Yours, For Good (Cozy Latine Billionaires #4)

27. Chapter 27

Chapter 27

Javier

Warmth and admiration hooked themselves at the edges of my angst. It was Gabe's parents' 40th anniversary party, and no one had stopped smiling for hours. All of us had been moved by the speech at the start, as well as Tío Raúl’s and Tía Sonia's displays of tender emotion. Now they walked away to spend time with people who cared for them and wanted to celebrate them, leaving their kids and our core group of friends together.

"This started on point!" Vi exclaimed. Her grin exuded joy as she took Jake's face and planted a kiss on him. "This night is going to be amazing."

Several muscles twisted at once in my chest. Probably my heart. If I saw things right, they might finally be together which meant… it meant…

"Excuse me?!" Max's question resounded with shock and excitement.

Vi's laughter exploded. "Your faces! Even better than Ryan and Stephanie. They tried so hard to be professional."

If I wasn't mistaken, Jake's chest puffed up.

"Fuck professionalism! This is huge!" Eva said. "I thought I saw you two being more touchy-feely, but I wasn't sure…"

"Can you kiss again?" Max frowned. "I'm second guessing myself."

"You were not mistaken—" Vi started, but Jake interrupted her with a sweet kiss.

My heart beat fast. One beat in happiness for my friends, one calling for Nora to be by my side, one for the misery of her absence. Boom boom boom, boom boom boom.

"FINALLY!" Max hugged Jake and Vi, not caring that it meant interrupting their kiss. "I'm so happy for you two."

His joy, contagious as always, was the only thing to unglue my feet from the ground. I patted Jake on the back. My face must have been showing my inner turmoil somehow, because he raised a worried brow my way.

Max's exuberance saved me from having to say anything. "How long has this been going on, and why did no one send a telegram to Laguna Island to let me know?"

Eva laughed at her husband's joke. Vi shook her head. I gulped. I didn't know what to do with all the feelings swirling around in my gut, in my chest, in my head; I'd known for years that this would happen. Only a few months earlier, I had been looking forward to it and at peace with the fact it left me the only single person in the group. I used to think it wasn't a big deal.

Flash forward to this lovely evening in May, and the fact came with agony stabbing a few of my organs.

"Could I have texted you?" Jake said to the group, mainly Max. "No. Vi and I agreed to keep it quiet until we were ready to tell you lot. Were there secondary benefits to keeping it quiet? Absolutely. Your shock was delicious."

Wait. They had… hidden it for a while? The way I hid something from Nora? But it had evidently worked out for them…

I needed to confirm. "So you hid it for a while?"

Vi nodded. "Since the gala. We needed privacy, but it did have its costs."

I rubbed my lips with two fingers. There were costs to how things had gone between Nora and I. In one of her letters she'd talked about not wanting to pay the price of love, with the pain that comes when it ends. How to make it all fit together?

Jake's arm went around Vi. "It's good now. Everyone we care about knows. We made it work."

I found that I would gladly pay the price myself, if it meant Nora forgave me and we could follow where all these feelings led us.

Vi smiled. "It might have been different if Jake and I hadn't been together on that. But we were, and we figured it out, and we told everyone the truth."

Nora said she'd been torn and unsure how to move forward, but was closer than ever to reconnect. Except she couldn't make any real choice if I continued to keep my deceit a secret.

"Fuck," I muttered, before covering my mouth with my hand.

I had always known it was wrong to hide all of who I was from Nora. Somehow, I fought so hard to accept I'd have to let her go because of what I kept from her, that I hadn't realized it didn't matter… I still had to tell her the truth.

A bucket of cold water dropped on me and ran down my spine. My blood turned to ice, and all temperature left me through my feet to the ground.

"You okay?" Jake asked.

My lungs struggled to work, but eventually words formed. "I fucked up, and I should come clean. Fuck."

"What happened?" Max frowned.

"I lied to someone I… I care about. I think. If how this feels—" I waved a hand in circles over my chest— "is any indication."

I swallowed with difficulty. My feelings for Nora were big and unfamiliar, and something I had expected to keep deep inside for no one to know. Still, these were my friends, and I couldn't lie to them, or deny my emotions.

"Someone you… care about?" Vi asked.

I pressed my eyes closed. "A… friend. I think. She… I hid something from her. Made a few bad choices."

