Yours, For Good (Cozy Latine Billionaires #4)

39. Chapter 39

Chapter 39

Nora

As soon as I told Javier we had ten days to figure it out, he jumped into action. Hoping I'd stay the night, he gave me his phone with an app open and told me to choose a few things. His clothes wouldn't fit me— the shirt he let me borrow stretched over my curves and with his narrow hips, even his loosest pants wouldn't go up my thighs. I picked a simple set of clothes for the night.

He frowned at the phone when I gave it back. "Mmh. Let's see what else we can get. Algorithm, do your magic."

He explained he funded the app as one of his initiatives, paying everyone in the production chain an above-fair wage. Apparently, the algorithm suggested new items according to your selections, and he filled the cart with what he called a few basics . According to him, I hadn't chosen near enough clothes, and five bags packed full made an appearance an hour later.

While I took a shower and changed into some of the clothes we'd chosen, he'd been busy cooking and planning the next few days. That included texts and emails to a few people, one of which translated to an urgent request to his designer: setting up a temporary office for me, in an empty room of his house, within a couple of days.

"Whether you use it or not," he said over arroz primavera, a quick dish he'd learned from the Sotomayors, "it's there. We'll make it exactly what you want… if you want."

I squinted at him, hearing the promise hidden in his words.

I didn't think of that when we went to bed, and got busy before falling asleep in each other's arms. Or after having a quickie the next morning, before I rushed back to my hotel. I changed clothes and arrived at my first meeting right on time.

I had a text from him when I took a break.

Javier : let me know when you have a minute? If you're not having lunch with anybody we can fix that.

Nora : I will have lunch with Julia and Sally, actually.

Javier : I probably shouldn't join you

Nora : imagine Julia's face, though.

Javier : I can't wait to see it one day, but you should have time with your friends without my distraction.

Nora : Sweet of you to offer, though.

Javier : Will I see you tonight?

Nora : Should I bother pretending I'll go back to my hotel room at all?

Javier : If it's up to me, you shouldn't. But you tell me…

I picked up my things and checked out on my way back to Javier's place.

Over dinner that night, he invited me to spend the weekend with his best friend group.

"They would love to meet you," Javier said over another meal he made himself.

He insisted he wasn't much of a cook, but the pasta and greens bathed in shrimp piccata begged to differ.

"I would love you to meet them, too," he added.

I chewed on a lemony, buttery mouthful and tried to hide my nerves at the idea. "I would have to move a few meetings…"

He filled my glass with more white wine. "Can you do that? Would you?"

He moved to his own glass, and I took my glass in my hands. The JGH event had been on a Tuesday, and the weekend was still a few days away.

I took a sip. "Did you have this weekend already planned? You hadn't mentioned it."

"No. I sent an emergency call to the chat group. They're moving previous commitments around to make it."

I sighed and took my fork in my hand again. "I don't know. It feels… big. It's big, isn't it?"

"I've been told it's big, but I don't know." He arched an eyebrow in a suggestive manner. "Why don't you tell me?"

I snorted and ignored the innuendo. "Anyway. Your friends. This would be the first time I'm meeting someone's family like this. Not that I don't know your family-family— but I met them back when we weren't— a thing. Your friends strike me as a bigger deal than your family, somehow. They're special to you and…" I sighed. "I never thought I'd go through this."

He held my hand across the table. "We can do it together. I never thought I'd do this either."

"You've said a couple of times that you never expected to be with anyone again."

"And I told my friends that a million times. They'll be too busy teasing me for it, and trying to make you feel comfortable, for this to go wrong."

A smile pulled from my lips. "They will tease you?"

"Oh, for sure. It'll help take the pressure away from us and put it on me."

"It's probably a bit mean of me to look forward to that."

He laughed. "Come to the lake house with me. It would mean a lot and I promise you… if you're ever uncomfortable, you just need to say a word and we'll leave. But, if you want to see the real me, that's our best bet."

We ended up being the first ones to arrive at the lake house. He showed me around and I didn't bother hiding my awe at the place.

The main common area was a dream. A huge fireplace grounded the space, a stone wonder that served as a backbone to the large logs set as walls. Sofas and armchairs surrounded the hearth, promising the warmth of fire and good company. Expensive as they seemed, the throws and cushions appeared well loved, and I could imagine they had witnessed hours of conversation.

At the other end of the grand room, a twelve-place table, and a modern kitchen with white stone surfaces, white cupboards, and bronze details.

Across the large windows, a deck wrapped around the property and overlooked the lake. That's where Javier convinced me to go for a swim with him.

"It's a hot day," he said.

"I don't know…" I hesitated. "The water and I are not the best of friends."

"I'll be there. It's going to be okay."

I relented and we changed into our bathing suits; mine was one of his gifts, a two-piece that looked like a contemporary version of a 50s set, with a halter top printed with lemons and leaves, and bottoms in the same tone of green.

He led me to the dock, down a winding road flanked by trees and peppered with large rocks. Once at the end of the wooden structure, we kicked off our shoes.

"It's beautiful out here, too," I said.

