Page 16

Eyes closed, Sam’s jaw tensed. Her stomach clenched. Anger, old and familiar, snaked its way up her chest. She might have given it air. Let it out for the first time in a couple of years, but the distinct smell of something burning made her eyes fly open.

Running out of the TV room, acrid smoke burned her eyes and nose and throat. The living room and kitchen were blanketed in a thick haze while a dozen members of her family whipped around hand towels like they were at a Heat game.

Over the sound of Jerry Rivera crooning and several smoke alarms blaring, Sam shouted, “What the hell is going on?”

To ease the sting in her eyes, Sam bolted for the front door and swung it open. “Where is all this smoke coming from?” she yelled again.

“Tu padre!” Her mother covered her face with a towel.

Following her line of sight, Sam looked at her father, who was inexplicably standing in front of the fireplace that no one had ever used because it was Miami and the relics were more likely to be used for burning candles than firewood.

And yet, there was her dad, frantically fanning a flaming pile of wood. “I don’t know why all the smoke is going in the house! It should be going out of the chimney!” He used a newspaper to fan the smoke billowing from the fireplace.

With some of the smoke going out all the open doors and windows, Sam calmed enough to realize nothing else in the house was in danger of catching fire. She remembered her honeymoon in a Lake Tahoe cabin.

“Did you warm the flue and open the little door?”

Her father cocked his bald head to the side. “Did I what?”

Sam closed her eyes and laughed.

CHAPTER 10

On Monday morning, the predawn was cold and pitch black. Natalia wore her cream-colored wool suit. It was one of her favorite pieces, and it was rarely cold enough to wear it.

She should have been pleased that the late January cold front had given her the opportunity to wear vintage Chanel, but she couldn’t muster anything but irritation.

Annoyed that her espresso machine had decided to break that morning. Bothered that her hair had taken her forever to force into compliance, she left her silent, boreal tundra of a house in a poisonous mood.

Waiting for her garage door to open, Natalia’s mind slipped into Samantha’s bed. Got lost in the sensation of her body on hers. The scent of her skin and the sound of her soft moans and labored breaths.

Closing her eyes for just a moment, Natalia let herself drift. Let her body react to the memory. To feel the ache and hunger and thirst for Samantha’s kiss and the confidence with which she grabbed Natalia’s thighs. The way she touched her like she was too reckless to care about consequences.

A moment was all she allowed herself, and then she was rolling out to the driveway. Focused, she crushed her desire to kiss Samantha under her Christian Louboutins.

She got as far as the massive iron gate separating her community from the rest of the world when her phone rang. The display on her dashboard told her it was Zoe calling. Any unscheduled call from her clients gave Natalia heartburn, but one this early in the day was followed by an impending sense of doom.

Never one to put things off, especially if they were bad, Natalia accepted the call. A second later, Zoe’s voice was coming out of all the speakers in her car.

Without pleasantries, or pretending to care that she might have woken Natalia out of a dead sleep, Zoe was a computer-guided missile. “What’s going on with Prof. Reyes’ book?”

“She doesn’t want to sell,” Natalia replied flatly, concealing her disappointment. “She won’t budge.”

“Let me get this straight. You, the great and powerful Natalia Flores. The woman that makes heartless Hollywood execs shit their pants with a glare couldn’t get a random college professor to sell the rights to a book no one else in the world would ever try to make into a movie?”

Natalia’s jaw tightened, but she kept her tone cool. “And what would you have me do, Zoe? Hold her at knifepoint until she signs on the dotted line?”

“You’re my agent. You expect me to tell you how to do your job?”

“I expect you to understand that my job does not involve walking on water, curing leprosy, or performing any other miracles. She does not want to sell, Zoe. I can’t force her. I understand you’re frustrated, but there’s only so much I can do when someone flat out refuses to negotiate,” Natalia said evenly.

“Oh, come on, Natalia. You’re seriously telling me you don’t have any tricks up your sleeve for a situation like this?” Zoe scoffed. “I expected more.”

Natalia gripped the steering wheel tighter, tamping down the flare of anger in her chest. “What you’re failing to grasp is that Prof. Reyes feels very strongly about retaining full creative control. This is her life’s work. I can’t bully her into handing that over.”

“Since when do you take no for an answer?” Zoe snapped, voice high-pitched enough to shatter glass. “Are you telling me you’ve gone soft?”

“Because you’re frustrated, I’m going to give you a moment to collect the mind that appears to be evading your grasp. I would hate for you to totally lose it and?—”