Page 72 of Forbidden Fate

But God help me, waking up with her body wrapped around mine feels like fucking home.

I erase the thought quickly.

I need coffee.

I need a plan.

I need clothes.

Carefully, I untangle myself from her and slide off the bed.

I dress as quietly as possible, pulling on yesterday’s clothes because I don’t have anything else. The shirt is disgusting, but Señora will have something for me. I find a notepad and pencil on the small table near the window.

I tear off a clean section and write.

In the kitchen getting coffee.

—Cruz

I leave the paper on the pillow beside her, where she’ll see it when she wakes, and quietly open the door.

The hallway is dim. The house smells different in daylight. Less perfume. More coffee and the faint sourness of liquor spilled sometime before dawn.

A man snores behind one closed door. Someone laughs softly behind another.

I head downstairs to the kitchen. Señora Valentina is at the kitchen table. She wears an overly elaborate red and pink robe. Her black hair is wrapped in a silk scarf. Gold hoops hang from her ears. She taps her nails against her heart-shaped mug.

All the mugs here are heart shaped.

Every single one.

If a client spends the night, he gets coffee in a heart mug in the morning.

Love by the hour. Breakfast included.

Señora V looks me over once slowly and grins.

Oh, God. I’m just remembering now. Her room is below where Robin and I are staying. I was so tired and stressed that I didn’t think about it.

I stop in the doorway. “Please don’t.”

She wrinkles her nose. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You were about to.”

“I was drinking my coffee.”

“With that face.”

She purses her lips, but her eyes sparkle. “This is my face, mijo.”

I walk to the counter and reach for the coffee pot. “Too early.”

“It was too late, actually. Nearly dawn by the time the two of you quieted down.”

I ignore her as I pour coffee into two mugs and say nothing.

I sit across from Señora Valentina.