Page 30 of Just for the Holidays
“Maybe I’ll give you a preview of my plans for the evening now,” he suggested, already moving them toward the couch. “I’d love a replay of your lips wrapped around my co—”
“Here you are!” his mother called, then screamed, covering her eyes. “Oh, my God, Gaelito, take your hands off that poor girl. She hasn’t even had breakfast yet.” That caused Perla to dissolve into fits of laughter, while Gael tried to use her as a shield for his raging erection.
“Mami! Can you give me a minute?”
“Take five, mijo,” his mother said reproachingly as she gestured toward Perla. “Ven, Perlita. I want to spend a little more time with you before you leave us. And you better get yourself together, little boy. I don’t want to hear about you getting all handsy in that car. That black ice is dangerous out here.”
“Fine,” he called after his mother, who was already walking out of the room with Perla. He’d come into the house while Perla was packing up and let his mother know he was going into the city with her. To his surprise, she’d been all for it. She told him she was in support of anything that kept him smiling like that. He couldn’t disagree. Gael could not wait to finally get Perla alone for a few hours somewhere where there were not nosy relatives underfoot. And once he did, he was going to make sure she understood that he was willing to do whatever it took to make things between them work. And then he’d make it clear to Manolo that his priorities had changed. His sister and mother were right. It was about time he was a little selfish.
Sixteen
Perla looked at Gael’s phone, which flashed with yet another incoming call from his uncle. But if he noticed the phone vibrating in the console between their bucket seats, he did not show it. He kept his eyes on the road as he drove her SUV into Manhattan.
“Seems like Manolo really needs to talk to you,” she told him as casually as possible. She didn’t want to pry, but from what she’d overheard earlier, things sounded tense. Not that he gave any indication that he was having second thoughts aboutThe Liberator and His Love. On the contrary, they’d talked about his ideas regarding the role for a decent part of the two-hour drive into the city.
“Do you remember when you did that monologue junior year?” she asked out of nowhere, and instantly saw a change come over his face. The tightness around his mouth that had been there since he’d spoken with Manolo smoothed, and his beautiful lips turned up into a wide smile.
“Youremember that?” he countered, clearly surprised, and soon she was smiling, too.
“Of course I do. You brought the house down.” At the beginning of their junior year all the drama majors were asked to perform a five-minute monologue for the incoming freshmen. Gael picked a scene fromChronicle of a Death Foretoldby Gabriel García Márquez, and controversially decided to do it in the original Spanish. Perla remembered being in the front row, feeling jittery with nerves for him. Not because she didn’t think he’d nail it, but because it felt important. “You were magical that night.”
She turned to look at him, remembering the not-quite boy, but not full-grown man he’d been then. How he’d had people on the edge of their seats as he acted out the scene. Magnetic as he moved around the stage, and there hadn’t been a single person who wasn’t riveted by his presence. She remembered thinking,He’s going to bring our culture to the world. He’ll be one of the precious few who get to do that.And now he really would, and this time she wouldn’t just get to see him; she’d be there working with him.
On impulse she reached for her phone, remembering she kept a ton of old videos on an app. After a few taps she had it. She connected her phone to the car’s Bluetooth, hit Play and instantly the car was filled with Gael’s impassioned voice as he performed García Márquez. His eyes widened almost comically as he realized what he was listening to.
“You still have this?” he asked, struggling to keep his attention on the road. “This isn’t fair. I have to focus on the road and can’t properly react to the magnificence of twenty-one-year-old me!” She laughed, certain he was only partly teasing, because this man had a lot of wonderful qualities, but humility about his acting skills was not one of them. And even that she’d always loved about him. That he knew the gift he had and tirelessly worked to hone it, to learn how to wield it better.
“You’ve always been so humble,” she joked and leaned in to kiss him as the sound of his voice filled the car. They listened to the clip until it was over, and she was surprised to feel her tear ducts tingling at the crescendo.
“I’m glad you’re doing this,” she said as she reached for his hand.
“We’redoing this,” he countered, and she heard the scratchiness of emotion in his voice, too, as her own heart bounced in her chest like a rubber ball. For a second, he took his eyes off the road and turned to her. The certainty in his gaze seemed to cauterize any doubt she had about his intentions. Theywoulddo this, together.
“Are you sure you don’t need to get back? Veronica only gets you for a few more days before you have to go on your press tour,” Perla asked distractedly as Gael kissed his way down from her collarbone to the swell of her breasts.
After a quick stop at her place so she could repack, they’d come to his apartment. They’d barely gotten in the door before he took her in his arms and started ravaging her.
“My mother is ecstatic that I’ve escorted my girlfriend up to the city and will be even more ecstatic when I get back tomorrow and let her know when she gets to see you again.”
Perla’s insides hardly knew what was happening to them anymore. From hour to hour she was awash in emotions. And even if she was certain that Gael’s intentions to keep things going between them were sincere, she wasn’t so far gone she didn’t know they had a challenge ahead of them. She lived in Manhattan and even if he had an apartment here, too, he spent most of his time in LA. Not to mention all the traveling he did for work. Hell, last year he spent most of his time filming in Croatia. To his chagrin she slid out of his arms and got enough distance to have an actual conversation.
“Nope. I keep letting you hypnotize me with your mouth, but we need to talk,” she declared as seriously as she could manage, given that he was chasing her around his well-appointed living room with Frankenstein arms and whispering “give us a kiss, love”—in an admittedly pretty decent British accent. “I’m not letting you promise your mother anything on my behalf until we discuss exactly how we’re going to do this. We both have busy lives and melding them won’t be easy.” The last bit sobered Gael up. He leaned against the breakfast counter dividing the kitchen from the rest of the room and raised an eyebrow.
“I want this to work,” he told her as if it was all it took.
“It’s not just up to us,” she said, her arms across her chest, trying to stay strong, because right now with him looking at her like that, he could probably talk her into anything. “Your uncle is not happy about the project, and he’s not the type to—”
He didn’t even let her finish. “I’ll handle Manolo. Don’t worry about him. I promise,” he said with such confidence, she couldn’t not believe him. “Why don’t I go down and get some stuff to make you dinner. It is Christmas, after all.” He hiked a thumb over his shoulder at the glass cabinet holding floor-to-ceiling rows of wine. “Why don’t you pick something for us to drink, and by the time you get comfortable I’ll be back with ingredients for asopao de camarones.”
“Fine, bribe me with my favorite food,” she said, trying and failing to not sound utterly besotted. He brought her into his arms, and she went, even if she knew the conversation he kept deflecting absolutely needed to happen. The real world would not stay at bay for much longer. But it was Christmas and this man wanted to feed her and then make love to her before she had to leave him, and she was going to take this gift she’d been given.
Seventeen
“Are you back already?” Perla looked up from the book she’d been reading and jumped off the couch when she saw Gael’s uncle standing just a few yards away. Something about the way he ran his eyes over her made her want to cover herself up, even when she was wearing leggings and a sweater that practically reached her chin.
“Manolo,” she said, trying to infuse as much lightness as possible into the name as she stood rooted to the spot by the couch.
“Perla,” he said, not even attempting a friendly tone. She’d never liked Manolo. He always seemed to be annoyed by her mere presence, like he wished he could vanish her on sight. Seeing that kind of naked loathing directed at her was disorienting after two days of warmth and affection from Gael’s family.
