TWO WEEKS, FIVE DAYS and twenty-seven hours. That’s how long it had been since she said goodbye to Carlos and flown back to New York, and the hole in Larissa’s heart loomed larger than ever.
“If you love him set him free,” she muttered. What a joke. She heaved her pen across her desk where it hit the postcard pinned to her wall before landing on a stack of media contracts. A nice red dot now marred the sky over the La Joya swimming pool. She should take the darn pictures down anyway. Looking at them only made the longing worse.
God, but she missed Carlos. Why did she have to be so stubborn about insisting he admit his feelings? She should have stayed the extra day and had one last wonderful memory. Granted, she’d still be sitting here in New York without him, but at least she wouldn’t keep picturing the way his forlorn expression reflected in the glass as she walked out of the lobby.
No, you could torture yourself with some other memory.
“We brought you back a sandwich.” Chloe rattled a white paper sack as she and Delilah invaded her cubicle doorway. “Roast beef with slaw.”
“Thanks, I’ll eat it later.” Ignoring the look between exchanged between her friends, she set the back on the corner of her desk.
“You should have joined us,” Chloe said. “Feels like summer has finally kicked in out there. It’s even warm enough for you.”
“Sorry I missed it, but I had too much work.”
“Interesting how that’s been happening a lot lately,” Delilah remarked. “Work keeping you from lunch, that is.”
“I don’t see what’s so interesting about it. No different from the way you work late all the time.” Actually, it was a lot different and all three of them knew it. Her work might be piling up, but it was because she’d been unable to focus. While her body sat in New York, her mind and heart were back in Mexico. The other day she went so far as to see if La Joya hired a wedding coordinator yet. At least if she were physically in Mexico, she’d feel like she was putting up a fight.
A hand settled on her shoulder. She looked up into Chloe’s brown eyes. “It’s going to be all right,” her friend told her.
“Would you say that if this was Ian?”
Her friend’s eyes widened a second, and she shook her head. “No.”
“Exactly. It’s not going to be all right as long as he’s not part of my life.” That’s what she got for wanting real. Her life wasn’t a life at all without him. She was no better than Carlos right now, existing in a void.
“You know what? I’m going back.” Time she took a piece of her own advice. How could she expect Carlos to reach out and take a chance, if she wasn’t willing to do the same?
She reached for the phone, only to have Delilah’s hand curl around her wrist. “What will you do when you get there? Pick up where you left off?”
“Maybe.”
“And then what?” Delilah asked. “Six months from now when he still won’t open up to you, are you going to feel any better?”
“I don’t know.” She certainly couldn’t feel any worse.
In the end, her phone rang, ending the argument. “Hi, Larissa, it’s Jenny from first-floor reception. Can you come down for a moment?”
“Sure. I’ll be right there.” She hung up with a frown. “That’s odd. First-floor reception wants me.”
“Maybe someone sent you a present,” Chloe teased.
A present indeed. She and Delilah had been doing everything under the sun to cheer her up. They’d probably ordered a balloon bouquet or something equally silly. Forget what she said about not being able to feel worse. As horrible as she felt right now, she’d be completely lost without these two.
“I’d better go find out.”
* * *
After four years of working at CMT, Larissa had come to expect all sorts of sights in their corporate lobby. None of them prepared her for the man standing at the reception desk.
Her heart leaped to her throat. “C-Carlos?” She whispered the name in case she was dreaming.
Carlos turned around and smiled. The shyness nearly broke her. “Buenos dias.”
“Buenas tardes,” she corrected. “It’s afternoon.”
“I guess I’ve got my time zones mixed up.”
As he started toward the elevator, everything else in the lobby faded away. The only thing worth looking at was his face. Habit already ingrained, Larissa looked to his eyes. They shone like two dark jewels, bright and open. So incredibly, wonderfully open that she wanted to cry.
“Querida, no...” He cradled her cheeks in his palm, smoothed her trembling lip with his thumb.
“I can’t believe you’re really here,” she whispered.
“I can’t believe it myself, but I needed to tell you something, and face-to-face was the only way.”
“Tell me something?” She felt her heart skip with a hope she dared not acknowledge.