Trees surrounded the shore, except for where rocky cliffs dropped sharply into the water. The lake was big enough for boats, and a couple of those floated away closer to the other end. The water was deep blue, and my stomach fluttered wondering if the lake was as bottomless as it seemed.

I peered carefully into the water, but Javier distracted me with a hand behind my back and a kiss on my face.

"I love it here." He kept the position, gazing down at my eyes and close to my side, his hand on my back. Like we might be posing for a picture to be published on the social pages of a New York newspaper. "I have many happy memories here. Should we make some of our own?"

I kissed him and let him go into the water first. He dove into it like a professional, to come out several moments later with a big smile.

"The water feels amazing." He ran a hand through his wet hair, pulling it back in a casual, sexy move. His eyes studied me carefully. "You look gorgeous there, but you'd still look gorgeous here in my arms."

Wings fluttered in my stomach. A smile appeared on my lips. Javier seemed to be getting better at flirting with me, and I liked it, too.

"I don't know how to swim, remember?" I said. "I can't dive like you did."

He treaded water as he watched me. "There's a ladder to the side, and some rock formations there under the water where you can stand."

I peeked and found the ladder, yet I hesitated.

With some kind of breast stroke, he approached the side and, casually, climbed up the ladder.

The muscles of his shoulders and arms popped. Water dripped down his skin, droplets glistening in the summer sun. His hair looked darker and his eyes, always a cool blue, seemed as warm as the wind playing with my hair.

Without coming fully up into the dock, he stretched forward asking for a kiss. There was something very Romeo at Juliet's balcony about it, and it melted me like wax on fire.

I bent down and gave him the kiss he asked for, hands on his face.

"Join me in the water, Nora. Let me hold you and keep you safe. Maybe cop a feel and laugh with you about it. I'll stand firmly in place on the granite bottom, and let you rely on me until you learn to float. I'll teach you."

My heart quickened, and not only from the prospect of getting in the lake. Javier's eyes held the same keen determination he'd had for weeks, and the patience he'd promised me held steady in the space between us.

"I'll be right here next to you," he added. A knowing smile tilted his lips. "You can trust me."

He meant it for now in the water, and the rest of our lives if I dared.

I kissed him again. "Okay. Let me come down."

He jumped back in the water and helped me into it; he didn't make a comment of my gasp as I got used to the cold, or how I clung to him despite touching the bottom. I had to stay on the tip of my feet to keep my neck out of the water, and what seemed like undercurrents swayed me in place. With my hands on Javier's shoulders and his hands on my waist, I'd remain anchored.

"Take a minute," he said. "Relax. Feel how much lighter it seems here. The cool of the water protecting us from the heat."

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I did as he said.

"You're okay. You can enjoy it." He kissed my face, my chin, my lips. "I'm right here."

I sighed. "It does help."

"You can trust me," he said again.

A reticent smile took over my lips. "This is nice, and you are keeping me grounded."

"Are those the right things I should be doing?"

I nodded. This time, I let him see my full grin. "Keep me close."

I let go of his shoulders; the gentle undercurrents shifted me against him, our skin slick from sunblock and water. Yet he kept a firm grip on me and kept me close.

I extended my arms to my sides, and treaded water as I watched him. He searched my eyes, tracking my every gesture.

Tenderness for him echoed the movement of the water around us, and how it drove the small waves breaking on the shore. It rocked me the same way the lake did.

I must have shown some of it on my face. Javier surrounded me in his arms, bringing me even closer, until I rested my body on the length of his. His hands splayed on my back.

He gave me a tentative, languid kiss. The soft, warm feeling in my chest expanded. When it reached the parts of my brain that put words into my thoughts, translating emotions into labels seemed easy for once.

I cherished Javier. The past few days playing pretend, like we were a couple ready to establish long term love, were easy to believe. Yet they required courage like I didn't know I had.

Even if our feelings never changed, he hurt me, and we were still working through it. Magical dancing and sweet nights together aside, a few days in New York didn't guarantee a happily ever after for us.

New feelings joined the mix and swirled inside; they pulled from the heightened emotions from the past couple of weeks. Amidst everything, a whisper of truth: I wanted a happily ever after with Javier. It coiled at the base of my spine, springing up my backbone and entwining with it like ivy up a wall. Every new leaf sprout came to life with a twinge in my lungs, making me breathless.

Anger and hurt still lurked in the shadows. Going forward despite it all terrified me.

I opened my eyes to find Javier's focus razor-sharp on me.

"Tell me what's on your mind," he whispered. "Let me in, please."

"Are you scared at all?"

The question fell from my lips in a whisper, vulnerable and raw in my heart. Javier's eyes turned as serious as they've ever been.

"I'm afraid," he said, "but not the way you are, I don't think. I'm not worried about what happens in a year or ten. I'm worried about not getting a chance to build something today— that you'll leave New York and whatever we have won't feel like enough to say, yes. I forgive him."

"But you hadn't been searching for this feeling either, right? You thought you'd be alone, just like I did— romance-wise. How did you get here?"

He frowned, concentration on his face. It took him a moment to put his thoughts together and, when he finally spoke, his voice came with confidence. It helped.

