Kaya

I hummed a happy tune to myself as I placed the two triple lemon cakes I’d spent the morning working on into the fridge to cool. I’d be taking them along when Alejandro took me to meet his family later once he got home from work.

After cleaning up the mess I’d made in the kitchen, I went outside to play with Elvis. I frowned as I searched the yard for him and realized he wasn’t there. Since Alejandro had told me that Rafe was going into work that day I panicked thinking Elvis was probably over there looking for him. I knew the Cruz family had arrived in the wee hours of the morning and I didn’t want their first impression of me to be unfavorable because of the crazy peacock who was obsessed with their son. They had to be exhausted, and if he woke them up, they’d likely be highly annoyed.

My nerves ratcheted up as ran upstairs to change out of my plain baking clothes into a simple summer dress. When I got back downstairs I pulled on a pair of white Keds, checked for Elvis again in the yard and, not finding him; I set out for Alejandro’s. I’d just started to punch in the code to open the gate when a car pulled up behind me and honked the horn. I cringed when I looked back over my shoulder and saw a white stretch limousine waiting to enter the property. Great, I thought, now I’m holding up his family.

“I’m sorry,” I called out over my shoulder as I tried and failed to key in the code again. This was because there was another honk followed by someone screeching.

“Can you move your stupid ass any faster?”

I pressed the keys again, embarrassed that someone was yelling at me. Alejandro had told me his family was incredible, but my first impression of whoever was in the limo wasn’t favorable. The car started to pull past me, but then stopped when the rear door was right next to me. The window purred as it went down. I frowned when I realized there was only one occupant in the car, and she wasn’t part of Alejandro’s family. I’d seen enough photos to know that she wasn’t his sister-in-law.

“Who are you?” I asked.

The black haired woman pushed her designer sunglasses up onto her head. “Who am I?” she snapped. “The question is who the fuck are you? If you’re one of the wait staff, prepare to be fired. My fiancé and I don’t tolerate slow or stupid.”

My mouth opened in surprise as I stared down at the woman. She was, quite frankly, a mega-bitch.

“What does your fiancé have to do with this house?” I asked. As far as I knew, aside from Mateo, none of the Cruz brothers were in relationships.

“Uh, he owns it,” she snipped. “Maybe you’ve seen him around while you’re scrubbing floors in your off-the-rack rags. His name is Alejandro, and he and I could buy and sell a thousand of you on any given day.”

I felt the color leech from my face as I stared at her in shock. “Alejandro’s fiancée?” I squeaked.

“Yes,” she snapped. “Are you deaf and stupid?”

She stuck her hand out of the car, her pale pink manicured nails shaped like daggers. “See this ring? That’s what a woman of worth gets when she snags a billionaire.”

My eyes dropped to the most hideously gaudy ring I’d ever laid eyes upon. It was so big that she couldn’t close her fingers because the diamond hit her pinky and middle finger on either side.

“You’re marrying Alejandro Cruz?” I asked, needing clarification.

“Yes. Don’t worry—I’m going to let cameras into the church. You’ll be able to watch it on TV. It’s going to be better than any royal wedding, that’s for sure. No expense will be spared. He says I can have whatever I want as long as it makes me happy.”

My stomach was churning so hard and so fast, I worried I’d throw up in front of her. Just then, Elvis flew up onto the roof of the car before he jumped down and landed next to me. Immediately he started pecking at the limo door angrily like he already knew she was an asshole.

“Ew! What the fuck is that thing? Driver!” the woman screeched. “Driver! Do you have a gun? Someone needs to shoot it!”

I stumbled as I stepped back, my stomach threatening to empty itself. “He’s my pet,” I croaked.

“You have four seconds to get it the hell away from my car before I snap its neck with my bare hands. It’s ugly, and I won’t have it in my presence. Someone needs to do the world a favor and kill it.”

Elvis stopped, looked into the car and cawed at her so loud I figured the entire neighborhood could hear it.

The woman screamed as she rolled up her window, blocking herself from view. Two seconds later the car floored it through the gate, leaving Elvis and me in the dust. The sound of his second high volume shriek cut through the fog in my brain. That cry was his distress signal, a sign that he was truly anxious. I’d only ever heard it once before when Emery’s shitbag uncle Mic kicked Elvis in his side. That distress signal brought Emery out of the house and saved his life. I felt like I was in a daze when I thought back to the sound he’d made the first day he went over the wall to Alejandro’s house. In retrospect, I realized that hadn’t been a distress cry at all. He’d just wanted Rafael’s attention.

“Come on baby,” I said in a soothing tone. “We need to go home.”

He walked along with me but kept looking back to shriek every thirty seconds or so. I rubbed my finger over his crown and told him that everything was okay each time he did it, and he followed along beside me into the backyard. Once there, I lost my shit, crumbling to the ground as tears began rolling down my cheeks.

I cried harder when I heard sirens because I figured the fiancée from hell had called the police on Elvis. He dropped his head onto my leg, taking on the position that meant he would allow me to pet his body. It was his way of showing affection. I sobbed my heart out as I ran my hand over his little blue body, waiting for the police to buzz out at the gate as I wondered how I’d been so damn stupid as to fall for a liar with a fiancée.

If only I’d held firm to my rule about not dating before I was twenty-five.

* * *

I heard a lot of indecipherable shrieking and yelling from Alejandro’s, but for whatever reason, the police never came. As relieved as I was, it didn’t take away the pain in my chest. Afraid to leave the yard just in case Elvis tried to hop over the wall, I stayed on the patio and curled up on the outdoor couch so he could see m. I could tell he knew something was up by the way he paced between his water pails and me, checking up on me over and over again.

