The Saint's Devilish Deal (20 page)

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No? My mother was manic-depressive and refused to medicate. My father, in his grand wisdom, decided all she needed was a change of scenery so he brought us here for a vacation and my mother drove them both off a cliff. He abandoned me to play the hero in my mother’s demented dreams.”

He set his jaw. “Our families are nothing alike.”

“No, they aren’t. When she was in control, my mother loved me and my dad with everything she had. Your father loves money and power and hurting people. Your mother loves you but she needs help, Santiago, not avoidance from you and not coddling from your brother.” Frustrated, she picked up the papers and threw them at his feet. “I’m not another person you need to protect. I own the responsibility of caring for myself. I’ll repay your loan with ten percent interest. The payments will be small at first, but you can expect the first installment when I take over Casa.”

They watched one another closely for a few moments without saying a word. Esme made the first move, taking a step toward the door. She held up a hand when he stepped forward.

“I don’t need you taking care of me or my aunt, Santiago. I never wanted that. But I did want you. Don’t follow me, and please move your things back to the second floor.”

She turned and ran before the emotion clogging her throat erupted in tears.

Chapter Thirteen

Esme sat on the sand, waves lapping at her feet, with everything and nothing on her mind. She’d wandered the beach until she couldn’t see Casa any longer and then, satisfied that anyone who came looking for her would stop before finding her, sat down to brood. Her mind whirled but found no solid place to stop.

Santiago bought the villa, not through an agent or contract, but his actions were clear.

Constance was still absent.

She needn’t find a new place to live because Santiago made it imminently clear that he was the one leaving. In six months. Oh, how would she make it through six months of living under the same roof with a man she loved and hated in the same instance?

His actions solved nothing. Casa still needed to perform. Their brainchild of an ad campaign—and how painful would it be now to see her besotted face alongside Santiago’s on billboards and magazine pages?—had to generate interest. At least the banks were off her immediate radar, which she supposed had been Santiago’s intention.

Not that it changed anything.

A sturdy body sat next to her. Esme rested her arms on her updrawn knees and turned toward the newcomer. She was stunned into silence for two full minutes before throwing her arms around those familiar shoulders and hanging on.

“Aunt Con! What are you doing here? When did you get home?”

Constance patted her back. “I’ve been home, Esmerelda.” She pointed up the cliff to the shadow of a small adobe home. “I never really left, but my doctors were very convincing that I needed to get out from under the stress of the villa for a while.”

“So you left me with the problems.” Esme tried to be angry with her aunt, but she couldn’t. This must be how Santiago felt around his mother, she decided, like a child parenting an adult. Annoyed that things weren’t going the way they should and powerless to do anything about it.

“I admit I technically did that. Although I was on the property, I made myself unavailable. It felt wonderful. I did sneak in to look at the papers every couple of nights, and the banks and hospital swore they wouldn’t make a move on Casa until the fall.”

“You watered the plants.” Constance nodded. “You moved things on the desk.” Another nod. “I thought Santiago did those things.” How wrong had she been about the man? She thought he was falling in love with her, but he was using her. The watered plants helped convince her that he could be trusted.

“Before that brilliant mind of yours decides to turn on me, I want you to listen to me, my Esme. I didn’t abandon you and I wasn’t trying to saddle you with my debts or outrun my problems.” She took Esme’s hands and squeezed. “I needed a little space to decide what needed to happen. I couldn’t do that if I had guests or if Marquez or Gloriana or the rest of the staff were around because my decision would affect them all. So I called you because I knew you would watch over things while I figured out what should happen.”

“But you still left.”

“For different reasons than your parents left, sweetheart. Your mother was sick and your father couldn’t see a way around helping her, even at your expense. They loved you,” she said, tucking a strand of hair behind Esme’s ear.

Esme looked away, out to sea, and for the first time saw what drew Santiago away from everyone four years before. It was escape. No family issues, no money worries, just a person and space.

“I could have given you space to think and plan in the same house, Aunt Con.”

