“Truth is man, you gotta get yourself together,” Devonte said. “You got an opportunity here to clear some of the stink off you.” The public’s seismic excitement over #Aishia had bought him a few more months with his label. “But no one’s gonna buy it if you keep pissing her off. Her ground rules make it seem like you’re starting with negative yardage.”
At the thought of her ground rules, Aish rested his knuckles against his teeth.
The first time he’d ever seen Sofia, she’d been like a sparkler that he had to touch, all glowing skin and long gleaming hair. He’d wrapped her in his arms within minutes and she’d stretched his T-shirt tugging him closer. That’s how it had been with them—instant obsession, unrestrained need.
Aish had ruined that when he’d broken her heart three months later. And any hope that she might have softened over the last ten years was demolished when Devonte slapped down the packet of her ground rules.
Rule 1: Aish Salinger will only speak to Princesa Sofia de Esperanza y Santos when it will benefit the arrangement. Therefore, there will be no personal interaction unless the media, the intern corps, tourists, or other public influencers are present. There will be no private, one-on-one conversation.
The rules forbade Aish to touch Sofia, required him to cover his tattoos, and demanded that he learn the scripts for five-minute daily interactions that were supposed to look like romance to the press and interns. The rules wrapped layer after layer of barbed wire around a woman he’d been desperate to be near for ten years.
Sometimes, when memories of her popped into his brain when he was on stage in front of a sold-out crowd, when he was accepting another platinum album, or when the paparazzi bulbs blinded him, his unending yearning for her felt like the worst thing that ever happened to him.
“La bodega está allá,” said the driver. “There is the winery, señores.”
Aish and Devonte scrambled lower into their seats to look out the windshield.
Beyond a rock wall and a gate scrolled with a large S was an ancient monastery of pale stone with windows of stained glass. A modern building made of the same pale stone stood beside it, with people leaning from the balconies and waving. A vineyard-covered hill rose up behind the winery, and a mountain with harsh peaks dominated the sky.
She’d whispered about this, about the winery she wanted to open and the wines she hoped to create, when he’d held her delicate body in his arms. She’d inked her stories into his brain—about her mountains, her people, the thousand-year history she was buoyed and weighted down by—as she’d licked and bit his ear.
Aish felt the anticipation of ten hungry years, and the nerves of one isolated one, in the back of his teeth. The gate opened and they drove into a sprawling courtyard.
The press was cordoned off on one side. A large group of people with wineglasses in their hands stood to the other. A line of people facing him stood in the center.
As the car slowed, Aish closed his eyes behind his Ray-Bans and took a couple of deep, jittery breaths. The moment he’d craved every day since the second he’d left her was finally here.
The door opened and Aish stepped out into the Spanish sun.
He was blinded by it. But he hid behind his sunglasses as he lifted a casual hand to the cheers of the guests and flicked his trademark side grin.
He hid behind his sunglasses as he hunted.
A dude—a huge blond dude who’d opened the door—was leaning close to say something when Aish saw her.
She stood in a ray of sunshine.
He felt her eyes on him like a shot to his heart. Gone was his erotic woodland fairy girl with her butt-length hair and miles of exposed golden skin, replaced by a badass woman who looked firmly sick of his shit. She’d cut her gold-brown hair short and right now it was slicked back from her perfect face. She wore a snow-white button-down shirt that covered her to her wrists, wide-legged pants that hugged the curves of her waist, and a heavy silver necklace in the open collar of her shirt. Her kohl-lined eyes, the firmness of her wide mouth, and the jut of her sharp chin told him what she thought of his late arrival.
Deaf to whatever the dude was saying, he turned and moved over the cobblestones to get to her with all the speed and compulsion she’d inspired in him when they were kids.
Her wide eyes flared as he came toward her. He put his hands on her warm, strong biceps and took in her gorgeous face. Thick-lashed cat eyes, pert nose, wide mouth that could stretch into the most peace-giving smile. She wasn’t going to smile for him now, and that was okay as he looked down to rememorize her. It was shocking to realize how small she was when she was so huge in his mind’s eye. He leaned down to brush his lips against the velvety softness of her ear, to say “I’m sorry” before he kissed the fine edge of her jaw.
I’m sorry I’m late, he wanted to say as he inhaled the treasured memory of her cinnamon-sugar skin. I’m sorry I released that song, he wanted to plead against her neck. I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I broke your heart. He wanted to paint her in sorry’s and drown in her wide wise eyes and discover forgiveness and redemption in her.
He wanted to stop feeling so fucking shitty.
He moved to pull her into a much-needed hug when Sofia’s hands come up to rest on his chest—God, yes—then she wiggled out of his hands as she stepped back. She did give him a smile, then.
Oh no.
“Welcome to Bodega Sofia, Aish,” she said softly, nodding to encourage his grin. He gave it but dreaded what was coming next.
“We’re going to smile for the cameras,” she said in the same soft
