Page 86 of Forget Me

“No, black is fine. Thank you.”

“I make it strong, so let me know if you change your mind.” He returned to the kitchen.

Did Mateo want to be a supporting actor to my starring role? No, that wasn’t how things worked. Ben had his own life, separate from Cooper’s. He had his own career with his new foundation. Even my dad had his tutoring business.

Mateo wanted something. Maybe all the help he’d given me meant it was something to do with the gala or the foundation. Maybe he wanted a position there, and he was counting on me to give it to him once I became the assistant director. And I was fine with that, as long as it wasn’t my position he wanted.

That made sense. That was how the world worked. Being Mateo’s girlfriend wasn’t too different from my one-night stands. We gave each other pleasure and enjoyed each other’s company. It was simple, transactional, reciprocal. Sure, I cared about him, but I didn’t need to get my feelings any more involved, not—notlovelike I’d thought I had with Byron.

Love made me vulnerable, clouded my vision. Love had already lost me one promotion. I couldn’t let that happen again. Not when there was still a chance my goals were within my reach.

My economics professor in college said there was no such thing as a low-risk, high-reward investment. Had I just found it in Mateo?

He walked in from the kitchen with two more mugs and three small plates and forks. He set them on the coffee table and sat in the chair closest to me. “Now we feast.”

He’d cut each pastry into three pieces, and he’d made an omelet, also cut into three pieces.

“Thank you, Mateo,” Mom said. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“It’s my pleasure.” And he hit us both with the double-barreled blush and dimple combination.

Mom didn’t say another word. I hoped she wasn’t swooning the same way I was.

Eating the breakfast he’d conjured from my barren kitchen in less than ten minutes, I was sixty-six percent sure she was right. That Mateo was just the man I needed.

* * *

Early Monday morning,Mateo used one hand to pull his Jeep into the no-parking zone in front of the Synergy building. His other hand gripped mine.

He’d had his hands all over me, had hardly stopped touching me, all weekend. Well, since I’d pushed Mom out the door late Saturday morning. We’d gone to his place, and I’d stayed with him Saturday night. Although his bed was so much more spacious than mine, which didn’t seem large enough for his giant frame, he slept snugged up behind me, his big hand wedged between my breasts like he owned them. Sunday night back at my place, I wasn’t sure we’d slept much at all. I could see the bottom of my bowl of condoms.

If letting Mateo call me his girlfriend meant fabulous sex multiple times a day, I definitely saw the benefits of it. His growlyYou’re my girlfriend and I’m your manwould have made even Gloria Steinem’s toes curl. I was one hundred percent on board the sex-with-Mateo train.

Even the annoying little voice—an echo of my mother’s—had gone quiet. The voice that told me I had to earn affection and respect. That what Mateo offered me wasn’t real, he couldn’t really care about me, and I was a fool for letting him distract me from my goals. I’d packed that annoying voice into a box deep inside me.

The sex wasn’t the only fantastic part of my weekend with Mateo. Saturday afternoon, when I told him I needed to go down to the building’s basement to do laundry, he’d brought me to his place to do it using the machines in the guesthouse. He said he wanted to check in on Roger, but Ben would’ve done that. When the allergy meds I’d taken as a precaution made me so drowsy I’d fallen asleep on his couch, Mateo had folded my laundry much more carefully than I’d have done.

His voice broke me out of my rhapsody about crisply folded T-shirts. “Why do you always meet so early?”

“It’s my fault, mostly. I work during the day, so we have to meet outside of work hours. Natalie sometimes has commitments in the evening, so we meet before work.”

He nodded. “And why do you meet at Synergy?”

“A couple of reasons. The foundation doesn’t have a physical location yet—”

“You mean Larissa hasn’t gotten off her ass to choose one.”

“That’s not exactly fair. She’s saving the foundation money on rent.”

“That’s my Mimi. Always so frugal.”

“Frugal is a nice way of putting it. Ben calls me cheaper than the wine at Walmart.”

“There’s nothing cheap about you, mi tesoro.” He leaned across the console to brush a kiss over my lips.

I shivered and kissed him back. I could really get used to this boyfriend thing.

Like he read the thought on my face, he grinned. But he said, “And the other thing?”

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