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Beatriz was good at numbers. He needed someone good with numbers. And branding and marketing. She wanted to launch her own business in time. Maybe, she’d help him—for a fee—a win-win for both of them.

“Night, Beatriz.”

***

The intermittent rainon Thursday and Friday matched Bea’s mood. Grey and soggy, she’d dodged downpours and avoided Casildo because, despite her head saying no, being around him made her body smoulder. Combustion was a real possibility. She’d touch him, and to hell with the consequences. And that was so unlike her cautious self.

But the taste of his kisses filled her head, leaving her famished for more.

She’d leapt at invitations for dinner from her married sisters, despite knowing she’d be cross-examined within an inch of her sanity.

A wind gust carrying a last dump of rain slammed the apartment foyer door shut behind her. She struggled up the stairs, raincoat dripping on the flagstones, the tip of the umbrella leaving a wet line behind her, her bag over one shoulder, while she clutched a food container to her chest. She glanced toward the apartment door.

“Coward,” she chastised herself.

She’d gone out to avoid sitting across the dinner table from Casildo. Because she wanted to share a meal with him, talk about her day with him so much her brain ached. She wanted a sympathetic ear to listen to her vent against the financial responsibilities she’d taken on voluntarily.

Casildo continued to shower early. To have boiling water ready for her ginger tea each morning, to offer her a hot chocolate each night. He’d been in his office when she’d arrived home last night with the door open. There’d been no reason for locked doors when she’d tipped his stash of books all over the ground. He’d asked about her day, whether her boss had delivered on the new opportunity yet.

“He’s mulling options,” she’d said.

Tonight, she opened the front door and absorbed the calm. Casildo did that, created a sense of calm in spaces, like some mystic. His chair scraped against the floor before his face appeared at the office door.

“Want a hot chocolate?”

Does it involve us being naked?

“Join me?” she asked. Technically, it was their last night together. The decision was hers. She’d promised him an answer tomorrow.

“A break would be good.”

“I’ll meet you in the loungeroom.” She headed for her bedroom, wanting to shed her wet clothes. “What about an affair?” she whispered to herself.

She’d had the occasional fling, one that had lasted a month, but they’d been earlier acts of defiance, when she’d been a student, when she’d done her first internship. She hadn’t exactly been young and naïve, but she’d wanted to feel like a woman when for years she’d fulfilled the responsibilities of a woman—cooking, cleaning, child-rearing, helping the family budget. Recently she’d tried dating apps. She didn’t regret those men, but the few times she’d ventured past kisses and wandering hands, the experience had been pleasant rather than mind-blowing.

Mind-blowing would be nice.

Making love to Casildo would be mind-blowing. Frazzled nerve endings ...

A few simple kisses and desire has become a constant hum, thrumming beneath my skin—and that’s new for me.

The smell of the chocolate hit her before she entered the lounge. “Decadence smells like a liquid chocolate bar.” She curled up on the sofa, tucking her feet under her caftan.

“If only you could bottle it and sprinkle it on a billboard to double an ad’s effect.” He took an armchair opposite her.

“Don’t mock. That’ll be possible one day.”

“Not mocking,” he said, taking a sip of his drink. “Toying with ideas. Another occupational hazard. What else do you do when you want to be decadent?”

“As a kid, even as a teenager, sleeping in for even half an hour was my definition of decadence.” Handling breakfast and getting her sisters out the door for school was hell.

“Now, Beatriz.”

“Maybe this.” She gestured with her arm. “A quiet room, a friendly conversation and drinking hot chocolate I didn’t make myself.”

“Your fantasies are very modest.”

My fantasies would have you heading for the hills.