So many bad choices, and I had to tell her everything. I may have warned her I hid something, hoping she decided she could live with it. If I kept it platonic, it could be okay, I thought.

Romantic or platonic didn't make a difference. Every time I chose not to tell her I disempowered her, and that wasn't the kind of friend I prided myself on being.

A good friend would tell her everything and give her the agency to do with the truth what she wanted. A good friend wouldn't ruin the party for his chosen family, either.

I ran my fingers through my hair and sighed. "It's complicated, but I should… own up to what I did."

Max patted my back. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No. Not at the party." I gazed at the ceiling. "But I'm going to need help on this one."

"Of course," Gabe said. "Whatever you need."

Max rubbed my shoulder and let go. "You helped me figure out things with Eva. Remember? We'll help you figure out things with… what's her name?"

I glanced sideways at my best friend. "Not the same situation as you and Eva. I didn't say anything about love."

Big feelings, yes. Love? I wouldn't know. I had never felt that before, and how could I get there just with letters? We'd barely spent a total of a week face to face in the near to a year since I received her first email.

Max's immediate grin was full of cheekiness. "I didn't either. But isn't it interesting that I talked about how you helped me, and I'll be happy to help you… and you thought of love for… what's her name again?"

My eyes narrowed, but Max's trick question pulled a small smile from my lips. "You're funny. I'll tell you another time."

A server walked by with a tray full of drinks. I took the first glass I could reach and gulped from the bubbly, clear liquid.

"Mh. Vodka soda. Perfect." I took another sip. "Now please return to the festivities. We're not here to chat about the mess I made."

My friends deserved a nice evening celebrating the people we all saw as parental figures. We had attended to honor them and spend quality time together. And I needed the time to rack my brains for a plan.

Vi gave me a friendly punch on the shoulder. "You kind of stole our thunder. What did you expect?"

"I did not do that," I said. "We're all thoroughly pleased and surprised. You are finally together!"

"You also suspected?" Jake asked.

"We all did." Gabe smirked. "You two were not as subtle as you thought you were."

My friends granted me the space I asked for and shifted the conversation. I managed to congratulate Jake again on finding what he'd been looking for, and bring my heart down to a more stable pace.

Yet all through dinner, the same thought intruded my mind.

Telling Nora everything would let her make a true choice… and it would likely push her away from me.

I sat alone at the small Remington Estate restaurant, only a mug of coffee in front of me. The core group of us had spent the night at the events venue for convenience; after a lovely party for Gabe's parents, it was a practical way to enjoy the elegant venue, and enjoy breakfast together with some of my favorite people.

Even though I drank more than I should have the night before, I remembered everything clearly. The sudden headache that attacked me that morning was better explained by my revelation more than alcohol, and I rubbed my eyebrows with stiff fingers.

It was like I was stuck in a loop reviewing the moment Jake and Vi kissed in front of everyone, and I realized I had to tell Nora everything.

"Good morning, my friend!" Max, full of energy and charismatic even first thing in the morning, pulled out a chair and sat next to me. "I'm delighted to find you all on your own."

I gave him weary eyes.

Eva sat next to her husband. "Beware, Javier. He's unusually cheerful this morning."

He grinned at his wife. "Oh, darling, I didn't think you minded? You certainly seemed to enjoy it half an hour ago when I did that thing you like—"

"Max!" She suppressed a smile. "Don't get distracted. Your friend needs you."

Max turned to me with a feline smile. "She's right. You look like you need an intervention."

"I'm good, actually," I said. "I know what I must do."

"You're not good." He leaned back on his chair and arched an eyebrow. "The amount of fucks you gave us last night was the first indication. The way you half-confessed to lying to a friend—"

"Technically I didn't lie." I sipped from my coffee while Max and Eva asked for their drinks, and Gabe and Lina joined us. "I never said anything false, I just omitted a few very important things."

"Lying by omission is not a lie in technicality only," Gabe said.

"I'm so glad we made it on time for this," Lina added.

I placed my mug carefully on the table. "Good morning to you, too."

Max frowned. "We should probably wait for Jake and Vi. They're going to want to be a part of this."

"I don't need an intervention," I tried again. "Like I said, I know what I must do."

