Those two things were going in opposite directions, and no matter how supportive my parents were, my chasing after another guy was going to worry them. Worse, it would disappoint them. I would never risk doing that, not after everything they’d done for me.
“Thanks for saying that, Papi,” He squeezed me in another hug and after a moment gestured in the direction of my small kitchen. “The vote of confidence matters. Let’s get something to drink.”
He followed me from the couch and took the bottle of beer I offered him. After taking a long drink, he winked at me before leading the way back to the living room. “You’re fine, nena. I know you’ll figure things out. Now tell me what we’re going to do about your mother and abuela, because their plan is to make a meal that can feed twenty people and I don’t know if I can handle that level of stress tomorrow.”
Chapter Sixteen
Rocco
I was standing at the executive parking lot at Sturm’s after getting back from the program visit and all in my head thinking about Dani’s words from last week.
Could I really leave New York? Take my sister and Blue with me? Leave our parents and all that drama behind? Risk losing the security of a job I had seniority in, a job I was good at?
“Wasn’t that something?” I snapped my head in the direction of Muffy’s voice and saw her and her sister walking over to me. They looked delighted and with good reason.
“Phil has been trashing the program all week. He thinks because our little brother has let him run the IPO show that we’re going to just let him mislead the board.”
“I’m glad you felt good about the visit.” There was no fucking way I was getting caught giving an opinion about Phil or Duke.
“Julia was with you at the baseball game,” Muffy informed me teasingly, but my panic was too intense to tell what she was getting at.
Were they joking? Or were they fishing? Fuck.
“Yeah. She was.”
There was a weird pause, as if they were expecting me to fill them in on exactly what was going on between the two of us. Not happening.
After a very heavy pause, Mitzy leaned in and whispered, “Let’s make sure Phil doesn’t figure that out.”
Fuck.
Her voice was pleasant and her eyes kind, but still this was so not okay. Mitzy must have figured out I was dying inside, because she squeezed my arm and smiled. “Don’t worry, he won’t get wind of this from us. We’d never give him an excuse to say the consultants are compromised, not now that we know you’re not trying to fuck us over.”
The coughing fit started before I could help it, and I knew I was red in the face.
“I would never make a recommendation that would jeopardize my client.”
Muffy flicked her hand at me, dismissing my comment.
“We know that. It’s why we can keep this little bit to ourselves. We trust that you will not play fast and loose with the way that we’ve always done business at Sturm’s.”
Mitzy angled her head toward the hallway. “Phil and Duke can’t wait to get us out. So they can run amok giving themselves Fortune 500 CEO salaries.”
She was not wrong. If it was up to those two, Sturm’s would be one more corporation trying to slash costs and line the pockets of the executives without any regard for employees or their community. The issue was, I wasn’t sure if there was a way to keep that from happening—at least in part—if they did go public. My job was to get them there though, and no matter what feelings I was feeling, there was no deviating from that. Maybe I’d finally give Julia a reason to hate me and I could move the fuck on.
“All I can promise is that I will do my job.”
“We know.” Mitzy pointed at the Porsche SUV in the lot. “We’re headed home. The only reason we even came in was because of the visit.” I couldn’t blame her for sounding annoyed. “But first, let’s pretend we’re just your nosy aunties.”
These two looked cute and innocent but their gossip approach worked: the urge to spill my guts was strong.
“Tell us. What’s going on with you and that beautiful woman? You certainly only had eyes for her today.”
Oh, God.
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.” I felt like Judas, denying what I was feeling for Julia like that. Dismissing her. But I could not let the twins get the wrong