Page 31 of Just for the Holidays
“Feliz Navidad. Gael’s out right now,” she told the older man, attempting to at least get him to say something.
“I’m not here to see my nephew.” He smiled coldly. “I wanted a word with you,” he told her as he moved farther inside the apartment. Gael had purchased his two-bedroom in the iconic Calabria building a few years earlier and even though it was tastefully renovated, it was not very big. “I assumed you’d be here.” The menace in his voice made a shiver run up her spine. “I know my nephew well enough to predict how these things go with him and his lady friends.”
Perla felt a wave of nausea at the way he saidlady friends, but she was not letting Manolo get to her. She and Gael had been together long enough for her to get to know his uncle. He’d always been callous when he was unhappy.
With only a few steps he was practically in front of her and it seemed to Perla that he was taking up all the space in the room. She moved so that the large sectional leather couch acted as a barrier between them. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cower, though, so she crossed her arms and tipped her chin up.
“How can I help you? If you want to discuss the details of the contract, you’ll need to talk to our attorneys. I only get the talent to sign on—what they actuallysignis out of my jurisdiction,” she said, trying for a joke, but landing with a thud.
“He won’t care what he gets,” Manolo scoffed and the way he furrowed his brows, with an almost piratical slant, reminded her of Gael. Manolo was his father’s younger brother, after all. He had the same bronzed skin as her lover, and that imposing size. “Gael is taking this role to get you back. That boy could never think straight whenever you were involved. Did you know he almost threw away his career for you?”
“What?” she asked, her heart accelerating with every word that came out of Manolo’s mouth.
“He kept turning jobs down because he was constantly having to deal with you and your drama. He almost declined that show with Shapiro after you called him crying about your mother bullying you at some party on a yacht or some other nonsense.” The series directed by Arnold Shapiro had been Gael’s breakout role. It premiered only six months after their college graduation. And that night on the yacht had been one of the most humiliating of her life. Someone asked her about Gael in front of her mother and Carmelina had laughed out loud and said, “He’s probably with his real girlfriend.”
Manolo’s cruel laugh snatched Perla out of the awful memory, but the twisted anger in his face didn’t make her feel much better. “I had to beg him to take the part, and when he realized the chance he’d almost blown because of you, he finally saw that you would end his career before he’d even started.”
“I never asked him—”
He kept yelling, like she hadn’t even opened her mouth. “You don’t understand the sacrifices we all made for Gael to get where he is. The multiple jobs his mother and I had to take to help him and Gabi with tuition.”
“I know that—”
“What could you possibly know about struggling to make ends meet?” he sneered, making shame roil inside her. “You were born with a silver spoon in your mouth, and then you caught your showpiece. That was all he was going to be to your family if he’d stayed with you. A pretty boy you brought to parties.” Manolo glowered as Perla tried to muster up something to say. “You don’t think I know what your mother said about him? You don’t think she called me up to demand I keep Gael in check because he didn’t have the pedigree to date a Sambrano?”
“She did what?” Perla asked, amazed that her mother’s disgusting behavior still managed to surprise her.
Manolo let out another one of those chilly laughs. “Oh, yeah, and to think he almost threw everything away for you, just so your mother could look at him like he was trash when you brought him home. Our family is not like yours, Perla. There is no trust fund to fall back on. Gael has people depending on him.”
“I didn’t know my mother had done that. I’m sorry,” she said numbly, head spinning.
“Oh, your mother did more than that.” The smile on his face was pure ice. “Your mother had one of her lawyers call me up and offer me money to get Gael away from you.”
“What?” she heard herself say, and she had to lean on the back of the couch just to keep from sinking to the ground.
“It was a nice chunk of change, too,” he said casually. “But I’m not for sale and neither is Gael. In this family we work for what we have, and if we have to make hard decisions in the process, then that is what we do. When you were trying to play house with Gael he was building a career to help himself and his family, and you put that in jeopardy.” That was a jab, but she could scarcely feel it. The shame and humiliation from what her mother had done made her feel like she’d been coated in slime.
“You’ve been back on the scene for days and he’s already being reckless. His mother’s medical bills cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars already and there will mostly likely be more. That mansion he bought her needs to be paid off by working. He can’t afford to turn down roles so he can chase after you. He’s taking this role and turning down a good opportunity because he feels guilty, not because it’s what his career needs. He’s giving up millions for you. That has consequences. My reputation and Gael’s will take a hit for this.”
“But he said he hadn’t committed to anything,” Perla said in a daze. But Manolo was right; she knew how things were in Hollywood. It didn’t take much for an actor to get a reputation for “being flaky” and soon offers started drying up. Latinx actors could not afford to be seen as unreliable. Manolo was an ass, but he wasn’t wrong.
“You’ve always been that boy’s weakness. He almost sank himself once before to keep you and he’ll do it again. Are you willing to live with that, Perla?”
This hurt, so much she couldn’t get air in her lungs, but she could not deny the truth in what he was saying. Hell, an hour ago she’d been wondering how she and Gael could even make their relationship work. She should’ve stuck to the plan. She should’ve let everything end when she left the Hamptons, but once again her desire for Gael had made her lie to herself, and this time at least she could walk away with some dignity. She knew he’d be hurt, but this was for the best. Eventually, he’d understand.
“Okay,” she told Manolo. She moved like a sleepwalker to the spot next to the doorway where her small suitcase was still sitting. She grabbed her coat and her purse and moved to the door. “I think I’m going to go back to my place. I’ll call my sister and tell her we’ll have to go with another actor.”
“This is for the best, Perla,” Manolo called after her as she shut the door behind her. She had no one to blame for this but herself. And now she’d have to clean up the mess she’d made.
“Did you open a bottle already? Because I found the Albariño you liked at dinner last night.” Gael walked into his apartment and almost dropped the two bags of food he was carrying when he found his uncle on his couch with a glass of Scotch in his hand.
“Where’s Perla, Tio?” he asked as he put down the bags and went to the hallway leading to the bedrooms. “Babe?”
“She’s gone, mijo.”
Gael whipped his head back to look at his uncle, sure he’d misheard. Gone? Where would she go? He’d left her reading a book not even an hour ago.
“Gone where?” he asked suspiciously. Something was very wrong, and he suspected it had everything to do with the fact that Manolo was sitting in his apartment in Manhattan and not at the house in Sagaponack.
