Page 2 of One Week To Claim It All
“His wife is going to make my life a living hell,” Esme said, unable to hide the real wariness in her voice. Carmelina Sambrano was not above humiliating her. But that got Ivelisse’s back up.
“She can try, but you can stand up to her,” her mother said with a confidence Esmeralda wished she felt. “And besides, you’ll be in charge.”
“I don’t know, Mami.” She hated that even thinking of being rejected by her father’s wife and children made her feel small.
Ivelisse made another clucking noise and pulled Esme closer. “Screw them. Go in there tomorrow and claim your place. Use them and this opportunity to do all the things you’ve been wanting to do but haven’t gotten the chance to.”
Esme’s chest fluttered with an ember of hope and longing at her mother’s words. Ivelisse was right, she’d been killing herself for the past five years—trying and failing to get her projects off the ground, but she could not get a break. Because her ideas weren’t “commercial” enough, or relatable to the “mainstream” audience. She was tired of getting doors shut in her face because she refused to compromise. As head of Sambrano Studios she could make her dream come to life. Put shows out there that reflected all the faces of Latinx culture.
If she wasn’t pushed out by Carmelina first.
“Mami, that woman is never going to let me stay. And I don’t want to sink to her level.” Ivelisse had been a wonderful mother, gentle and kind, but she was a fighter when it counted, and the mention of her old foe lit a fire behind her eyes.
“Carmelina won’t know how to fight you, baby. That woman has never done a day of work in her life. When you go in there—smart, competent, full of fresh ideas—that board won’t know what hit them.” That ember was now a tiny flame fueled by the faith Esme’s mother had in her. Still, she’d learned the hard way not to trust anything that came from her father.
“But won’t the board have someone picked out already? Someone that doesn’t come with the drama that I will certainly cause?”
Her mother averted her eyes at her question andthatgave Esme pause. “Mami?” she asked wearily as she scanned the paper in her hands again, looking for whatever her mother wasn’t saying. And when she got to the very last paragraph she understood. Her body flashed hot and cold, just from reading that name. There in black and white was the last push she needed to jump right into an ocean of bad decisions.
“Him?” she asked tersely, and from the corner of her eye she saw her mother flinch.
Rodrigo Almanzar, her father’s protégé and the person who for years had been the only tie she had to Patricio. The man she’d given her heart and her body to only to have him betray her when she needed him most. The man whose very name could still make her ache with longing and tremble with fury. How could it still hurt so much after all this time?
She felt tired. Tired of this damn thing hanging over her head. Tired of all the complicated feelings she had about everything having to do with Sambrano Studios. Especially when it came to the tall, brawny, arrogant bastard who was probably hoping she’d do the very thing she’d been considering. Let her pride and her baggage make her decision for her.
And she might have, ifhewasn’t the one who’d end up as president and CEO. She wouldn’t do it out of greed, or even to appease her mother, but she would do it out of spite. Rodrigo had betrayed her just so he could continue as her father’s lapdog. Now she’d take the thing he’d sold his soul for...just when he thought he finally had it.
“Actually,” she said, standing up, already feeling the fire in her gut that usually preceded her doing ill-advised things. “You’re right.” The four women in her living room were all looking at her with varying degrees of anticipation. “I’ve been saying for years that if given the chance to shoot my shot I wouldn’t hesitate to take it. This isn’t exactly how I’d hoped to get it, but now that I do, I’m not wasting it. Tomorrow, Sambrano will get its new president and CEO.”
Her mother eyed Esme with suspicion, probably guessing what had been the deciding factor for her change of heart, while her aunt Yocasta crowed with delight, “Ay, Ivelisse, what I wouldn’t give to see the look on Carmelina’s face when Esme walks into that boardroom tomorrow.”
Esme smiled wryly at her aunt, but her mind was already racing toward the other shocked face she was looking forward to seeing.
Two
This is bittersweet, Rodrigo Almanzar thought as he smoothed a hand over his Hermès tie and the jacket of the slate Brioni suit he’d ordered special for this day. Finally taking the helm of the company he’d been working for since he was sixteen years old warranted splurging fifty grand. Even if this wasn’t how he’d envisioned things happening.
