Yes, it was, Alejandro reminded himself, despite his unease. He was all for Anamaría expanding her business, pleased he’d be helping her do that today. But he wasn’t exactly interested in watching her “combine” with the golden boy surfer turned Iron Man triathlete who had been splashed across the cover of Men’s Health with his surfboard last year.
From what Sara had shared over the phone yesterday, and Alejandro’s own poking around the internet had confirmed, Brandon was considered by many to be a stand-up guy who took his personal training and work seriously. However, he also knew how to have a good time, usually with an equally fit, strikingly beautiful woman on his arm.
The thought of Anamaría becoming the next Brandon Lawson “it” girl had Alejandro squeezing his Canon in a death grip. Just as quickly as his jealousy reared its green-eyed head, though, he realized the folly of his reaction.
Anamaría was smart enough not to fall for a player, if that’s what Brandon turned out to be. And if his good-guy reputation proved legit, then he was a better man than Ale was.
Either way, his pride and joy did not deserve to be manhandled in petty anger. This camera had gifted him with moments and memories that aided him in forgetting others that haunted him.
Accomplishments like nabbing the National Geographic cover last fall with the elephant sanctuary series that Lulu had marveled over while cuddling on his lap. Meaningful experiences like befriending the Costa Rican villagers who welcomed him into their homes and shared the humility and spiritual meaning behind their simple way of life via the article in AFAR magazine.
His momentous trip to Cuba, where he had connected with familia he’d never known, walked the streets where his abuelos had lived and loved, and visited his father’s childhood home.
“Let me grab your wheelchair, and we can head down the pier.” Sara pushed open the driver’s side door and grabbed her woven shoulder bag off the console.
“We can leave it. I’ll be fine using the crutches.”
The look she shot him over her shoulder clearly screamed, Yeah, right!
“Really, I’m good,” he assured her.
Sara bent down to peer back into the car at him. “Your mom and my future mother-in-law will not let me hear the end of it if you overdo things today. I’m not chancing that. Not to mention Anamaría already warned me to stay on guard if you’re tiring or show any sign of discomfort. So, I’ll wheel you down the pier and you can switch to crutches if you need to once we get started.”
“Scary how quickly a Cuban mami can have you bending to her will, even when she’s not around. Isn’t it?”
“My Mexican nanny could give them a run for their money. I miss her every day she’s been gone. Word to the wise, be thankful for your mom, even when she’s pestering you.” With a raised brow, I- know-what-I’m-talking-about look at him, Sara closed her door and moved around to the back hatch where she had stored his wheelchair.
Moments later, the bag with his backup Canon and several lenses rested on his lap as Sara pushed him past the African Cemetery commemorating the enslaved men, women, and children who lost their lives in 1860, then through the AIDS Memorial that ushered visitors onto the long pier.
Out on the water, the sun floated like a big beach ball bobbing on the horizon, bleeding varying shades of orange and red across a sky dressed in hues from the purple and blue spokes of the color wheel.
“Anamaría and Brandon should be here any minute,” Sara told him. “I asked her to pick him up this morning, so that you and I could have a little more time to chat. Without her.”
The wary note in Sara’s voice had Alejandro angling sideways to peer up at her over the frames of his Carreras.
“Here’s the thing,” she said. “This is AM’s first major sponsorship. None of us . . . Luis, Enrique, Carlos, Gina, and I—”
¡Carajo! His gut clenched as she rattled off the names of all the Navarro siblings and Carlos’s wife, apparently all in group force mode with Sara as their spokesperson.
The pan tostado con huevo his mami had insisted he choke down before leaving the house, despite his assurances that he usually ate something lighter than the toasted Cuban bread and fried eggs before a shoot, settled like a rock in his stomach.
“—none of us want your involvement to derail her,” Sara continued, “or the positive step that today should represent for her and AM Fitness. Enrique assures us that you wouldn’t. Frankly, his threat to kick your ass if you hurt her holds little weight given your current condition.”
“I’d still take him,” Alejandro complained, settling into the wheelchair’s backrest with a huff.
Sara actually laughed, as if he were joking. “I’m not getting in the middle of your male posturing. It happens often enough with Luis and his brothers. Anyway, Anamaría seems to think the two of you have buried the proverbial hatchet. And Luis . . .” Sara stopped pushing the wheelchair and looked down at him, a big sister’s concerned warning in her serious expression. “Well, I’m sure you remember how protective Luis is of his loved ones. The same goes with me.”
Alejandro nodded, coming to see why Anamaría was a fan of her soon-to-be sister-in-law. Sara had her back, like all the Navarros did for each other.
“I assure you,” he told Sara, “there’s nothing to worry about on my end. Enrique might talk a lot of crap about a lot of things, but he’s right about one, I want what’s best for Anamaría. Happy to have my Canon in my hands again. So, in the butchered words of Lebron James when he shocked the world and thrilled everyone in the 305 area by joining the Miami Heat, ‘I’m taking my talents to Higgs Beach’ with the intent on using my skills to help team AM Fitness. You have my word.”
The friendly smile he recognized from the pics on Sara’s Instagram feed greeted his promise. “Good answer. It makes my job as protector much easier.”
“She doesn’t need protecting from me.” Hell, after yesterday, he was beginning to think it was him who needed protecting from her.
I’ve missed you. Shit, he still couldn’t believe he’d dropped that stink bomb after she linebacker tackled him and nearly knocked him on his ass on the front porch.
Worse, his loose-lips admission hadn’t even fazed her.
He, on the other hand, had fallen asleep and woken up thinking about the curve of her butt cheek cradled perfectly in his palm. Her full breasts cushioned against his chest. Her breath warm on his neck and the familiar, citrusy scent of her shampoo teasing his memories. His body so hard and ready and aching, no amount of alone time in the shower could satisfy him.
Tack on the idiocy of him waxing poetic as if he’d been pining for her all this time. Thought I caught a whiff of it once at an open-air market . . . qué carajo era eso?
Lust short-circuiting his brain. That’s what the hell that was.
“If you ask me, you two have some unfinished business,” Sara said.
Alejandro blinked with surprise at her conclusion. Relieved his sunglasses hid the truth—he agreed with her.
“But we’re all professionals here,” she continued, not waiting for his response to her prediction about him and Anamaría. “Luis also reminded us that we’ve all made stupid decisions in the past, himself included.”