Page 9 of Indulging Temptation (Tempting the Heart #1)

SANTINO

W ell…I’m fucking screwed.

Here I was thinking that Lorena being back in the city was going to be difficult enough, but now we have to work and live together? And to top it all off, I have to be on my best behavior …around her…while we are working and living together?

There’s no way.

I don’t know how I’m going to do it. Despite what everyone thinks about me, and how I usually am impulsive, when it comes to Lorena, the self-control I have forced myself to maintain is borderline superhuman. But now? The forced proximity of work and home life may be what puts me over the edge.

This has disaster in the making written all over it.

Unable to focus on a damn thing Tomás is saying, I finish my drink and reach in my pocket for my wallet, but Tomás stops me. “Save your money, it’s on me.”

I look back to the front corner of the bar and see the bachelorette party from earlier. The bride and one of her bridesmaids both give me a wink and wave.

“But I got all of them drinks.” I remind him.

Tomás turns around, eyeing them down quickly before handing me the bill.

“I hope that gesture really wasn’t to…”

“It was to keep them away.” I cut him off, reassuring him. “I’m not interested.”

“Good boy,” Tomás jokes.

Good boy? What am I, a dog? Please. Though just as I think how ridiculous those two words sound together, an intrusive thought of sorts sneaks its way into my mind.

Maybe it’s the strong Manhattan Dante served me on my empty stomach, but those are two words I wouldn’t mind hearing again from someone else who shares the same last name as him. Fuck my life. I need to snap out of it.

“The last thing we need is for you to be sticking your dick in an engaged or soon to be married woman’s pussy, or anywhere it doesn’t belong.”

Like Lorena. I remind myself internally.

“Noted.” I sign the check, and we wave bye to Dante, he’s busy so he doesn’t come over to us, just waves back and continues to work.

The second the cool spring night air hits my face, my ears are met with the orchestra of sounds so unique to the city that truly never sleeps. I’m already reaching for my pre-roll case in my pocket, needing as many hits as I can get to calm my nerves before I see Lorena…at home.

Standing in front of my car, Tomás eyes the joint pinched between my lips. “That’s your lifeline, huh?”

“One of them,” I murmur, lighting it while Tomás orders an Uber since neither of us are in any shape to drive. “You want?” I offer what’s left, holding it out to him.

“No, no, I can’t.” He adjusts his tie, straightening it and doing a tight shoulder roll.

“Right, my bad, Mr. Big Shot Attorney,” I mock, lovingly.

“That’s Mr. Big Shot Partner to you,” he jokes back.

Tomás laughs it off and shifts gears as the Uber nears us, going back to business friend mode, as I call it.

There’s a fun side to Tomás and a serious one.

Lately he’s been stuck in serious mode more times than not.

Ever since making partner at his law firm, he’s been swamped with more work than usual so that definitely contributes to his mood.

Plus, he can't help himself. When it comes to his friends and family, he’s always making sure everyone is taken care of and has everything they need.

When his father died years ago, his mom had to work two jobs to support the three of them.

He used it as the fuel he needed to work and study hard.

His goal was to achieve a level of success that would provide him enough money that he could take care of his mom.

Making sure that she wouldn’t have to work another day in her life if she didn’t want to.

And sure enough, as soon as he made partner, he bought his mom her dream house in Scarsdale and has also paid her growing medical expenses.

“Okay, I texted Dante and let him know to put your car in the overnight garage. I already gave him the keys. You need to stop bringing this thing everywhere you go in the city. Parking is expensive, and it’s just one more thing you have to worry about.”

“I have enough to pay for parking.”

“For now, you do. However, what you fail to keep in mind is that if you don’t get whatever makes you act on impulse outside of the kitchen under control, all it takes is one slip up for the entire line of dominoes to fall.

So don’t screw up,” Tomás warns, and I take it as an overall warning for work and personal life.

If only Tomás knew the absolute can of worms he’s opened tonight by arranging for Lorena to be my publicist. There are only two areas of my life that I’ve been able to execute self-control, and that’s been in the kitchen and with Lorena.

