“Wow. Someone territorial around here?”
“You bet,” I say and leave the room more annoyed than ever.
I look for the two but don’t find them. I start walking to the back of the house when suddenly I hear voices.
“Have I died and been gifted with my own personal angel? Tell me you were sent from heaven just for me, beautiful.”
Gael.
Jerk.
I hear a laugh that I know comes from her, and I quicken my pace, very willing to strangle my brother, the womanizer. If he thinks he can go after my Olívia like he does with every beautiful woman who crosses his path, I’ll prove him wrong.
Without caring whether what I’m doing is revealing and forgetting about the conversation I had with my mother just now, I get as close to her as is socially acceptable.
“Lose something out here, Gael?”
“Actually, I justfoundsomething.” The shameless jerk keeps playing.
“I don’t think so.”
He looks from me to Olívia and then smiles. “Good to see you too, big brother. I’ve missed your sourness. Decided to compete with Joaquín to see who’s grumpier?”
Olívia lets out a snort of laughter, which only makes me want to kill my brother again.
“Let’s go inside. Mom has already started serving the appetizers.”
I give my daughter a kiss on the head. She’s smiling as if she finds the interaction between two idiot alpha males very amusing. Placing my hand on Olívia’s lower back, I guide her inside the house.
Chapter 29
“Are you working for us?If I asked you out to dinner, would that count as harassment?”
“Behave yourself, Gael. You’re embarrassing the girl,” Mrs. Isabel scolds.
I suppress the urge to laugh because the actor has been flirting with me since he first saw me. I was quite taken aback by his beauty—Mrs. Isabel has a surreal ability to produce handsome males—but after a few minutes of conversation at the lunch table, I realized that flirting comes very easily to him. Gael Caldwell-Oviedo has the kind of charm that makes women want to jump on his neck with just a glance.
However, what catches my attention at the moment is his older brother’s stern expression. Since he practically dragged me in here, he hasn’t spoken to me once, even though he’s sitting beside me and I feel his eyes on me every time I open my mouth.
I notice the interaction within the Caldwell-Oviedo family. They’re not like the millionaires we see in movies. There’s a lot of warmth here. Even Joaquín, who wouldn’t winany sympathy awards, was less weird with me. In fact, he almost gave me a heart attack when he kissed me on the left cheek upon arrival. Just a few days ago, he seemed ready to kick me out of his brother’s house, and now he kisses me?
But I’m not one to hold a grudge, so I pretended it was nothing.
“Mother, don’t be a killjoy. Olívia and I are trying to get to know each other better.”
From my peripheral vision, I see Guillermo turning in his chair towards his brother. “Cut it out.”
I’m waiting for the actor to make another one of his remarks, but he remains silent, and when I lift my head to understand what’s going on, he and Guillermo lock eyes.
In the end, the younger brother raises his hands in surrender. “No dinners between us, doll. I got it.”
Good. At least one of us is getting something.
For starters, what am I doing here? It’s obvious that it’s not what the matriarch desired, despite Guillermo’s assertion that she invited me. She hasn’t treated me poorly at any point and even asked a question or two, but there’s something in her gaze that’s bothering me.
If only I had Nina in my arms, I could distract myself, but she’s asleep in the stroller.
I discreetly glance at Guillermo and catch him looking back at me, as if considering something. Suddenly, today feels like a bit much. It’s like living in a parallel reality, you know? A world I don’t belong to.
