Page 1 of Sleeping with the Frenemy

PROLOGUE

The Night of Kamilah Vega and Liam Kane’s

First Engagement Party

Leo Vega already knew what he was in store for when he knocked on the door in front of him, but he did it anyway. The situation was too important for him to ignore.

“What?” the grumpy voice said from the other side.

“It’s me,” he said.

“I know who it is. I have a camera doorbell.” Leo could practically hear the eye roll. “What do you want?”

“We need to talk.”

“I’m not really in the mood to talk.”

Leo knew that he had two options if he wanted to be let in: be annoying or be cajoling. There was a fifty-fifty chance with either option. It all depended on whether the person on the other side of the door was more pissed or more hurt. His best guess was pissed because of the hurt. He went for cajoling, praying it worked. “Come on. Open the door. I just want to check on you.”

There was noticeably less anger when the voice responded, “I’m fine.”

“I need to see you with my own eyes.”

A snort slash growl.

He moved close and put his forehead against the door. “Please, bombón,” he said in a deep murmur. “Let me see you.”

A hiss of annoyed breath filtered through the door, but it had obviously worked.

He heard the locks being disengaged and he stepped back when the door swung open. There she stood, still in the body-hugging dress she’d worn to his sister’s disastrous engagement party. She looked almost as perfect as she had when she’d first walked in and nearly caused him to stroke out on the floor, except for one thing. All the immaculate makeup on her face was gone and her eyes were swollen and red rimmed.

He knew there was a good chance she’d push him away, but he couldn’t stop his response. He stepped into the apartment and palmed her damp cheek. “Come here.” He pulled her into a hug and was mildly surprised when she let him. “Ay, mi Sofi.”

Sofi didn’t respond, she just buried her face in his neck and squeezed him.

He tightened his hold on her and firmly told himself to ignore the way her body felt against his, but it was impossible. It always was. It had been since they were teens. Sofia Santana just did something to him on every single level. To attempt to ignore her was like trying to ignore being tased. Even if he managed to shut his thoughts down, his body wasn’t going to let him not react to the inundation of sensation.

“What happened?” he asked after a few minutes of silence. “All I could understand from a blubbering Kamilah is that you left because you’re mad at her.”

Sofi pulled back. A scowl appeared on her face. “Of course it’s all because of me, right?”

Leo frowned. “I didn’t say that. I’m just trying to understand what happened.” It was hard for him to believe that she hadn’t known about this whole fake engagement stunt either. He’d figured that she had to be in on it too. Kamilah and Sofi did everything together from the moment they met. It was often annoying to him just how close they were.

“She lied to me,” Sofi said.

“She lied to all of us,” he pointed out. He was angry about that too, but Sofi wasn’t the type to get so upset about something like this. At the end of the day Kamilah and Liam faking an engagement to keep their grandpas from selling the family businesses they wanted to run didn’t really affect Sofi that much. It wasn’t like she had a stake in either business, not like Leo did.

Sofi pushed away from him. “Not about that,” she scoffed. “I knew about that stupid shit with Liam. I warned her about that blowing up in her face, but she did it anyway.”

Leo suddenly remembered something else that had come up. Something thathadaffected Sofi. “You didn’t know she’d turned down the scholarship in Paris,” he concluded. Kamilah and Sofi had planned to move to Paris together after high school, but when their abuela got sick, Kamilah lied to everyone and told them she hadn’t gotten the scholarship that would have made the move possible.

Sofi actually growled in anger. “Can you believe that bullshit?” She stalked down the short hallway into her living room. “Not only did we say we were going to do that since middle school, but we had plans. Firm plans. I had a school lined up! We were looking at apartments!”

Leo could understand how that would be frustrating at the very least, more likely heartbreaking. “Why didn’t you just go anyway?”

Sofi let out a bark of unamused laugher. “Have you met my mother? You think she was going to be okay with me going to Europe by myself? She didn’t want me to go even with Kamilah, but once Kamilah wasn’t an option...”

Leo knew Sofi’s mother pretty well and Alicia Santana was not someone you ignored when she put her foot down. However, she wasn’t an unreasonable person and she trusted her daughter. “I don’t know, bombón. I think she would’ve come around eventually.”

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