“You could have. I couldn’t. We are very much alike, Esmerelda. We both focus to the point of losing everything else. I had to leave to see the big picture and I needed space to make the decisions I’ve made. And I didn’t leave you alone. I kept Santiago here for you.”

“Well that part of the plan was stellar,” Esme said drily.

“Really? Oh, I had hoped. You two need one another so badly. You fit—your focus and his ability to separate and you’re both driven. I knew that—”

“We aren’t together, not any longer. Not ever, I think.” Esme changed the subject. “So, what is your big picture?”

“I’m selling.” Esme’s jaw dropped. Constance couldn’t do this. She couldn’t take the one thing Esmerelda had left from her, not now. But Constance chattered on, oblivious to the torment in Esme’s heart. “I know I wrote that codicil that said you or Santiago would ‘win’ the villa, but dear, I can’t push an underperforming inn with debts larger that some countries’ gross exports on your shoulders.”

“You can’t sell. I can handle the pressure of the villa and besides there are no debts, or at least the debts left are workable.” At Constance’s baffled look, Esme continued. “Santiago thinks like you do. He didn’t want either of us worrying about bank notes and interest rates so he paid most of it off and left a huge chunk of cash in our bank account.”

“But I told him expressly not to do that.” Her aunt leaned back in the sand, a perplexed expression on her face.

“Seems like he listens about as well as you talk. Aunt Constance, don’t sell. If you don’t want the villa, I do. I want to bring her back to life, the way she was when I was a kid. The villa was my home when my life was torn apart. I need it to be my home now.” She blinked back the tears threatening to fall. She had cried enough for Santiago in the past. She wouldn’t cry for him again. “I have plans and a great ad campaign coming out in a few weeks. We have calls in to travel writers and I know—”

“What about Santiago? Does he want this, too?”

“It doesn’t matter what he wants, not now. I want the villa, Constance.” Esme gathered her courage and looked her aunt in the eye. “I need it, as badly as I needed you after my parents died.”

“But Esmerelda, this place will take all of your energy. You’re hurting now, I’m guessing because of Santiago. You say you need the villa, but I think you’re fooling yourself.” Placing her index finger under Esme’s chin, Constance pushed until Esme looked up from the sand. “What do you want, Esmerelda?”

“Everything.” The words tore from her throat. “I want the villa and I want you to stay and be my mother again. I want to see families and newlyweds wandering our halls and our beach. I want Santiago Cruz with every beat of my heart, but I can’t have him. So please, please don’t take the villa from me, too.”

“Then it is yours. And, my heart, Santiago has been yours since the day you turned seven and informed him you were coming along to build sandcastles. All you have to do is take him.”

“He doesn’t want me, not on a permanent basis.”

“He’s a man. You have to tell him that what he wants he also needs.”

“I said things. . .”

“And he probably said things, too. Men do. Women do. It’s the way things work. I think I was wrong. The question is not what you want, but what you are willing to do to make him see that you are the thing he’s been looking for his entire life.” Constance stood. “Well? What do you want?”

“I want Santiago Cruz, for better or worse,” Esme said, standing.

“Then go tell him in every way you can think of until he understands that you aren’t offering anything less than love.”

*

Santiago asked for another shot of tequila in his favorite bar on the Malecon. Outside, vacationers laughed and talked as only rowdy vacationers could. Inside, a few regulars drank but otherwise the room was empty. It was too early for the party crowd to venture indoors.

“Of all the bars in all the world. . .”

He looked up to see Tobias standing over him. “You’re an idiot. That’s a line you tell a woman, not your brother.”

“Yeah, well, my brother’s an idiot, too, and I didn’t think he’d notice.” Tobias sat on the bar stool next to him and ordered sparkling water. “Resort function tonight, I’m speaking,” he said by way of explanation. “So, why are you drowning your sorrows in this place when you could be sipping mai tais with the lovely Miss Quinn?”

“Esme’s more of a wine girl, not that you really care about her drinking preference. And I’m here because it’s stifling at the villa right now.” Santiago lifted his hand to loosen his tie and then remembered he was in his usual beach gear. When had wearing a suit and tie become second nature to him? And why did the fact rankle?