I knew what my friends would say. That I had fucked up and needed to make it better. That I couldn't let it die as it was; that Nora deserved to have all the information, especially now that she wasn't beholden to me and the program. She deserved the opportunity to berate me and show me her feelings.

Even if I couldn't fix the past, I had to give her agency.

Max wasn't deterred by my reticence. "You may not need an intervention, but you said it last night. You need help with this one."

"You may know what to do," Gabe added, "but let us help you figure out how to do it."

"This person matters to you, right?" Lina asked.

I nodded but said nothing. If I tried to speak, I'd end up correcting the simple statement; mattering wasn't big enough a word to describe what I felt for Nora.

"Then that's more the reason not to try to figure things out on your own," she said.

I made a pattern on the tablecloth with a finger. Telling Nora the whole truth would mean owning my mistakes and accepting her response. My friends were the only people I trusted enough to give me a practice run… especially if they could give me advice afterwards.

With a deep sigh, I nodded again. Jake and Vi joined us, we ordered, and waited for the food and drinks to arrive.

Lacking my appetite, I didn't touch my simple meal of eggs and toast until I told them everything. How her letters had pulled me in, and how much I regretted her struggles. How the only thing I could make better was her loneliness, if only for a little while. How protecting the program meant hiding who I was from her, and the things I did once I met her. How the time we spent together changed something in me.

"Every time we share a room, I feel a little breathless." My voice hung heavy in the air. My confession wasn't difficult, now that I had started. "We get closer and closer, and holding on to the rules I set for myself is harder and harder."

My friends watched me with keen interest as I monologued. No one seemed to mind; in fact, they seemed enthralled. Under different circumstances, I might have enjoyed their bewilderment. As it was, all I could do was sigh.

"A couple months ago, she kissed me." I swallowed a hard gulp of coffee. "For the first time in ages, I've wanted to kiss someone— I kissed her back. Until I remembered why I shouldn't. I stopped it and in the confusion of it all, I explained I was hiding something that could make her change her mind about me. I haven't heard from her since… not as Javier, at least."

"So you didn't tell her?" Violeta asked.

I shook my head. "Not all of it. She was still living in my condo and financially dependent on me."

"But it sounds like it's not the case anymore?" Jake's eyes narrowed.

I shook my head again. "Recently she wrote to me as Mr. Smith to say she was letting him— me— letting Mr. Smith go. That she was torn about me— Javier— but wanted to reach out. I'm still waiting on her final letter, but this… goodbye process… it involves her paying me back. She has investors, she's moving out. She's not dependent on me at all. After last night, I realized I have to tell her everything and give her a chance to make choices with all the information. Even if that means hating me forever. I know that if I explain and ask her why I need her to keep my double identity private, she won't tell anyone the nature of the program that put her in my path."

"You think she'll hate you?" Gabe asked. "It would make sense if she's livid and hurt, but hating is a strong word."

"She could forgive you, too, eventually." Vi glanced at Jake. "Sometimes time is all you need."

"She could learn to trust you again." Eva's eyes were serious on me. In what seemed like an automatic move, she grabbed Max's hand on the table and squeezed. "If you show up consistently, and you're willing to give her what she needs to process, she'll believe you again when you say that you care and you want to stay in her life."

Max lifted her hand and kissed the back.

Lina kept her eyes on me. "It's the commitment to it that makes a difference. Let her see you trying and maybe she will forgive you. Maybe that leads to friendship, maybe to something else, but your job is to tell her and try ."

I gazed among the people I had chosen as my closest family and let their words settle into my worried heart. Eagerness and affection beamed at me from each of them. Gratitude for my friends lit up a furnace of love inside.

"What's her name?" Max's voice came out soft for once. "You haven't shared her name yet."

"I haven't?" I could hear the tightness in my throat. They would too, but that was all right. "Nora. She's… Nora."

Eleanora. Shining light .

"Are you going to try to make it better with Nora?" Max gazed at me with patience, his usual cheekiness subdued.

Making it better meant, at the very least, doing good by Nora. Giving her all the pieces of the puzzle, and letting her do what she wanted with the resulting landscape.

Maybe she'd swipe it off the table and let the wrecked image lay astray on the floor. Maybe she'd put it in a frame and take care of it. Whatever she did, I could do my part.

"I'm going to try," I said.

Max grinned. "Then all we need is a plan."