after being part of the industry for many years. Here, working on Carmen, he felt like the new kid all over again, and his walls were up.
And then there was Jasmine.
As a scene partner, he couldn’t have asked for anyone better. She was open, giving, and vulnerable. And when she was out of character, her humor and lightheartedness drew his attention, despite his best efforts to remain ambivalent.
Everyone loved her. And while Ashton could play that kind of open, carefree character, he could never really be like that.
When his coffee finished brewing, he added a ton of milk and sugar from the mini-fridge and stirred. The smell comforted him, reminded him of the way his mother had brewed her morning cafecito. Maybe he should order an espresso machine for his dressing room. He’d just taken his first sip when someone knocked on the door.
“It’s Jasmine,” came a voice from the other side.
Heart pounding, Ashton set down the mug, just in case. He was still mortified about their first encounter. For a split second, he thought of pretending not to be in, but that was stupid. He got up and opened the door.
Jasmine greeted him with a brilliant smile that made his pulse beat even harder. She was so fucking pretty, and she’d been so forgiving after the coffee thing, even when she would have been totally justified in chewing him out.
“Hey, Ashton,” she said. “I just wanted to let you know a bunch of us are going out for drinks after we finish on Friday. We have a reservation at a tapas bar that Miriam recommended. Do you want to come with us?”
“Ah . . .” Ashton’s mind ricocheted between yes and no. He should say yes. What was the harm? But some unidentified anxiety held him back. It was that damned pond metaphor. This was a bigger pond, and he was scared to dip his toe in.
“Gracias, pero no,” he finally said. “Para la próxima.”
“Okay.” Jasmine’s smile tightened, and her voice was brittle. “Maybe next time.”
Closing the door, he shook his head at himself. What the fuck was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he bring himself to trust these people enough to go out for one night?
Because you don’t trust anybody, a little voice whispered in the back of his mind.
It was true. He didn’t. His father and grandparents, yes, but that was it. Over the years, he’d grown more and more withdrawn.
He hadn’t always been this way, damn it. In his twenties, he’d relished his budding fame, partying and clubbing with his actor friends and enjoying everything the Miami nightlife had to offer.
But then he’d become a father, and everything changed.
When Yadiel had been born, his mother—another telenovela star Ashton had a short-lived fling with—had handed the baby over, along with a list of terms. As a devout Catholic, she’d done her duty by giving birth, but she had no interest in ever being a mother. It would ruin her career. Ashton could have full custody, provided he kept her identity secret and paid for the cosmetic surgery treatments to get her body back to what it had been pre-pregnancy. Not only that, she never wanted to work on a show with Ashton ever again.
For Ashton, who’d grown up as an only child, the prospect of being a dad had been scary, but exciting. The first time he’d held Yadiel in the hospital in Orlando, his heart had broken and reformed into something stronger than he’d ever imagined, forged in the purest love someone could feel. His son was everything to him, and Yadiel’s happiness and well-being was worth any price. Yadiel’s birth had brought joy back to Ignacio, too, who’d struggled to find his balance after losing his wife.
But that didn’t mean there weren’t sacrifices, or stress. Every time hurricane season rolled around, Ashton bit his nails and sweated while he watched the weather reports, ready to hop on a plane to evacuate his family at a moment’s notice.
And the bigger his career grew, the more he worried about how his visibility would affect his son. He still had nightmares about being awakened by a sound in the middle of the night. Of getting up, as he often did since becoming a father, to check on his little boy as he slept.
Of finding a shadowy figure outside Yadiel’s broken window.
Everything changed after the night an overzealous fan-turned-stalker, angry that Ashton hadn’t been replying to his letters, tried to break into Yadiel’s nursery. It happened after a local