Sleeping with the Frenemy (Vega Family Love Stories #3)

Chapter 1

1

One Year, Seven Months, One Week, and Three Days Later

As a strong believer that sleep was a form of self-care, Sofia Maria Rosario Santana hated being woken up. She especially hated being woken up at the butt crack of dawn by the sounds of La India belting out how the perfect revenge on the woman who stole her man was to let her keep his trifling ass. It had been the soundtrack of her Saturday mornings from birth to age eighteen when she moved into her own place. Now here she was at age thirty, back to doing her best to ignore her mother, who was purposely and passive-aggressively making enough noise to get Sofi out of bed.

Sofi lifted her head from her pillow, sat up, and glared over the back of the couch in the direction of the kitchen. The two women in the kitchen didn’t notice at all. They were too busy screeching along, dancing, and cleaning various things. Her mom, Alicia, had her special cleaning gloves on as she shook her hips from side to side and scrubbed at the counter. Her grandmother, Josefina, was salsa dancing with the broom in her hand instead of sweeping.

It was clear that neither one of them had any idea how much jet lag kicked your ass. Sofi had only just arrived home from France the previous evening. She hadn’t been able to sleep, so she’d stayed up thinking about everything she had to do before falling into a stress-filled and unrestful snooze.

Abuela Fina did a complicated spin move with the broom which led her to catching sight of Sofi sitting up on the couch. “Buenos dias, negrita.” She took in Sofi’s irritated expression. “?Qué te pasa?”

Did she really just ask what was wrong with her? As if the fact that she had to yell her question over the music wasn’t answer enough. “Do you have any idea how little sleep I got?” Sofi yelled back.

Her mom looked summarily unconcerned as she used a small remote to lower the volume of her monstrous stereo. “That’s on you. Who told you to stay up all night?”

“That’s not fair. There’s a seven-hour time difference between Chicago and Paris.”

“If life was fair, my new apartment would be on Star Island in Miami and Maluma would be my new neighbor,” Abuela Fina quipped.

Sofi knew her Abuela Fina was not exactly happy to be back on the mainland instead of on her beloved island of Puerto Rico. She was even less happy about being in a place that experienced cold weather, but they hadn’t exactly given her a choice. Sofi would never forget the days after Hurricane Maria when they couldn’t get a hold of Abuela; the gnawing fear that prevented her and her mom from eating or sleeping, that had them both planning an emergency trip to go find her themselves if they had to. By the grace of some higher power, Abuela had been safe at home and her home had received minor wind and flood damage compared to some of her neighbors. But then the earthquakes began, the power grid became even more unreliable thanks to fucking Luma, and rolling blackouts continued to affect the island. Not to mention all of the other shady-ass shenanigans the island and US government continued to subject the Puerto Rican people to. As sad as it had been for them all, they’d had to make the tough decision to bring her to Chicago, where they would be right there to help her with anything she needed.

“Maluma? He’s like thirty or something,” Sofi said.

“?Y qué? Maybe I’m a cheetah.”

Sofi and her mom looked at each other in confusion. “A what?”

“A cheetah. You know, one of those fast women who hunt for younger men.”

Sofi laughed while her mom just shook her head. “Ay, Mai. It’s a cougar not a cheetah.”

“Nah,” Sofi shook her head. “Maluma is my age. That makes Abuela a straight-up saber-toothed tiger.”

“?Qué es eso?” Abuela asked. Then gave Sofi a dirty look when her mom translated. “Ya veo que amaneciste bien lucia hoy.” She lifted the broom and acted like she was going to whack Sofi with it.

Mami grabbed the broom from Abuela Fina before she could make contact, but never took her eyes off her only child. “Go wash your ass instead of sitting there being lazy,” she told Sofi. “You were talking about all the things you need to do, so hop to it.”

“And here I thought you two missed me so much that you’d be nice to me for at least a day or so,” Sofi said as she got up and began gathering the pillows and sheet from the couch.

Abuela Fina exclaimed, “Ay bendito. Of course we missed you.” She rushed Sofi and wrapped her in a hug.

Meanwhile her mom rolled her eyes. “Melodramaticas.” As a trauma nurse for over twenty years, her mother was an expert at maintaining a level head. It was something she’d obviously gotten from her dad since Abuela Fina was the most over-the-top person either one of them had ever known. Sofi was nowhere near as dramatic as her grandmother, but she wasn’t as zen as her mom either.

“Let me go to the bathroom and then I’ll help you clean,” Sofi told her mom.

Mami waved her off. “We don’t have much. Besides you have important things to do today, one of which is to find out what is happening with this new apartment you were supposed to get.”

