have no idea, since I’m not the devil,” he said.
“What are you?” she asked.
“Just a man who likes a pretty girl and doesn’t want to screw up again.”
Selena watched him walk away, wondering if she’d underestimated him and if that would be at her own peril.
Justin sat quietly in his car parked on the street in front of the Gonzalez home. Selena had withdrawn into herself and there had been no drawing her out. He had a feeling that Selena’s attitude was the least of his problems as he got out and walked up the driveway to the house.
There was music coming from the backyard and the delicious smells of charcoal and roasting meat wafted around him. This was a cozy neighborhood, the kind of place where he could buy two or three houses and not feel the sting in his checkbook, but a place where he’d never fit in.
Was this what Selena had been talking about when she said Luna Azul didn’t belong in Little Havana? “Amigo, you coming?”
The guy who walked by him was in his early twenties with close-cut dark hair and warm olive-colored skin. He wasn’t as tall as Justin and his face was friendly.
“I am indeed,” Justin said. He had a six-pack of Land-shark beer in one hand and some flowers for Selena’s grandmother.
“How do you know Tomas?” the young man asked.
“We’re in business together.” Justin wasn’t about to pretend he had any other reason to be here. In fact, in light of his drinks with Selena he thought wooing her was going about as smoothly as the entire buying-the-marketplace deal. What was it with the Gonzalez family? Was it impossible to find a common path with them?
“Truly? My abuelito usually doesn’t do business with … wait a minute, are you Justin Stern?”
“That’s me,” he said. Great, nice to know that he already had a reputation here and he hadn’t even arrived yet.
“Oh, ho, you have some guts showing up here,” the kid said.
“I was invited, and I’m not a bad guy,” Justin told him. “I am trying to find a way to make that market viable, not to run your grandparents out.”
The kid tipped his head to the side, studying him. “I’m watching you.”
“I’m glad. Family should look out for one another. And I’m not going to take advantage of your grandparents or your family. My main concern is making money from the property we bought.”
“Is money all you care about?”
Justin shook his head. He saw Selena walking up toward the house from where they stood in the shade of a large palm tree. She’d changed from the sexy dress she had worn earlier into a pair of khaki walking shorts and a sleeveless wraparound top. She was enchanting, he thought.
He forgot about how unwelcome this guy was making him feel and focused on Selena.
“Leave him alone, Enrique. He’s not a bad guy,” Selena said as she came up to them.
“He told me the same thing,” Enrique said. “Are you sure about him?”
Selena shrugged. “Not one hundred percent but I’m getting there.”
“If we do business with your family,” Enrique said, turning to Justin, “I want to talk to you about deejaying at Luna Azul. Why do you only hire New York and LA deejays?”
Justin had very little to do with the everyday running of the nightclub he owned with his brothers. “I don’t have an answer for that but I can find out. If you send me a demo tape—”
“I don’t think Enrique wants to work for you,” Selena said.
“I’ll make my own decisions, tata,” Enrique said. He reached around Justin and hugged her. She hugged him back.
“Enrique is my little brother,” she said.
“I’m taller than you now, sis. I think that makes me your ‘big’ little brother,” Enrique said with a grin that was familiar to Justin. He’d seen it on Selena’s face a few times.
“You’ll always be my baby brother,” she said, looping her arm through Enrique’s and Justin was relegated to following the two siblings up the walk to the house.
Justin had the feeling he’d always be an outsider. Too bad his little brother wasn’t here tonight. This was exactly the type of party that Nate was better at than he was.
But he was here to achieve two things: first, to have Tomas lift the injunction against Luna Azul and second, to get Selena to be that warm, seductive woman she’d been on the beach again.
He’d pulled back for her sake, had instinctively known that she wasn’t the kind of woman who could start an affair, even a short-term one, with a man she barely knew.
But tonight he’d change all of that. He slipped his arm through Selena’s free one and she hesitated and lost her footing, glancing up at him.
“What are you doing?”
“Just making sure everyone knows who invited me to the party.”
Enrique laughed. “No one’s going to doubt that, bro. This is Selena’s welcome-home party. Did you know she hasn’t been back here since my tenth birthday?”
Why not? “No, I didn’t know that. I’m honored to have been invited to this party then.”
“Don’t forget that,” Enrique said. He dropped Selena’s arm to open the front door of the house. The air-conditioned coolness rushed out and the sounds of the party filled the lanai.
“Enrique’s in the house,” Enrique yelled and there was a round of applause.
Selena took a deep breath. “I am not sure this was my best idea.”
“I am. I want to get to know your family.”
She paused there on the step so that they were almost eye level. “Why? So you can use it to your advantage?”
“No, so I can start to understand you.”
He put his hand on the small of her back and directed her into the living room. Everyone surrounded her and welcomed her home. But standing to the side, Justin realized that Selena hesitated to be a part of them. She held a part of herself back and he wanted to know why.
Selena was amazed to see Justin actually fitting in with her family. He was standing by the grill talking to the men about baseball of all things. But then she guessed he would know a little bit about the sport thanks to his brother, the former ball player.
“What’s the matter, tata? Aren’t you enjoying your party?”
Her grandmother sat down beside her and put her arm around Selena’s shoulders. For just a minute she felt like she was twelve again and a hug from this woman could solve all of her problems.
