Page 27 of Honk if You Love Real Men (Tempting SEALs 1)

She bowed her head, dragging his shirt over it, “This is Eve Romero. My, um, my employer.”

For few seconds there, he’d thought the woman might be an older sister, even Estrella’s mother or aunt. She was a dark-haired Latina, but there the resemblance ended. Eve Romero had none of Estrella’s wholesome goodness. Her slender body was rigid and angular inside an expensive white cashmere suit. The narrow face was squeezed of all compassion and joy.

“Eve, this is Jesse.”

“I don’t want an introduction,” the fury said, averting her eyes. “I want him out.” She pointed to the door. “Out. Immediately.”

Estrella’s face had blenched. She nodded miserably, keeping herself away from Jesse when he moved past the bed to take her arm. She ducked, picking up the sheets, the tangled skein of her thong. “Yes, of course. I’ll go too.”

“Oh, no, you don’t. You’re staying, Estrella. After you strip the bed, I want this room cleaned from top to bottom. Then you’ll go when I tell you.”

Jesse glowered at the woman before trying again to reach Estrella. “You don’t have to stay here and be treated like this. Come with me. It’ll be all right. I’ll take care of you.”

Her eyes flickered. “Thank you all the same, but I can take care of myself.” She thrust his boots at him and pushed him past Eve and out of the bedroom, speaking hurriedly in a whisper. “Please, Jesse. Just go. I’ll take care of the situation here.”

He resisted. “I don’t want to leave you.”

“Eve is only angry, not hurtful.” Estrella shook her head, hushing him when he would have protested. “She has a right to be, don’t you think? She’s never mistreated me, and I’ve paid her back poorly for her trust.”

The screech came again. “Estrella—I’m waiting.”

Her eyes pleaded with Jesse. “Please. You have to go. I don’t want any more trouble.”

He let her hustle him out the door. “I’m sorry I didn’t wake up early enough.” He tried a grin, a squeeze of her hand. “I slept like a log.”

Her answering smile was distracted, and still she wouldn’t look into his eyes. Ashamed for her lies, he supposed, which he wanted sorted out, although that was not his chief concern.

“Go quickly.” She stared at his bare chest in consternation, plucking at the front of the oversized T-shirt she’d put on. “I’ll have to change. Wait in the hallway and I’ll bring your shirt out to you.”

“Never mind about that,” he said as she started to close the door. “Just tell me where we can meet.”

She winced. “I can’t think about that right now.”

“But—”

“I told you that we might be a now-or-never proposition.”

Stunned, he stepped back from the door. Did she honestly mean that she never wanted to see him again? Could he have been that wrong about her intentions?

Estrella hesitated for a couple of seconds, her face bleak, then whipped her head around when Eve’s voice started in again as she stalked into the living room.

“What’s that disgusting dirty rag you’re wearing? Get into your uniform at once and start—”

Estrella slammed the door shut.

Surging with anger and protectiveness, Jesse lifted a fist to beat on the steel door. But he stopped himself before the first slam. Losing his temper would lose him Estrella. Forever.

Chapter Seven

In times of stress, Estrella needed the comforts of home. Home was a small house in a small town in New Mexico, where her parents and two of her siblings still lived, a place she hadn’t seen for two years but that was more real to her than Eve’s immaculate marble mausoleum or even her own threadbare apartment. Lately, the closest she’d come to finding the feel of home was at the Ventano’s cheerful, chaotic household, but Brenda wasn’t off work yet.

Besides, Estrella was determined to cope on her own.

She’d been fired. The shock had worn off after a couple of hours. Instead of taking the bus home, she’d walked into a department store and used up all of the cash in her purse on a deep-fat fryer.

Utterly ridiculous. But comforting.

Now it was dinnertime. She’d taken a long bath, put on shorts and a T-shirt and gathered her hair up in a ponytail. The oil sizzled as she squeezed another dollop of pastry into it. Watching the dough bob about and turn golden brown was as close to being in her mother’s kitchen as she was going to get, hundreds of miles away, with no easy phone contact.

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