Carlos nodded. “I wanted to tell you that you were special. That’s the reason I did everything I did. Because you were...are...special.”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead. To feel his lips after all this time... Larissa had to squeeze her eyes tight to steel herself against the thrill building inside. “I spent so many years thinking I was dead inside,” he whispered. “Then this beautiful drunk blonde opened a door and I found out I wasn’t dead after all. I was waiting for her. Only I was too scared to take a chance. Too afraid of how badly it would hurt when she walked away. So I tried to lock her out.
“Except,” he said, smiling down with shining eyes, “she got in anyway. I’ve tried to deny the feelings for three weeks, but I miss you, Larissa. There’s been a hole in my chest since you left.”
Oh Lord, how she’d longed to hear those words. “There’s been a hole in my chest, too. I’ve missed you so much.”
“Same here, querida.”
It felt like an eternity, but at last, Carlos swept her into his arms. His kiss was honest and real, the connection instant. Gone was the distance she used to sense. Larissa wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back with an intensity that left them both breathless. When they finally broke, and she remembered where they were, she started to giggle.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“Nothing.” Looked like his kisses did have the same impact while standing on Madison Avenue.
Still, kisses weren’t everything, and while she would far rather spend the next twenty four hours wrapped in Carlos’s arms, they needed to talk. “So where do we go from here?” she asked, putting some distance between them.
“What do you mean?”
It meant dealing with nitty-gritty reality. Carlos coming to New York was a start, but if they were to make a real go of things, they needed to negotiate life beyond La Joya’s romantic facade.
“For starters, we live three thousand miles apart. I have a job here. Delilah and Chloe are here.” That she had been about to fly back to Mexico was beside the point. That was when she was depressed and thinking illogically.
“I’m well aware of the distance, and I’ve got a solution.”
“Already? You’ve only been here five minutes.”
“I’ve had a long time to think before I got here, and I realize I’ve been a selfish bastard.”
“No—”
He held up his hand. “No, querida, I have been for a long time. By shutting myself off from the world. And, just because I’ve woken up, doesn’t mean I have the right to ask you to give up your life. Not yet.”
Larissa’s heart started pounding. “Carlos, what are you trying to say?” She knew what it sounded like, but...would he really make that kind of commitment?
“I’ve put a call in to Kent Hotels regarding a position here in New York.”
Oh my God, he was making that kind of commitment. “You’re leaving La Joya?”
“The hospitality industry has always been a little nomadic. I’ve moved from hotel to hotel before. What’s another move?”
“But it’s your family’s business.”
“It’s a business. Businesses can be replaced. Hearts can’t.”
“Wow.” She didn’t know what do say. He was willing to leave his family’s business and move to New York City for her when neither of them knew what the future had in store. An incredibly gigantic chance for a man who feared getting hurt. That Carlos would take such a leap of faith for her... “I’m so humbled,” she murmured.
“You’re so worth it,” Carlos replied.
If Larissa’s heart ever had any doubt whether she belonged with him, those four words erased it. There was still one more question to ask, though. “And when things get rough?” She needed to know.
“We’ll deal with them together.”
“Are you sure? Because I want it all. The good, the bad and the ugly.”
“So do I, querida.”
They were both tired of keeping space between them. When Carlos stepped close again, Larissa melted into him. “I love you,” she said, resting her head against his chest. “I don’t care if it’s too soon to say the words, but I—”
“Shh...” He pressed a finger to her lips. “Say them all you want, querida. I love you, too.”
His kiss showed her just how much.
“Now,” he said, planting one last kiss on the tip of her nose. “Why don’t you take me upstairs to meet these best friends of yours? Then tonight, after you finish work, you can show me around my new adopted home.”
“Okay, but I’ve got a better idea. How about I introduce you to Chloe and Delilah, and then, I show you how much I missed you.”
He smiled. “I like your idea better.”
“What can I say? I’m a terrific event planner.” As she led him to meet the two most important women in her life, Larissa thought of how lucky she was. She’d gone to paradise to lick her wounds over lost love and discovered a love that was even better. What’s more, with Carlos in her life, it wouldn’t matter if she ever travelled to paradise again. Because paradise was wherever the two of them were together.