She’d get around to that, but her mom was right. That was only one of the things she had to do and, compared to number one on her to-do list, it was the easiest. “Are you sure you don’t need my help?” she asked.

Mami gave her a look that told Sofi she knew exactly what she was doing. “Go take care of your business,” she said. “You’ve put it off long enough.”

“Fine,” Sofi huffed before she stalked off to get ready for the day. Which was how, an hour and a half later, she found herself standing outside the last place she wanted to be—El Coquí.

Sofi took a deep breath and stepped through the doors of a place so familiar to her that it had basically been her second home. Except just like every facet of her life at the moment, it was just different enough for her to notice and feel awkward.

She’d been one of the main people helping when Kamilah gave El Coquí its facelift, despite her aversion to physical labor and getting dirty, yet somehow she’d completely forgotten everything they’d done. It was still bright, loud, and chaotic, but in a totally different way. In a way that was supposed to be welcoming, but just kept reminding Sofi how much had changed.

Liam spotted her first. He stood behind the bar holding multiple bottles in his hands. He gave her a thorough once-over and quirked one brow at her. Kamilah had always possessed the ability to interpret his looks as if they were captions on a TV. Sofi didn’t usually have that gift, but in this instance she knew exactly what he was saying. Well, well, well. Look who we have here. Followed quickly by a watch yourself . He opened his mouth to say something Sofi couldn’t hear at such a distance and suddenly a head popped up right next to him.

Kamilah stared at her with wide eyes, her jaw practically resting on her chest.

Sofi took a few steps forward. She had no idea what to say, so she went with her usual snark. “Do I want to know what you were doing back there?”

Liam crossed his arms. “Is that really the first thing you’re going to say to her after a year and a half?”

“Seven months,” Kamilah muttered just loud enough for them to hear.

“What?” he asked.

Kamilah cleared her throat, still eyeing Sofi warily like she was a gator sunbathing in her backyard. “It’s been a year and seven months. A little more than that actually.” The pain was evident in her voice. Her eyes started to glisten.

Sofi felt like she’d been kicked in the chest. She’d always known that her distance had hurt Kamilah, they’d been so close for so long, but she’d assumed most of the pain had been on her end. Looking at Kamilah now, she wasn’t so sure. “Hey, girl, can we talk?”

“For sure,” Kamilah said immediately. She moved forward, but Liam’s arm shot out to block her.

“Mila,” he murmured, turning her away and pulling her close. He lowered his head and started whispering in her ear.

Kamilah was nodding and murmuring back.

Sofi was struck by the image they made. The way Liam was hunched over her and wrapped around her as if to cover her and protect her with his very being and the way that Kamilah leaned her weight against him but also met his gaze steadily. They were very obviously in love but not only that, they were a unit.

Sofi ignored the sting of jealousy she felt. She’d told herself long ago that being salty was not a good look for her and she wasn’t going to do it anymore.

Kamilah lifted onto her toes and planted a kiss on Liam’s lips effectively ending their conversation. “I’ll be fine,” she told him. “Just lock the front door for me so I don’t have to worry while I’m in the office.”

She walked out from behind the bar and motioned for Sofi to follow her to the office in the kitchen.

Sofi couldn’t help but note the confidence in Kamilah’s stride. She used to come across like one of those small dogs that always shook with nervous energy, but she now exuded a comfort in her own skin and the confidence of a woman secure in her place. It was almost emotional to see. Sofi rubbed a hand on her chest absently.

Kamilah stopped right past the swinging doors that led to the kitchen. “I forgot to ask, do you want something to drink before we go into my office? I have some jugo de parcha that I made yesterday.” She knew that Sofi loved passion fruit.

“No. I’m good. Thanks,” Sofi said, feeling even more awkward. Since when did they talk to each other like this? Like polite strangers who were still trying to figure out what the other one wanted.

“Okay. Then I guess we can just head in.” She opened the door to the office that used to belong to her father.

Sofi sucked in a breath. She was used to it being a dark and windowless place full of heavy furniture, including a huge desk, perpetually cluttered with papers and that housed an old-ass computer. It was completely different now. While there were still no windows, the office was bright. Gone was the dingy tan paint on the walls. In its place was a crisp white with the exception of the far wall which was covered floor to ceiling in a tropical print wallpaper featuring different kinds of huge leaves in various shades of green, bright hibiscus flowers in coral, orange, and cream, and golden yellow pineapples. All of the heavy dark furniture was gone, leaving a long but simple white desk in the middle of the room with a brand-new computer and no clutter. There was a built-in storage unit against one wall and a small seating area featuring two wicker chairs along the other.

Kamilah sat in one chair and Sofi sat in the other.

