“Assure them that you’re an adult and you can handle this yourself?” she asked wryly. “Maybe. I’ll have to make bonete.”
“Use my kitchen if you need,” Kira said with a nod. Things did tend to go smoother when there was bread around. Kira stood up and picked up her list, ticking off two items before consulting it again. If she didn’t like lists before, she was definitely understanding their appeal now. “Mikaela, I need to run numbers on this, for sure.”
“I’m free. I’m free all day,” Mikaela said immediately, nodding. Kira thanked her, and was about to head to the kitchen to grab her stuff when Ate Nessie gasped.
“What about pogi boy?” she asked. “Si Santi?”
Kira inhaled sharply, using that breath to steel her. Because she really wished she could go to him, and ask him what the hell happened, listen to what he had to say. But there was no time for that. Santi would come to her if he needed help. Right now, she needed to help herself.
“He’ll be okay,” she said. “He knows what he has to do.”
Meanwhile.
Carlton Hotels and Resorts Head Office.
Pasig City.
The Carlton Hotels and Resorts Head Office was established sometime around Santi’s twelfth birthday. He’d seen it grow from a single-unit office, to a whole floor, then two floors. He knew where each department was, knew employees that had known him since he was in diapers. Knew what colors the walls used to be, how old a particular piece of furniture was, could remember when the hardwood floors were installed.
And yet he didn’t feel that same sense of nostalgia that he expected as he walked into the Office of the Chairman. It was just another place to him, another thing he didn’t feel connection to. How strange.
“Home at last,” Vito announced as Santi walked into the room stuffed to the brim with every single award the Carlton had won, all the accolades it had earned with and without Santi’s help. Vito’s office had a stunning view of a mountain range a province away, Santi was never sure which. There was, as always, a cup of unfinished coffee on the desk, stacks of seemingly random scratch papers where Vito wrote most of his notes and calculations, and a framed photo of Miro and Santi on his desk. Not for the first time, he wondered where the man with the plastic chair at the beach in Nasugbu was. Maybe he was long gone, or maybe he was still here. Maybe Vito did love him, and this was the only way he knew how.
But Santi wasn’t going to spend the rest of his life convincing himself that it was the truth, wasn’t going to spend his life trying to justify his grandfather’s actions. He had way too much self-respect for that.
“You’ve finally come to your senses,” Vito said as Santi stood in front of his grandfather, trying to keep his expression neutral. He’d rehearsed his speech several times over when he was drafting it, when he was finalizing it. He practiced on Kira, practiced on the Cat (he didn’t have the heart to name her quite yet), to himself on the drive over. He was a Virgo, after all, and Virgos made plans and rehearsed those plans.
But right now, he knew he was going to have to wing it a little.
“I won’t stay long,” he announced, ignoring the way his grandfather’s face dropped. “How did you know that Kira owned Gemini Chocolates?”
If Vito knew what Santi was about to do, he didn’t let it show. “Your staff was very tight-lipped about it.” Vito huffed. “But as it turns out, your brother is very good at looking other people up. At least he’s useful for something.”
“I see.” Santi sighed. He should have known Miro had dropped him somehow. He wondered vaguely what he got in exchange for the information. A car? Another condo? Would it be enough, for Miro to finally forgive whatever he thought Santi had done to him? “I wanted to give you my answer in person. You asked me to consider moving to Manila, before you forced my hand. And I’ve considered it.”
“And?”
“I say no.”
“No?”
“No to coming back to the Carlton, no to Manila, and everything you were thinking of offering to me. You already made me leave once, and I really don’t want to come back.”
“I wasn’t giving you the option to say no,” Vito said, his fist clenched on the desk. His nurse nearby peeked at them, ready to jump in if he needed it. Good.
“And isn’t that exactly the problem?” Santi asked. “You taught me to always have an exit strategy, and here’s mine.”
“You are a part of my legacy, Anton. There is no exit from that,” Vito said, and the words sent a shudder down Santi’s spine. But he said nothing, and continued to say nothing, as he watched his grandfather.
He concluded that the old man from the beach didn’t exist anymore. Vito was too old, too attached to his money, too used to using it to control others to still be the same man. But then again, Santi wasn’t that kid from the beach anymore, either. He was older, and much smarter. He was willing to do anything for the people he loved, because he was the best person for the job.
Vito was born mid-October, and it occurred to Santi that if he’d told Kira that, she would have known exactly what brand of evil Vito was. She would have told him that Vito was born on a Libra-Scorpio cusp, making him prone to drama, indecision and heavy criticism. People born under the cusp were notorious for testing their love, cynical and judgmental. A horrible match for an earth sign, she would say.
Because Kira knew everything.
And when she didn’t, Santi did. It made them a great team, really.
So, here were the facts, in no particular order;