The kitchen grounds me, always has, always will.

But Lorena? She tempts me. Continually testing my self-restraint, that’s dwindling with each passing second.

And now that we are forced to be close..

.in the space that has helped center my impulses, I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to be able to maintain the charade of being her brother’s overprotective friend, when the reason I act how I do is because it kills me seeing her with anyone that isn’t me.

The Uber stops in front of us, and I extinguish the rest of my joint, so we can pile into the backseat.

As soon as the driver merges into the city traffic, I can’t help but blurt my inner thoughts to Tomás.

Well, the ones I’m allowed to say. He doesn’t and will never know how I truly feel about his sister.

I value our friendship too much. Something that makes me hate how loyal I am because it’s clearly to my own detriment.

“Are you sure this is a good idea? Me and Lorena working together? I feel like she hates me.”

An amused look beams over Tomás’ face. “It’s Lorena.

She hates everyone.” This is true. Hence, why I’m not sure working together will be a good idea.

Aside from the fact that the only work I’m interested in doing with her, is to her.

All day. All night. If I had my way. “Trust me, you’re no one special,” he adds.

Ouch. The no one special part…that stings.

“Speaking of which.” Tomás swipes at his phone, opening his text thread with Lo.

The contact photo he has for her, is the same one I have for her in my phone.

It’s a picture of me, Tomás, and Lorena, taken a couple of years ago when the three of us went to Puerto Rico to visit Tomás and Lorena’s extended family, who live in Mayagüez.

The same part of the island that my mom is from.

She lived there up until her teen years, when my grandparents moved to New York.

It was such an amazing, yet sad trip. Amazing to be in touch with my roots on my mom’s side and to do it with my best friends, but sad because it made me miss her.

It’s been over fifteen years since she passed, and the pain still hasn’t fully dissipated.

All the time has done is give my grief clever ways to camouflage itself into my life.

Though every once in a while, almost always unprovoked, it rears its ugly head, and I’m brought back to my father’s incoherent screaming, telling me and my brothers that she was gone.

“She’s home,” he announces, pointing to her contact photo at the top that I’ve been staring at, resting above her location.

Don’t remind me.

Tomás shuts his phone screen off, turning his head to the side to look at me.

“Anyway, getting back to your question. Yes, I do think you and Lorena working together is a good idea. I mean, it will be interesting.”

A nervousness captures my throat. “Why do you say that?” There’s no disguising the unease or hesitation in my tone.

“I mean Lorena is thick-headed, determined, smart. All the things I’d say that you are as well.

But just like how you are in the kitchen, and with all things pertaining to food, she’s good—really fucking good at what she does.

The best. She needs the job so she can establish herself in New York.

And what better way to do so than with a high-profile chef such as yourself.

Plus, you’d benefit from her level of expertise, that way you can maintain your deals and get the award you deserve. It’s a win-win situation.”

He’s not wrong. I could definitely benefit from her help.

I couldn’t imagine being disqualified from being considered for a James Beard Award because of my inability to control myself.

I want that damn award. I deserve it. Hell, the younger me deserves it as proof that all those late nights and long weekends working in the pizza shop in Co-op City, folding boxes until I was deemed worthy enough to help mix the dough, were worth it.

“I still can’t believe she’s here, back in the city without telling me.” That was meant to be an internal thought, but it slips out, and thankfully, Tomás doesn't harp on it. Truthfully, he seems just as surprised as I do.

“Me too. I’m happy to have her home, but it’s the way that she decided to come back. It was so not like her. She had no plan, nothing lined up, nothing. It feels like one day, on a whim, she seemed to have gotten up and decided to start over. You know she's not impulsive like…”

“Me.” I finish his sentence for him.

“I wasn’t going to say it like that.”

“Sure you weren’t.”

We both laugh, knowing that I’m right.

Because if I wasn’t right, we wouldn’t be in this situation that I put myself in.

I’m an unpredictable wave. Forceful, erratic, and messy. Lorena, however, is the ever present, always reliable sand. An oasis I wish I could explore. A calm that my chaos would benefit from.