It was clear that Kamilah had a man she loved and trusted, a business she was killing at running, and a place she felt safe and happy in. Meanwhile, Sofi still couldn’t figure out what she wanted out of life. It was as if their roles had suddenly switched.

Sofi shifted in her seat. She had no idea how to start, but opened her mouth to try her best. Except Kamilah spoke first.

“I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am for lying to you,” she began, her golden brown eyes earnest. “It was a lie I never should’ve told and I especially shouldn’t have held on to that secret for as long as I did. You were right when you said that I probably never would’ve told the truth if it hadn’t come out on its own.” She gulped. “I was a coward and I chose to tell lies in order to avoid facing the truth. I hurt you with my selfish actions and I’m sorry for that. Truly. You’ve never been anything but supportive and amazing and I took advantage of that.” She paused and sucked in a much-needed breath.

It seemed that not everything had changed. Kamilah still had the tendency to throw words out in tangled clusters.

Sofi held up a hand before Kamilah could start in on more apologies. “I know my reaction seemed extreme and I finally realized that you deserve to know why.”

Kamilah’s head tilted to the side and her brow furrowed. “I know how you are. You value honesty over anything else and I wasn’t honest with you.”

Sofi winced. “Yeah that’s not exactly it.” She took a breath to brace herself. “There are a lot of things you don’t know, because I wasn’t honest with you either. At least not completely.”

“What do you mean?”

Sofi looked at her hands. “I told you that I decided not to pursue nursing anymore because I wanted to actually make money. I didn’t want to be living paycheck to paycheck like my mom and all stressed.”

“Yes,” Kamilah nodded.

“That’s not the whole story. It’s true that when you didn’t go to Paris, my mom begged me not to go, because she didn’t think I would survive without you. She always considered you the grounded one.”

“If only she knew what a mess I really am.”

Sofi shook her head. “No, you aren’t a mess. You’re a go-getter and an optimist. You’re willing to take chances on your ideas, no matter how impractical, because you honestly believe that it will work out in the end.” Sofi motioned around them. “And it has.”

“Not completely. I lost my best friend because of my tendency to leap first and ask questions later.”

“Listen, that was mostly on me. The truth is that I didn’t have any backup schools like you did, so when we didn’t go to Paris, I had nothing to fall back on. I was panicked. Then my dad stepped in.”

Kamilah sucked in a breath. She knew what that meant for Sofi, who’d never had the best relationship with her dad.

“He said that if I went to school for business, with the understanding that I’d stay working with him, he’d get me into school and pay for it,” Sofi continued. “All four years if not more. It turned out that he’d made friends with a member of a certain university’s board after working on a campaign with them.

“It just made sense for me to agree. I mean what the hell else was I going to do?” Sofi asked. “Get some dead-end part-time job that would stress me out, exhaust me, and keep me broke? Some shithole I’d get stuck in working my ass off only to be putting the real money in someone else’s pocket? I refused to be just like every other uneducated brown daughter of a poor single mother.”

“Oh, Sofi.” Kamilah shook her head. “There is nothing wrong with being a hard worker and there is nothing wrong with coming from a single parent home. There is nothing that says that your origin dictates where you end up in life.” It was a conversation they’d had many times in the past, but Kamilah didn’t really get it.

She came from a two-parent home where her siblings all had the same parents. And sure, she had her tan skin, curly hair, and curvy body, but Kamilah was still mostly European.

Sofi was the Black daughter of a biracial Afro-Latina who had been wined and dined by a charming rich man until he kicked her to the curb and left her with nothing. From as long as she could remember, assumptions about Sofi’s future had been made by everyone who knew her upbringing. She obviously wasn’t going to amount to much because, sure she was pretty, but that was all she had going for her. She’d end up as some guy’s arm candy and if she was smart, she’d figure out how to cash in on that. Otherwise she’d be a formerly beautiful woman whose looks faded because she’d been forced to toil just to stay poor—like her mother. At least that’s what her father had told her when she’d won her final beauty pageant.

Sofi had refused to let that happen to her. Not on her fucking watch. There was no fucking way.

“Anyway,” Sofi continued. “I had no choice but to take him up on his offer which is how I’ve ended up there, stuck.”

“I thought you loved your job,” Kamilah said.

“I wanted you to think so. I wanted everyone to think so. But hearing that I went through all of that because of a lie you told to your family...” She paused and shook her head. “It made me mad. I was mad for a while. Then the sense of betrayal and injustice kicked in. Especially after I heard that you and Liam worked it out and got engaged for real, and you fixed things with your family while also getting ownership of the restaurant. Everything worked out for you, but I’m still dealing with the fallout.”

“I can imagine that it felt like having salt poured in an open wound.”