"No, I wasn't looking for romance, but…" two of his fingers traced patterns on my back, while his eyes remained on mine. "The words that rush from your mouth when you're excited, or how you let your laughter be sudden and loud. The random thoughts you had to put in parenthesis in your letters because they had to make it in somehow. How you went around the world in books and using a search engine. How you wouldn't let anything stop you, not even the pessimism you poked at in me until it was gone… you are a force powerful enough to move someone stuck in their ways like me. When a smile like yours shines on a cynical heart like mine…"

His murmured statements filled my heart like it were a bucket, firing it up, shifting its pattern forever. A big part of me believed him, despite my fears. It opened a door to the possibility of us and, on the horizon, a glittering mirage of what could be.

I ran my hands up and down his biceps and opened my soul to his words.

"You have changed me." He squeezed me in his arms, and started a slow circle in the water. My legs floated behind me, making me feel like I was flying. "I couldn't go back to how things were even if I wanted to and, Nora? I wouldn't want to go back."

He kept the motion in the water, taking me on a trip through the clouds somehow. He kissed me, softly, for several moments, and I let myself dream.

Cheek to cheek now, he persisted on the slow twister we created in the lake. "I believe in that future because it's all I see. I can't imagine anything else because I wouldn't fight for anything else. All I need is you wanting the same thing."

"It's hard to hold on to love," I admitted. Using the L word may have been a bad idea, but it was what we would build toward if we stayed together. "Being loved by someone doesn't mean their love is ours. It's not gifted to us. We borrow it, and we need to take care of it, nourish it, or it will go away. Even then, sometimes… it just goes."

"I may not be an expert in matters of the heart but, if love for a partner is anything like the love I feel for my friends, it doesn't just go."

"But it requires care and trust and…"

"Yes, and do you think we can build that?" His brow wrinkled with the intensity of his plea. "That's what I want for us."

"And when it ends…?"

"I have to imagine we'll live a long life. There's no point imagining we won't— though I understand why you do. Losing your mom like that…"

"Everything ended too soon for her." I gulped, my voice tittering as I stood at the edge of opening a door for Javier. A door I'd kept closed for years.

He squeezed me a little tighter, keeping me warm in the cold water. Secure, if I needed it. His eyes, the same shade of the deep water around us, shone with patience and hope.

He understood how important a step it was for me to open up about this.

"She had me young," I said. "At eighteen years old, she lost her family somehow— I don't know if she left or she was kicked out. I felt like I was still a child when I lost her, and she was a mom at the same age."

Javier stopped the circling motion in the water. My legs fell slowly to their rightful place under me, but I didn't stand on the granite again. I let my feet float behind me, and Javier supported me with his arms still around me.

"I don't know how she did it." I swallowed the tears that threatened to fill my eyes. "She was a fighter. She called us luchadoras. She loved to say, pa'lante. A promise we made to each other to keep going."

Javier's face saddened for me. He didn't interrupt. He just kissed my forehead and listened.

It got harder to talk with every word I uttered, my throat tightening with emotion.

I rested my temple on his cheek. "I was her world. She never went out, never dated. The little free time she had went to me. We moved often but she said it was okay— we were each other's home."

It helped to have him close, so I was the one to squeeze him this time.

"None of that helped her when she got sick." I closed my eyes. "None of that helped me when I had to grieve her. All I could do was to keep going by myself. Always pa'lante."

He kissed my hair, the curve of my jaw. "I'm sorry."

"It's all I know, Javier. Wanting friends was the risk I could handle. Going for love— one anchor— a keystone again in my life that I could lose—"

"I understand."

The sun warmed my skin, and I took a deep breath. He let me pull the pieces I shared back together into their shrine in my heart. For several moments, all I could hear were the soft waves on the sandy shore and the wind playing with the trees surrounding the lake.

Some time later, Javier shared some of his own memories, a wistfulness to his voice as he balanced the scales.

"My grandmother always talked openly to me about losing the love of her life. Having to marry someone she didn't want and seeing the man she adored marry someone else. She would always show me the sadness she carried, yet an iron will straightened her back and kept her going. Her own version of pa'lante, I suppose."

He shook his head like it was still hard for him to imagine. I lifted a hand to his face.

He took a deep breath. "In the final decade of her life, the discontent mellowed. It turned to melancholy, then a sort of acceptance. All through her life she encouraged me to use the power I had for good, because I was a cis man in a generation that would let me do things she was never allowed to do as a woman."

I caressed his skin, leaving trails of cold water. He didn't say anything about it, but smiled.

"At the end," he said, "she told me I had to follow my heart but, if I couldn't, to at least learn to live a good life like she had. That was her cornerstone at the end— that I had everything to live a great life, just like she had. Just like she had fought for."

"Does it feel like a lot of responsibility? Is that why you're a philanthropist?"

"It just feels like the truth. I have everything I could ever need to live a good life. All I'm trying to do is do even better every day… and now, I'm trying to follow my heart. So far… my heart says it's yours. So here I am. Trying to follow where it takes me."

"Javier…"

"It's okay." He placed his mouth on mine; a tender, unassuming kiss this time. "I'll be here until you know if you want to catch up."