like it was going out of style, but he was her twin. They had gone to college together and lived next door to each other and didn’t let more than a day pass without speaking to each other. Carlos was like a father figure to her, but Elias was like a piece of her soul. She would have fallen apart if he hadn’t ended his shift at the hospital early to get to her.
But she had sent them all away. Elias’s job as a trauma surgeon was too important for him to be away, and Carlos and Virginia needed to put their little girl to bed. And so she was truly left alone with her thoughts again.
What the hell was she going to do with her life now? She had no job. She was sure she could get her old one back, and if not, she could find one someplace else. Maybe in New York or LA, but that thought didn’t appeal to her. She didn’t want to be that far away from her family. The thought of returning to Miami also made her sick. She had so many memories of Max there. So many places where he had wined and dined her all while keeping the fact that he had three children and another woman a secret from her.
He had businesses there. She was bound to run into him over and over again, which was dangerous, because in her current mood she wasn’t sure if she could prevent herself from running over him.
Her cell phone rang, and for a moment she was tempted to ignore it, but it was probably her mother who spent most of her year in Costa Rica now that she was a widow. She hadn’t been home when she had called the first time, and she didn’t want to leave the news in a message. It just wasn’t the kind of thing you said into a machine. She reached over to the side table to retrieve her phone, but the caller ID revealed that it wasn’t her mother. It was Max. She had told half the world she wasn’t getting married, but she had yet to tell him.
“Hello?” she answered, trying to keep the emotion out of her voice. She refused to cry, because she knew if she started, she wouldn’t be able to stop.
“Darling,” he purred in his accent. “Why am I hearing that you have canceled the cake and told the string quartet not to board their plane tomorrow?”
“Oh, that’s simple, Max. I’m not going to marry you.”
“Excuse me?” he sputtered, sounding genuinely surprised. “Why not? You’re being foolish.”
“Foolish?” She immediately felt her anger go up a tick. “I didn’t think it was foolish to not marry a man who is a cheating, lying bastard.”
“Cheating? I’m not cheating on you. I never have.”
“You’re not sleeping with Ingrid anymore? Judging by your family photo album, you looked very happy with her and your children in the South of France.”
He went silent, quiet for so long that she thought he had hung up. “She told you.”
“Yes. She came to see me today. Your oldest—Hugo—he looks quite like you. He’s got your nose and eyes, but he has Ingrid’s coloring. How the hell could you do this to me? And why the hell did you think you could get away with keeping this a secret from me?”
“I was going to tell you after we were married.”
“You were going to let me walk down that aisle, thinking that I was the only woman in your life, thinking that we were going to start a family, when you knew that everything we had was a lie?”
“It wasn’t a lie. Yes, I have three children. Yes, their mother is my best friend, but, darling, you are the only woman I can see myself being married to, and we are going to start a family. I’ve always wanted as many children as possible.”
“It’s hard to keep that big of a secret from the world. Others have to know. You were going to let me make a fool of myself. People have probably been laughing behind my back for years.”
“Nobody would dare laugh at you. Not my chosen bride. I’m from one of the richest and most powerful families in the world. They respect you, and if they do not, I will make them. So don’t worry about what other people think. I will take care of that. Now, stop this little tantrum and call everyone back. I love you. I will take care of you. You are perfect. My princess. You are meant for a grand life with me.”
“You don’t respect me at all—do you?” She didn’t know why she hadn’t known that sooner, but the realization was crushing. She’d spent so long with a man who she was just an object to. “You think that this is something that I’m just supposed to get over. You don’t care about my feelings at all.”
“My father has had the same mistress for over fifty years. I have nearly a dozen half siblings. If my mother can bear it, so can you. You’re giving up so much for your foolish American pride. This is how things work where I come from.”
“I’m not your mother,” she said calmly. “And my foolish American pride won’t allow me to marry you. It’s over.”
“This isn’t over. You’ll see how sad your life is without me, and I will be waiting here for when you get over yourself.”
Ava hung up without saying any more. She had no idea what she was going to do with the rest of her life, but she knew that he would not be in it.
Derek walked up to his aunt’s house as he did nearly every day after he finished his work. He had always thought of this place as his childhood home because he’d spent much more time sleeping there than at his own house. His aunt and late uncle had been like his parents. His cousin was more like his sister, and his grandmother, his most favorite person in the world, had lived there. Some of his best memories happened around the kitchen table in this house. He would say he was from a tight-knit family and mostly he was, but out of the dozens of holidays he had spent here, there were very few he could recall with his mother. She always seemed to be jetting off somewhere with a new boyfriend.
But maybe it had been better for him to be without her. His uncle was a world-famous architect who taught him how to build things and in the process be creative. He would have never thought about designing and building furniture. He would have never thought about running for mayor when he was only twenty-five years old. It still pained him a bit when he walked through the door and he realized that his uncle wouldn’t be there to greet him. But this house was still a happy place. It wasn’t just that it looked like a large gingerbread house; it was the fact that there was even more love in it now.
He opened the door to see his cousin’s husband, Asa, sitting next to his grandmother on the couch. They were playing video games, which wasn’t something he had expected to see when he walked through the door that evening.
“Are you ready to give up yet?” his grandmother, Nanny, asked Asa as she furiously pressed the buttons on her controller.
“No! How are you this good at this game? We just got it today. I think you’ve been practicing.”
“I think you’re a sore loser, or you will be in a moment when I do this finishing move on you. There, done.”
Asa tossed his controller on the couch beside him and slumped in his seat. “You beat me at cards and now at this. I’m not sure I can hold my head up anymore.”
Derek laughed as he walked farther into the room. Asa had just recently become a member of their family. His cousin Hallie had fallen in love with him hard after only knowing him for