Especially after Leo had made it clear he was on his sister’s side. Sofi had felt like she’d been betrayed by her best friend (one of the very few people she’d trusted), stuck in a job she hated because she was indebted to the very last person she wanted to feel any obligation toward, and without a love because the man she wanted to be with felt more loyalty to his manipulative family than he did toward her. “I was bitter,” Sofi admitted. “I was so bitter, and it took me a while to figure out that instead of feeling some type of way toward you, I needed to look more at myself. I was the one who ultimately made those choices. I can’t blame that on you.”

“Is that why you left? You went on a journey to find yourself.”

Sofi nodded. “I wanted to see the things I felt like I’d missed out on, and I hoped that I’d gain some sort of clarity.”

“Did you?”

Not really. She’d figured out that she didn’t want to continue on the path she was on and had a very vague idea about what she might want going forward. But it was all still very nebulous. “I’m still working on that.”

“And how do you feel about me now?”

“Honestly? I think a part of me is still raw, but I mostly just miss my friend.”

Kamilah’s eyes went bright and wet. “I miss my friend too. Every single day there is something I want to tell you because I know that only you would get it. Then I remember that I can’t and it hurts. It hurts like when I remember that I can’t just stop upstairs and talk to my abuela or step into the distillery and bicker with Killian.”

Sofi understood how losing Liam’s grandfather would hurt Kamilah. Not a day went by that she didn’t wish she could talk to her tío Manny or her abuelo Juan. There had already been more people-sized holes in her heart than any one person needed to have, adding a Kamilah-sized one had almost taken her out. “I’m sorry for your loss. I know how much you loved Killian.”

“Thank you.” Kamilah gave her a sad smile. “We’re still getting used to it. Some days are better than others.”

“I know. I get it.” Sofi, her mom, and Abuela Fina still had bad days in regards to Tío Manny and Abuelo Juan and it had been over a decade since their fatal car crash.

“I want to be friends again,” Sofi said. “I don’t think it will ever be the same, but I hope it can be better even if it’s different.”

“I want that too,” Kamilah said. She reached out a hand like she was going to grab Sofi’s but she stopped. It was clear that she was unsure of whether or not they were back at the physical affection stage. Kamilah thrived on physical affection. She was always hugging, kissing, and caressing her loved ones. It hurt to see her unsure of her welcome.

Sofi reached over and pulled Kamilah into a hug.

Kamilah wrapped her arms around Sofi and squeezed with all of her might. “It’s already different because now we both know the truth. There are no more secrets.”

Right.

Except there was one. One big secret Sofi knew she had to tell Kamilah, especially now. It was the perfect moment, but she didn’t know how. Did she just open her mouth and say, Oh, and since we’re being honest I should probably tell you that I pretty much dated your brother on and off since I was fifteen. That would go over like gangbusters.

No. Things were still too tentative between them. She needed to understand this new Kamilah better. Then she’d know how to break the news in a way that didn’t completely obliterate any chance they had to rebuild their friendship.

“I just want you to know that I value this friendship,” Sofi told her. “I want to fix it.”

“Sofi, we don’t have a friendship. You’ve been family since the day we met. Nothing changed on that front. I’m just working on being better at recognizing and vocalizing my needs and intentions and accepting that when I fail it’s not the end of the world. It’s helping me be a more honest and straightforward communicator, which I know is a trait you really value.”

Oh God. Please stop , Sofi thought desperately. She was making everything better and worse at the same time. She was saying everything that Sofi needed to hear to know that she’d made the right choice in coming, but she was making Sofi feel guilty as shit too. I’ll tell her soon , she promised herself. Besides, it’s not like there is anything between me and Leo now, so it can wait a little bit. That thought helped slow the steeping of guilt a little bit.

Kamilah wiped at her wet eyes. “Okay, no more sad stuff. Today is a happy day. I have my best friend back and she has tons of amazing stories about her Emily in Paris year abroad.”

Sofi snorted. “Please. When I wasn’t working, I mostly just ate, explored, and shopped.”

“Did you buy that outfit overseas, because that is cute as hell.” Kamilah took in Sofi’s bright yellow matching skort and crop top set with a tropical plant print including pink birds of paradise flowers and deep green leaves.

“I did.” Sofi spun so that Kamilah could see it in all its glory. “It gives me ’90s vibes and I love it.”

Kamilah made a chef’s kiss gesture. “And we all know that yellow was created for brown skin.”

“Yes, hunnie.”

They both smiled at each other.

On the desk her Apple desktop started to ring loudly. Kamilah pulled her vibrating iPhone out of her pocket. She looked down, read the screen, and hit the accept button quickly. “This is the reception venue. I gotta take this. Don’t go anywhere.” She stood and faced the wall as she answered. She listened to whoever was on the other line and then suddenly gasped and collapsed.