Page 29 of One Week To Claim It All
“Carmelina is never right,” Jimena stated tersely as Marquito nodded in agreement.
But wasn’t she? All he did was work and try to prove again and again that he deserved to be where he was. No personal life to speak of. And ithadmade him bitter. It had made him closed off, cold. After Esmeralda and then his mother, he had shut down. Until she’d walked back into his life a week ago and made him question everything.
“Rodrigo, for sixteen years you operated in the shadow of a brilliant but deeply flawed man, who cared for you, yes, but who also tended to treat the people he loved like shit.” Jimena’s voice was soft, like she didn’t want to hurt him, but her gaze didn’t waver from his. And he knew he had to hear this. “Which means, one, you need a really good therapist ASAP and two, you have to figure out what it is thatyouwant, because news flash, you can do that now. You can walk out of here this minute and you will be doing it as a very wealthy man with a résumé and skill set only a few dozen people on the planet have. I can think of at least five networks who would ask you to name your price if it got out that you’re a free agent.”
“It’s not that simple,” he told Jimena, even as her words buzzed in his head.
“It is, though. You, my friend, have arrived at a place in your life where professionally and financially you not only have nothing to worry about, you havechoices.” He knew she was right. But the truth was he didn’t want to leave Sambrano. His loyalty to this place was about more than just getting the corner office or the three letters after his name.
“I want to stay at Sambrano. This is finally my moment. After all this time I’m poised to do what I’ve always wanted to do with the studio.” He thought of that old memo Esmeralda had found, the ideas he’d had and never been able to see come to fruition. He thought about the way Esme had clearly gotten his message. How she’d taken the seed of his idea and turned it into a vision for the future of Sambrano. They worked well together. They would make a hell of a team. “I have projects I want to see through. I have things I need to do.I want to stay.”
He loved the work he did here. He couldn’t let go of the possibility of what the future could hold with him at the helm...and maybe,maybewith Esmeralda there, too.
“And what else do you want?” Marquito asked, with a knowing grin on his face.
“I want her by my side.” He didn’t need to tell them who, they both knew.
“Then go get her, pendejo,” Jimena scolded him. “And don’t just decide on what you think is a great idea and roll with it without letting her in on it like a jackass. That’s what keeps getting you into messes.”
“You’re really taking advantage of the fact that I’m at a low moment to get all your digs in, aren’t you?” he told his friend, who responded with a smart-ass grin. But a plan was already forming in his head. His heart leaped with the possibilities and he smiled as a thought started to form. He might have a solution for how Esmeralda and he could both be at the helm of Sambrano. He just had to convince her that they were better together than they were apart, in businessandin love.
“Mija, are you hiding from me?” Ivelisse asked Esmeralda as she was sneaking around at the crack of dawn, trying to get out of the apartment before her mother woke up.
“No, Mami,” she lied as she leaned in to kiss her mother on the cheek.
“I waited up for you until almost midnight.”
“I was just going over my presentation, with the board meeting getting moved up and everything...” she trailed off as her mother studied her, aware that there was a lot more to her late night at the office than the presentation.
“You never told me how things ended. Just a text saying Rodrigo wasn’t trying to push you out, and that you were fine. And you were MIA all day yesterday.” Her mother reached up to tug gently on the thin hoops Esmeralda was wearing on her ears. The ones made of intertwined rose, yellow and white gold that she always wore for good luck. The ones that Rodrigo had given her for her twenty-first birthday.
“Tell me, mija.”
“Rodrigo and I sort of started...” What could she even say? Hooking up like horny teens? That she’d told him she loved him and he’d said it back and then she’d walked out on him?
Her mother’s soft laughter brought her out of her highly embarrassing thoughts. “Ay, Mija, even if I hadn’t already suspected after you snuck in here almost at dawn after that cocktail party, I would’ve confirmed it the day he was here.” Her mother’s smile saidyou’re an adorable mess.“You two have always been very bad at hiding the way you feel about each other.”
“Well, it’s over,” she said miserably. She’d left that horrible meeting with Rodrigo and gone straight to her little office share. Had stayed there as much as she could since then. She could’ve gone home, but she didn’t have it in her to answer questions from her mother. And she just could not face anyone at Sambrano. Not after the mess with Carmelina. Especially not when they’d moved her presentation up.
But she was ready, in part thanks to Rodrigo. The footage he’d given her access to and that memo of his she’d found had sparked the idea for her plan, but the conversations they’d had this week had cemented it. Despite the many challenges and disappointments he’d had in his time at Sambrano, Rodrigo still believed in the company. He believed in the mission. And Esmeralda found that she believed in it, too. She could clearly envision a path forward and she hoped she could be a part of making it happen.
And then there were her very complicated feelings for the acting CEO of Sambrano Studios.
It had been almost impossible to walk away from him after he uttered those words she never thought she’d hear again. But Rodrigo could not untangle his sense of obligation and misguided loyalties to her father from what he felt for her. She loved him, but she would not be with a man who could not be vulnerable. A man who didn’t trust her, who didn’t treat her like an equal partner. She deserved someone who could see in her the person who complemented them, who thought of her as essential to their life.
Her father had turned his back on her because she didn’t fit into the image of the family he wanted to show the world. Rodrigo had walked away from her because he’d been ensnared by terrible choices. And even if she understood his reasons now, he could’ve told her the truth. He could’ve trusted that she was strong enough to bear it. But instead, he’d pushed her out of his life.
That was her, the person who never quite fit. The easiest one to crop out. The one whose absence wouldn’t alter the outcome. And she was done with that. She wanted someone to whom she was essential, someone who not only saw her as part of the picture, but who believed there was no picture without her. She deserved that.
“Of course it isn’t over.” Her mother’s voice pulled her back from her musings, and Esme had to smile at her determined expression. “You two are crazy about each other.” Her mother clicked her tongue and pulled her by the hand to the corner of the apartment that held their kitchen. “Ven, te preparé un desayunito.”
“Mami, I don’t have time for breakfast. I need to get this presentation perfect. These people are just looking for an excuse to push me out. I’m not going to give it to them by showing up late.”
“You have to eat, Esmeralda,” her mother declared as she puttered around. “And you have to stop this thinking like you don’t already belong there. Your father—”
Her mother closed her eyes, trailing off from what she was about to say. Esme had always wondered what her mother thought of whenever she recalled her relationship with Patricio. They’d been together for almost five years when he left her for Carmelina and in the years since, her mother rarely mentioned her time with him. It was like Esmeralda and that Cartier watch were the only proof there had been anything between her mother and Patricio Sambrano. Esme couldn’t even recall ever seeing them in the same room together. When her father was done with Ivelisse it was like she’d ceased to exist. Esmeralda had never been able to wrap her head around how she’d coped with that kind of rejection. And still her mother had maintained her goodness, and raised her in a home full of love and optimism.
“Your father...” Her mother’s voice cracked like thunder in their quiet kitchen. “Was a man who never learned to love himself. Even with all he achieved. Patricio built an empire from nothing. His mind was a marvel, so fearless, a real visionary. You remind me of him in that way.” Her mother’s smile was bittersweet. She focused on the window that gave them a view of the river, her eyes fixed on something in the distance. “But he never could shake off the demons of his past. He never let anyone get close enough. Not me, not his wife, his kids. He was so afraid of losing what he had, he never let himself enjoy it. But that has nothing to do with you and the right you have to be there. Patricio made so many mistakes in his life, but I think what he did with his will was his way of trying to make amends.”