“Nevertheless, you’re here because?”

“I paid off the villa’s debts and made things nice and easy for Esme. She hates me for it.”

“Ahhh.”

“You have no idea why I did what I did so don’t psychoanalyze me, big brother. Why aren’t you annoyed? You wanted Casa as much as Eduardo did.”

Tobias shrugged. “Not really, at least not since I took over as CEO.”

“So the visit to Casa was about?”

“Getting Esmerelda to see that she couldn’t rely on you to stick around. You proved me right.” Tobias clapped his hand on Santiago’s shoulder.

“How did paying off the villa’s debts prove you right? I didn’t say I was leaving.”

“But aren’t you? Wasn’t it simpler to pay off the debts yourself rather than sticking around while Esme got the place back up and running? Just like it was simpler for you to run off to surf the wild ocean instead of coming back to Vallarta?”

“There was nothing for me here, and then has nothing to do with now.”

“Mama was here, Santiago, and when you didn’t return it was another stick our father could use to beat at her emotions.”

“You were here.”

“I was never a problem between them because I made sure I did things the Cruz way. But we don’t have to be enemies, ponce.”

“We do as long as you keep calling me by that nickname,” Santiago said, slinging back his shot.

“Well, as long as we aren’t friends, I’ll make it official. You didn’t run away to surf, you did it so you wouldn’t fall into the same trap I did. Eduardo Cruz running your life would have been a fate worse than hell. I know because I lived it. When I woke up, I pulled my version of a world-class surfing career and took his company.” Tobias lifted his glass in a mock toast and stood. “Oh, and you pushed Esme away because you are still afraid you’ll turn into our father. I know because I acted out this play not so long ago over another girl. The thing is, they broke the mold after Eduardo—had to or the entire world would have gone to hell. If you let Esmerelda walk away you’re a bigger idiot that I thought.”

“So you’re telling me to go after her.”

“No, stay here and drink yourself into a stupor. It’ll give me a shot at the beautiful Esmerelda Quinn.”

Santiago slid his glass across the bar, dropped a few bills on the bar, and stood.

“Good, you’re going after her.”

“Only to save her from you, brother.”

“Whatever works to salve the alpha male voice in your head which is even at this moment telling you not to run back and beg her to give you another chance.” He finished off his glass. “Stop imagining you are our father or Esme is our mother and take your life back.”

                                                             *          

Santiago had no idea what to do so he tried everything. He arranged for an all-expenses-paid evening yacht cruise for their two guests and sent the staff home. No one objected and he wasn’t sure if that was because of the crazed look that had to be on his face or because it was a Friday night and everyone wanted to go home early.

Whatever the reason, the place emptied out faster than he’d ever seen it.

He placed a bottle of champagne and a filled ice bucket on a tray. True to form, Gloriana had a feast of fresh fruit and cheese already on platters for the evening drinks hour. The hour he’d just canceled. He grabbed a little of everything and started upstairs. Then he remembered candles. Women were crazy for candles. No, Esme decorated with candles—he only needed the lighter, so he returned to the kitchen, added the lighter to his tray, and went upstairs.

He stopped dead in the doorway.

Esmerelda was already there, candles blazing and her back to the door. No time to set the scene, he’d have to wing it.

Quietly, he entered the suite and put the tray on the low table where the papers were still scattered.

“I signed them. I’ll repay you every penny, but I want it to be a legal, binding agreement.”

His heart sank at her words, but Santiago pressed on. “I don’t want your money, Esmerelda. I told you before I never thought of that account as mine. It was always a tool that Eduardo used to control me.”

She finally turned from the terrace doors. “Okay, then. What kind of payment do you want?”

Tossing the lighter from his left hand to his right Santiago considered his answer. He could back into this conversation slowly or just lay everything on the table.

“I want your heart. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

She stepped farther into the room. “I can’t very well cut out my heart and hand it to you on a silver platter, Santiago.”