Island Affair (Keys to Love #1)(92)

Hands fisted at his sides, back and shoulders erect as if he were facing his captain, Luis addressed her parents. “Ruth, Charles, my sincere apologies for the part I played in this fiasco. I hope you can believe me when I say that it has been a true pleasure meeting you, and the rest of your family.” He dipped his head toward the others.

“Son, it’s not clear why—”

“Excuse the interruption, sir,” Luis told her father. “The why of all this is not mine to tell. Since it doesn’t appear that my services are needed here anymore, I will grab my things and head out.” Laying a hand on his chest, he gave her mom a slight bow. “Ruth, I sincerely admire your tenacity and new outlook on life. I wish you well.”

Then, as she murmured a forlorn, “Thank you,” Luis left the room. Without sparing Sara a single glance.

He rounded the banister in the foyer, where he stopped, head bowed, his large hand squeezing the curving balustrade.

Sara waited, breath trapped in her lungs. Praying he would look at her. Give her a sliver of hope that there was a chance to make things right between them.

Instead, he disappeared up the steps.

Eyes burning with unshed tears, she buried her face in her hands.

“Oh, sweetheart,” her mother crooned. Moments later, her skinny arms were around Sara, offering comfort. “Honey, this doesn’t make any sense.”

Ashamed at how badly she had bungled her explanation, cheapening what she and Luis had shared, Sara welcomed her mother’s embrace.

“I know it doesn’t!” Tears threatening, she scrubbed at her eyes, desperate to make things right. Afraid she couldn’t.

“Why, sweetie?”

“I just, I thought—” Sara broke off on a shuddering sob. “Because—”

“Because she made a poor decision.”

Sara cringed at her sister’s blunt truth.

“Based on the fact that many of us—myself included,” Robin continued. “Have not taken her or her career seriously.”

Shocked by her sister’s support, Sara swiped at her tears, then tentatively met Robin’s gaze. Her smug, you-know-I’m-right expression had never made Sara feel particularly loved. Until now.

“Frankly,” Robin continued in her usual brusque delivery. “I don’t know why you’re still down here. You should be upstairs, working things out with the guy who spent the last five days helping all of us”—she held up her pointer finger, circling it to indicate the entire room—“feel more like a family and less like an institution. Am I right? Or am I right?”

“I don’t kno—”

“That was a rhetorical question,” Robin interrupted Sara, her lips curved in a smug grin. “We all know the answer.”

An hysterical giggle bubbled up Sara’s throat.

Her mom squeezed her arm around Sara’s shoulders with an encouraging smile. Jonathan jerked his thumb toward the front of the house. And her dad, her dad gave the wink he’d greeted her with every time he peeked into her room to say good night when she was a kid.

Relief, sweet and pure, rained over her.

“I could totally kiss you right now,” she told her sister, hands pressed over her racing heart.

“Yeah, wrong person,” Robin complained. “Now get out of here.”

Jonathan’s laughter chased Sara down the hall and up the stairs where she stopped in front of her closed bedroom door.

Her pulse pounding, she wiped her clammy palms on her beach cover-up. She sucked in a shaky breath, then counted down from ten as she slowly released it.

The technique did absolutely nothing to calm her racing pulse.

Positives. She had to focus on the positives.

The truth was out. No more subterfuge. No more pretense.

They could be open and honest with everyone. With each other. That was a good thing.

Buoyed by her reasoning, Sara opened the door and stepped inside, closing it quietly behind her.

Luis stormed out of the bathroom, his shaving cream and black toiletry bag in his hands. He gaze cut to hers, but he didn’t say anything as he continued to the bed where his duffel sat open, his clothes thrown haphazardly inside.

His drawer under the long plank desk sat open, empty. His running shoes and tan dress sneakers no longer sat in their spots next to the wardrobe. He wasn’t wasting any time getting out of here. Away from her.

“Can we please talk for a moment?” she asked, choosing to stay by the wardrobe, giving him some space.

“I don’t know what there is to say.”

He jammed the shaving cream canister into his duffel with a harsh shove. Muscles flexed and bunched in his arms and torso, on full display through the supersize armholes ripped nearly to the hem of his tank. Barely concealed anger warred with his usual self-control. It pulsed off him as if he were Bruce Banner mid-transformation into the Hulk.

Confusion bled into her remorse. Yes, she could have, should have, explained the situation better. Did that warrant this degree of reproach?

“Don’t leave like this,” she pleaded.

“I was hired to do something that’s no longer necessary.”

“Look, that came out wrong downstairs.”

“No worries. Now I know where we stand.”

Scared by his implacable demeanor, she lifted her arms in supplication. “I was freaking out and described things poorly. I’m sorry. But is that really reason enough to blow things up between us?”