He wished him taking the job at the head of Sambrano Studios didn’t come as a result of losing Patricio. A flash of grief, and the usual tangle of emotions that his old mentor evoked in him, dulled the electric anticipation he’d been feeling all week. Patricio had been more than his mentor; he’d been his dad’s best friend and his family’s savior once upon a time. The man had taught Rodrigo everything he knew about the business he loved. Patricio had many shortcomings, and over the years the things Rodrigo had seen him do bordered on outright cruelty. But even when Patricio seemed to be hell-bent on alienating everyone in his life, his bond with Rodrigo had remained strong.
Well, there had been that one night. The moment when Rodrigo had bartered with everything he had, and he’d gotten what he wanted. Then lost everything anyways.
Yeah, no matter what the gossips liked to say about Rodrigo’s “special treatment” from Patricio, the man had never pulled his punches. When he was in one of his moods, anyone could get the brunt of it. But Rodrigo had learned how to maneuver the older man, and even when he knew he should’ve quit, his loyalty had kept him working for Sambrano. Even after it had cost Rodrigo the woman he loved.Loyal to a fault, his mother had always said, and maybe when it came to Patricio it was true.
One night in those last days, when the once tall and powerful man had been emaciated by illness, he’d confessed that Rodrigo reminded him of himself. That he’d turned into the kind of man he’d wished he could’ve been. Rodrigo shook his head, dismissing that, but Patricio’s eyes had been full of affection and pride. The same affection and pride that had kept Rodrigo tethered to his desk even when he’d hated the things Patricio had done. When staying in this company really felt like it had cost Rodrigo his soul.
And that line of thinking brought him right to the one person he’d been avoiding thinking about for days. For weeks, really. Since the estate executor had made the last attempt to contact Esmeralda Sambrano-Peña to ask if she would be honoring her father’s last wishes and taking over Sambrano Studios. Rodrigo didn’t believe in skirting the rules, even when there was good reason. But after twelve months of having the executor’s calls ignored he figured that was answer enough. No matter how much he wanted to officially be named president and CEO, he’d done his due diligence. And today no one could say he had manipulated the circumstances. Hell, he’d gone out of his way to make sure Esmeralda got the chance to claim the position.
After wrangling with the likes of Carmelina Sambrano for the past year Rodrigo was more certain than ever that he needed to be in charge. Esmeralda didn’t have the temperament to deal with that viper and her pack of cronies. Patricio’s widow would be waiting in the wings for her to fail so she could take her late husband’s life’s work and sell it for pieces to the highest bidder. No, sweet and soft-spoken Esmeralda would not be up for the dogfight this was going to be.
He cleared his throat as he looked around the room. Sambrano’s headquarters in Midtown Manhattan were housed in an Art Deco building from the 1920s. Patricio had all the original moldings and wood painstakingly restored, but this boardroom was the crown jewel of the executive floor. A massive space overlooking Central Park. The walls were all done in wood paneling that gave the room a warm feel, even if the meetings as of late had been anything but. The showpiece in the room was the table, a hundred-year-old behemoth that sat twenty-four people. It was a perfect solid oak oval, with an Italian rose marble top. Patricio had acquired it at an estate sale in the ’70s on a whim and kept it in storage until he grew his business enough to display it. It was ostentatious now, but when Patricio had purchased it, the studio only getting off the ground, it must have seemed recklessly arrogant. But his mentor had made good on the promise of that table. He’d built an empire befitting its grandeur, and Rodrigo would be damned if he let it all be laid to waste by his family’s greed.
The sumptuous burgundy leather chairs were occupied by all ten members of the Sambrano Studios executive board, in addition to Carmelina and her two children, Perla and Onyx. As vicious as Carmelina was when it came to her husband’s money, her children didn’t seem to care in the slightest what happened to their family legacy. Perla seemed perennially preoccupied with her travel plans and not much else and as for Onyx...he only remembered the studio existed when he needed it to get invitations to celebrity parties.
Useless. All of them.
But that was just fine. Rodrigo would be in charge, and he knew what he needed to do, had been meticulously planning it for years—with Esmeralda as a no-show it seemed the one snag had been smoothed out. He got to his feet, suddenly feeling the urgency of getting the meeting going. In theory Patricio’s heiress had another hour to claim her place, but by the time they got to that part of the agenda they would be well past the window.
“Ladies and gentlemen.” He made sure to project his voice and it resounded across the room. Soon even Perla and Onyx were peeling their eyes off their phones and turning their attention to Rodrigo. “Thank you for coming today. I can’t say that this isn’t bittersweet.”
