip against the counter. “That’s not an answer.”“Because it was a stupid question.”“Stupid questions tend to get interesting reactions out of you.”“You’re not flirting with a bartender in Monaco, Rhysand. You’re standing in my kitchen after your fiancée called sounding like a woman trying to arrange lunch with the man she’s going to marry, while that man looked more enthusiastic about leftover ajiaco and a little boy with soap in his hair.”His smile slowly faded.Good.Finally.I took one step forward, not too close. “So no, I’m not jealous. I’m disgusted by the moral math of all of us.”“All of us?”“You. Me.” I shrugged. “Maybe this towel too, because it’s witnessed too much.”Rhysand looked at me
Rhysand lowered the phone from his ear. He looked at the screen for a moment, his thumb still against the side of it, his face closing off again in a way I was starting to know too well.I set the towel on the counter.Rhysand slipped the phone into his pocket.I didn’t look at him.That was a lie.I looked at him from the corner of my eye, which technically counted as an elegant compromise between dignity and personal failure.He didn’t move to leave.I picked up the last glass from the sink and rinsed it again. The glass was already clean. I knew it. The glass knew it. God, if He was watching from the clouds with an espresso, knew it too. But I rinsed it anyway, because otherwise I might have to say something.The problem was, the sentence was already there.Sitting on the tip of my tongue in good shoes, waiting for someone to open the door.This morning, Gracie had stood in the fitting room in a half-finished white dress, her blond hair lifted by the stylist, her face beautiful in
The house became too quiet.It was strange how a house that had been full of Aiden’s voice, dishes, running water, and little bursts of laughter just minutes ago could suddenly feel like someone had turned off the music in a ballroom. The ocean was still moving beyond the glass. The dishwasher hadn’t started yet. The air-conditioning hummed softly. But between all those small sounds, there was one enormous silence sitting in the middle of the kitchen like an uninvited guest.I went in first and immediately started clearing the plates from the table.Rhysand picked up two bowls before I could stop him.“Leave them,” I said.He carried the bowls to the sink. “No.”“You don’t have to wash dishes to prove something.”“I’m not proving anything.” He set the bowls in the sink, then picked up Aiden’s plate, which still had a few grains of rice stuck to the edge. “I’m stalling before you kick me out.”I stopped with a plate in my hand.At least he was honest. Extremely annoying when handsome m
Lunch was supposed to be quick.Supposed to be.Usually, after a bath and a tantrum, Aiden would eat five bites, ask for strawberries, then turn into a small pillow with legs. But now he stayed at the table longer because Rhysand was sitting across from him, and apparently my son considered Uncle Car’s presence at lunch an important social event.“Uncle Car,” he said, pointing at Rhysand’s plate with his little fork. “You finished?”Rhysand looked at his plate. Completely clean.No rice. No leftover chicken. Not a trace of hogao remained to testify. Even the lime wedge looked like it had been squeezed until it suffered minor trauma.“Wow,” I said. “You eat like you were just rescued from a deserted island.”“I was hungry.” He leaned back in his chair, far too relaxed for a man who had just wiped my lunch plate clean with the moral standards of a predator.“Where did you come from? The Crusades?”“Your driveway has harsh working conditions.”“Aiden asked you to hold a cone.”“The cone
I picked up the avocado and cut it in half.Upstairs, the sound of the water changed. Aiden wasn’t crying anymore. Now he was rambling, softer, broken up, the kind of tired-kid commentary that meant he had surrendered but still wanted the world to know he had opinions.“Don’t get it in my eyes.”“I won’t.”“If it gets in my eyes, I’ll be sad.”“I know.”“And Mami will be mad.”“I know that too.”“And Elmo says bad words.”“Elma.”“Yeah, Elmo.”I smiled at the avocado.Damn it.This was dangerous.Not because Rhysand flirted with me. I could handle that. The man could stand too close, smile too slowly, speak in a voice that made normal women forget their email passwords, and I could still save myself with sarcasm and a pair of expensive heels.This was the dangerous part.The sound of running water in my son’s bathroom.Aiden letting that man wash his hair.Rhysand not sounding awkward, not sounding annoyed, not sounding like he was performing the role of a good man because he wanted s
Morning arrived far too politely for something that should have come in carrying a fire extinguisher.I woke before the sun was fully up, with pale light slipping through the gap in Rhysand’s suite curtains and falling over my skin like an accusation.For a few seconds, I didn’t move.There were ge
He picked up his whiskey and took a small sip. It’s too easy. Too controlled. I wanted to disturb him. I wanted to make him lose his flat fucking face. I wanted something tonight to be messy, unmanaged, not wrapped in family and money and shame.“I’m not a good man, Maya,” he said quietly.“I know.
Ricky took my hand and led me through the crowd. A few guests turned to look. Someone called my name. My aunt from Cartagena waved far too enthusiastically.I ignored her.Then I saw Rhysand Bernadi.And the most annoying thing was that Ricky had not been exaggerating.The man stood at the edge of
HawaiiI knew something was going to go wrong the moment Mama started crying when she saw me coming down the stairs.Mama cried like she had just watched her baby being delivered to a royal sacrificial altar, when in reality her baby was wearing a white silk dress with a low-cut back, my great-gran