One year later...
“Tell me again why we came on this trip?” Simon Cartwright lifted himself from the infinity pool. Water dripped from his Olympic-fit body as he walked to the nearby lounge chair to grab a towel.
“Near as I can tell,” Ian Black replied, “it’s so we have someone to talk to while our wives ignore us.”
He smirked at the nearby table, only to have one of the women stick her tongue out in return. “Watch it, Mister. I’m not your wife yet,” Chloe Abrams said, waggling her index finger at him. “I still have twenty-four hours to change my mind.”
“Idle threats, Curlilocks. You and I both know you’re stuck with me for life.”
Rolling her eyes, the brunette turned back to the other women at her table. “I hate when he’s right.”
“You think he’s bad now, wait until the two of you decide to have children,” Delilah told her. “Simon’s been strutting around like a peacock ever since the ultrasound. You’d think I was giving birth to the king of England.” She squealed as Simon splashed water in her direction.
From her seat at the far end of the table, Larissa watched the whole exchange with misty eyes. She missed this—spending time with her friends. It’d been nine months since she returned to Mexico. True to his word, Carlos did stay in New York, although he took a year’s leave of absence rather than find a new position. While Larissa knew beyond a shadow of a doubt the two of them belonged together, she told him they should take things slow, and he agreed.
New York lasted exactly six weeks. Surprisingly, it was Larissa who initiated the move back to Mexico. The decision came while she and Carlos were sitting in Bryant Park one brutally hot Sunday afternoon. If she was going to endure oppressive heat, she told him, she wanted egrets to sing her good-night. They returned to La Joya two weeks later. She didn’t regret the decision for a moment.
Fishing the pen from behind her ear, she flipped open the file folder on the table in front of her. “Before Simon tosses Delilah into the pool, I want to make sure you’re absolutely okay with the plans for tomorrow’s ceremony. Are you sure you don’t have any changes?”
“Other than the size of my bridesmaid dress?” Delilah quipped. “It appears the future king has decided to take up residence in my rear end.”
“No worries,” Larissa told her. “The dresses I picked out are very figure-forgiving. You’re not the only one whose rear end has decided to expand.”
“Perhaps because someone feels the need to sample every wedding cake that comes through the hotel.”
Carlos came strolling out from the restaurant, resplendent as always in his manager’s suit. Twelve months together, and the way he moved still sent shivers down her spine. He smiled at her, his eyes warm and bright. “I guarantee tomorrow’s ceremony will be flawless. After all, you’re using the finest wedding planner in all of Mexico.”
“She’s also the only wedding planner who didn’t have a wedding of her own,” Delilah noted. “Noontime at City Hall? Seriously, what kind of wedding is that?”
Her cheeks growing warm, Larissa reached up and entwined her fingers with the hand resting on her shoulder. She and Carlos got married right before their return. “I had everything that mattered.”
“And so do I,” Chloe said. “I’ve got the man of my dreams and my best friends. Tomorrow will be the icing on the cake as far as I’m concerned.” She giggled. “Sorry, La-Roo, did saying the word cake made your butt get bigger?”
“It did Delilah’s,” Simon said with a laugh. Before the brunette could retort, he gathered her in his arms and gave her a kiss. “And I love every inch.”
“You better,” she grumbled, kissing his nose.
“Ah, the sparkling cider is here.”
At Carlos’s announcement, a waitperson appeared bearing a tray with six glasses. “I thought we should have a toast to start the weekend,” he said.
“To the bride and groom,” Simon said, once the glasses were in hand.
“And good friends,” Ian added.
Chloe leaned over and gave him a kiss. “To family,” she corrected.
“No, to soul mates,” Delilah said.
Larissa looked at the people around the table. The six of them had endured a lot to find one another and now had nothing but lifetimes of happiness ahead of them. Who knew, when she walked into CMT Advertising four years ago, that a corporate orientation would bring her such enduring happiness? As far as she was concerned, the six of them shared one thing worth toasting above everything.
“To love,” she said raising her glass. “To love.”
* * * * *
Read on for an extract from A PRINCESS BY CHRISTMAS by Jennifer Faye.