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Three are from Laura, and I ignore those for now—her never-ending questions about Signio—and focus on the last one instead.
Unknown number at 8:45 a.m.
My heart feels as though it’s galloping inside my chest, and I swipe across to enter my pin. At once, the words on my screen cause a smile to stretch across my lips and a giggle to slip through.
Two days, Preciosa. You owe me a kiss.
“Something you want to share, Solimar?” Mom’s voice cuts through the Alejandro-induced fog I’ve been under.
Tossing my phone aside after closing the screen, I look over at her by the now-closed door. “Morning.” Mom eyes my cell and frowns. It’s fingerprint protected, so she can’t read the messages without my cooperation. “Any reason why you didn’t knock? Something going on?”
“Your father just left and won’t be back until tomorrow.”
“Okay.” I drag the word out, raising a brow. We haven’t been on the best of terms since my return from the Lucas hacienda, and her secretiveness puts me on edge, especially after dropping the news that she’s leaving Dad with no plan or further explanation.
“He has a meeting in Cali today with large donors looking to push an amendment supporting the deforestation in Tama and the installation of an ‘eco-friendly’ lodge.”
“And how do you know this?” Because sharing isn’t my father’s forte.
“I listened in on a conversation he had with Signio’s father last night. They were here to see you.”
My hackles rise and I sit up, brows scrunched in confusion. “Why do they want to see me?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.” Mom walks further into the room, grabs the dainty chair in front of my vanity, and places it at the foot of my bed. “Something you want to tell me, Solimar?” The look on her face is inquisitive-meets-fear as if she already knows the mess I’m in and doesn’t have a clue what to do. “Is it the reason my baby girl was grinning from ear to ear and your fiancé looks like someone took a bat to him?”
“W-what?”
“Have you not seen Signio?”
“No.”
“Interesting.” Her eyes, so much like mine, flick toward the device on my bed and then back at me. “Mind telling me what’s going on?”
“Mind explaining your ‘coming soon’ disappearing act?”
“Touché.”
Deciding to be the bigger adult in this situation, I take in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I met someone.”
It’s low and nearly mumbled, but you’d think I screamed it from the top of my lungs by the way she jumps up and points at me. There’s also a bit of squealing and some thank you, Jesus, thrown in the mix.
After she has her moment, Mom sits and primly crosses her legs while watching me with schooled features. “Do I know this young man? What family does he—”
I cut her off with a hand up. “Stop.”
“Mamita, this could help you dissolve this engagement. Your dad will have no choice but to let you out of—”
Flopping back on the bed, I sigh. “No. He won’t.”
The sudden sadness in my tone catches her attention, and Mom abandons the chair for a place on my bed. For the first time in years, she lies beside me in silence, contemplating life, or her decisions, while I try to explain myself without giving anything away.
Silence looms between us for a while, and just when I think I’ll blurt it all out, she clears her throat. “I met someone, too,” she says so low that I imagine hearing wrong, but when I turn my face and see the guilt, a sick feeling begins to churn in my gut. There is shock and confusion, but I hold no anger toward her. None at all, because the man she married way before I was born is no longer here. He abandoned her for my grandfather’s idiotic ideology. “Before you judge, let me explain.”
“I’m not.”
“He’s just a friend and wants to help.” I don’t miss the softness with a bit of wistfulness in her expression. “We’ve known each other since our school days and he is offering me a way out of this mess.” Mom grips my hand and squeezes it. “Your father’s empire will collapse, and I can’t allow him to drag us down with him. He doesn’t care, but I do. My babies will not end up dead because of his greed.”
“Alejandro would never allow that.” Christ. The words slip past my lips before I can catch myself, but they don’t make them any less true. I know he’s watching out for me. That Carlos and others are near in case I need them.
