Santi still didn’t know what his destiny was. Was it to stay in Lipa? To keep pushing Villa to its limits to earn his place back in Manila? He didn’t know. He wasn’t even sure he believed in that kind of thing. But tonight, as the rain fell in sheets outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Carlton, as the candles flickered orange light into Kira’s eyes, he didn’t care.
“You’re about to kiss me, aren’t you?” she said, and that cheeky little grin of hers was enough to make him give in to the pull of her.
“Would you like me to?” he asked.
“Yes please,” she said, a little breathily.
So he kissed her. He came in close and slow, following that pull toward her. That little gasp she made before he did almost made him pull back, but Kira sank herself into the kiss, and Santi’s hesitation melted away as he gave in, too.
He held her face in his hands, gently brushing at the still-soft skin, as things like patterns and plans made sense in his head. He finally understood why people married in December, why New Year’s mattered, why you wore stripes instead of polka dots. Why being born under the right stars could bring you to this place, to this exact moment.
And that was all this was, a moment. But stars and planets were born and died in moments like these, and even Santi could believe in destinies revealed by chocolates, in the stars determining who he was going to be.
Until, of course, it was interrupted by a very loud, very rude cough. And with that single cough, the moment shattered, gone as soon as it had come. Every muscle in Santi’s back tensed, as a pair of eyes bore into his back.
“Anton.” His grandfather’s voice was a low warning.
“Oh.” Kira pulled away, and he saw her cheeks flush when they pulled apart, her eyes wide and her pupils slightly dilated, her lips still that sweet shade of pink, a little more red now that Santi had kissed them. She turned her head away, as if she’d heard that cough from the direction of the ballroom. “I should...”
Santi didn’t want her to go. He wanted to talk about the kiss, what it meant, what she wanted. But it was more important to him that Vito Santillan didn’t cross paths with her. Santi moved to the right, totally shielding Kira from Vito’s gaze. She tilted her head slightly, as if to ask him what he was doing.
“We’ll talk,” he said softly. “I promise. Thank you for the chocolate.”
“Another promise?” Kira asked wryly.
“One of many I intend to keep.”
He could see she was trying really, really hard not to look over his shoulder. She smiled at him instead before she left the chair, the lobby lounge, and showed nothing but her back as she made her way up to the wedding reception. Some of the muscles in Santi’s back, his arms relaxed, but only slightly.
Then he stood up to his full height, took a last little breath, before he turned to face his grandfather.
At the age of 90, Vito Santillan showed no signs of slowing down anytime soon. He still came to the office every day, still wore suspenders and a long-sleeved shirt like he didn’t live in the Pacific Ring of Fire, and still muscled his way through his business’s problems. Even after the events of three years ago, Santi had a great respect for his grandfather, and would likely never lose his admiration of the man who built one of the biggest hotel brands in the country.
But admiration could still come with distrust. Could still come with resistance, and...fear. Gods craved devotion, after all, and Vito made himself the god of his family a long time ago. He made himself and his money the center of the family’s universe—enough to make Santi and Miro’s parents leave them in Vito’s hands to raise. Enough to make the family feel like utter failures when they were put at a distance.
“Busy?” Vito asked. “I told Miro to fetch you thirty minutes ago.”
“Miro already left,” Santi said, which wasn’t an excuse or an explanation, and not something Vito could use against him. He had to learn to be careful with what he said that way.
“I need to show you something upstairs,” he said, turning and walking away unassisted, because he still walked perfectly fine, so much that he strictly maintained six feet of distance from his nurse, Melba, at all times.
Santi wordlessly followed his grandfather to the elevators. Vito swiped a card against the reader and the elevator moved steadily up the hotel floors, and the silence was horrible. Santi legitimately didn’t know if his grandfather was going to berate him about Kira, or Lipa, or whatever it was they were going.
“What’s in the penthouse?” Santi asked.
“We’re renovating the suite for your little brother,” Vito said, glancing at Santi as if wondering how that would hit. Santi schooled his face into mild interest, which was the only way he was going to make it through this. “He asked for a place in Makati, and I was only too happy to indulge him.”
The unspoken words hung in the air.Meanwhile, when you asked me for a condo, I adamantly refused.It had been a practical consideration then, because he was getting his MBA and the drive from QC to Makati every day was hellish at best. Vito had refused, saying Santi had done nothing to deserve it.
Santi was still making payments on the condo he purchased back then, sure it would be a good investment. And here was Miro, getting a penthouse suite to himself.
The elevator doors opened, but Santi couldn’t really absorb any of it—the furniture, the view spread out all the way to Laguna de Bay, the marbled floors and the chandelier. He didn’t listen as his grandfather listed how much each renovated item cost, how it was selected with love and the utmost care. It was petty, but he didn’t want to know. He really didn’t.
“Lolo, I think the reception is starting, we should—”
“This could have all been yours, you know,” Vito said, and could Santi detect wistfulness in his voice? “You were doing so well with Carlton. People know the Santillan name with class, and power. You were such an integral part of my legacy. And yet you chose to squander it away.”
The conscience he was alluding to had grown from Santi’s own explorations. Because unlike the rest of his family, he’d actually gone out into the world, and changed his perspective on money and life. He met the CEOs and leaders of his batch—Cora Ciacho, Isabel Alfonso, Regina Benitez—and molded his philosophies and moral compass after them. He’d read articles about Joaquin Aritz and learned their approach to business. He studied under people who knew better than him, and didn’t pretend he knew more.