I sat up on the couch when I heard the gate sliding open, then stiffened in disbelief when I heard the telltale sound of Alejandro’s car as he pulled it up the drive and parked it. I sat still and did nothing as he rang the doorbell and banged on the front door for a full minute. The bam-bam-bam of his dress shoes hitting the pavers as he ran down the side of the house into the yard told me he wasn’t giving up until he saw me.

His eyes were frantic as he turned and saw me on the patio. “Belleza,” he gasped as he ran up and stopped in front of the outdoor sofa I was on.

I couldn’t even look at him, so I focused on a spot behind him when I spoke. “I met your fiancée, Alejandro. The jig is up.”

He dropped down to his knees in front of me and set his hands on my legs. “That woman is not my fiancée, Kaya.”

“I saw the ring,” I said, my voice stiff and unyielding.

“No matter what she showed you, Kaya, it was all a lie. Letty is not my fiancée- she’s my stalker. We went on one shitty date four months ago, and she’s been off the reservation ever since. If you don’t believe me, you can come down to the police station with me. Our security team called them and had them come out to remove her from the property. I have to go to give a statement, but I couldn’t do that until I came home to you.”

I looked up and met his eyes for the first time, my heart pounding harder in my chest when I saw that he looked as broken up as I felt.

“That’s why the police came?” I asked, almost afraid to hope he was telling the truth.

He nodded. “My mamá called me at work and broke my heart by telling me she couldn’t stand the love of my life.”

I stiffened and leaned back. “I thought you said she was your stalker.”

“My mother thought she was talking about you, Belleza. Mamá called me beside herself to say that you were there and she didn’t approve. I was freaking the fuck out until she told me you strolled in there and started yapping about wedding dresses and asking my father what our net worth is. Right away I knew it was Letty. I told my mother to press the panic button for security. I normally hate the addition of the guards when Mateo arrives, but today I’m thanking fuck they were right out in the guesthouse. It meant they had the situation contained pretty damn fast. No one has told me how the fuck the psycho got onto the property yet—”

“It was me,” I said, my voice wobbling as the impact of what I’d done hit me. “Oh my God, your mom is really going to hate me now.”

“No, Kaya. Never. Don’t even think that. However it happened, I know you didn’t let her in knowing that she was nuts.”

I shook my head. “I didn’t,” I said softly. I spent the few minutes explaining what happened. Alejandro’s face grew thunderously angry as I described the way Letty had spoken to me, and threatened Elvis.

When I was finished, he cupped my face in his hands and stared at me with a soft expression. “No one can or will blame you for that, Belleza. You were caught off guard by a maniac but everything is fine, and no one was hurt. If anything, my family will be as mortified as I am by how she treated you—and don’t even get me started on Rafe. When he hears what that bitch said about Elvis he’s liable to find her and strangle her.”

I sniffle laughed as Alejandro rubbed his fingers over my cheeks. “If he wants to do that, I’m totally down. Seeing how upset the big guy got freaked me out.”

Elvis made a happy sounding noise from the yard almost like he knew we were talking about him. When I looked over he was sitting on the wall fountain watching us, his anxiety a thing of the past.

“You hear that, buddy?” I called out. “They took that nasty woman away.”

He cawed again twice before he flew off the fountain and down to the grass before he made his way to the bowl of sunflower seeds and mealworms I’d set out for him to snack on earlier that morning. The crisis was over, and Elvis was back to being himself—and I’d never been so happy to watch him eat in my life.

I turned back to Alejandro and let out a long breath. “I’m sorry I jumped to the wrong conclusion. I got scared.”

He shook his head. “Don’t apologize to me. I’m sorry you had to put up with that lunatic, Kaya. All I care about right now is that you know I would never lie—”

He stopped mid-sentence and looked away, a guilty expression on his face. My stomach sank. “Oh my God, have you lied to me?” I asked frantically.

“Not like you’re thinking,” he hastened to assure me. “But I was going to say I’d never ever lie to you and I realized I already have, once.”

My mouth was desert dry as I stared at him. “What did you do?” I asked.

“The second time Elvis came over the wall and started eating trash was because I put together a giant bag of it just for him. I’d been trying to see you again for three days, and I got desperate. He came because I made the food conditions on my side of the wall irresistible.”

I was so relieved I burst out laughing. “You actually set up a bird buffet?”

Alejandro’s eyes sparkled devilishly as he grinned. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, Kaya. The instant you fell into my arms I knew you were my soulmate. Everything I’ve done since then has been about keeping you.”

My heart melted as I stared into his eyes and fell even more in love. “I’m glad,” I said softly. “Not only do I want to be kept, but I'm also not letting you go, either.”

He went up on his knees, cupped the back of my head and laid a kiss on me that curled my toes. When we broke apart my lips were swollen, and I felt like I’d just taken a ride through the stars.

“You are the love of my life, and I’m keeping you forever. I know you’re scared of marrying too young and I’m happy to wait as long as it takes as long as you’re by my side. As soon as you say yes, we’re getting married and having a houseful of kids that look just like you.”

My heart felt like it wanted to pound out of my chest as the worst day of my life morphed into the best. “I love you,” I answered as I leaned into him for another kiss.

“And I love you right back. How about we go meet my family?"

I nodded. "Today I meet yours, and on Monday, you meet mine. Are you ready?" I asked teasingly.

He nodded firmly. "I'm more than ready. How about you, Belleza—are you ready?"

I smiled and nodded before I leaned in for another kiss. Without hesitation, my answer was yes. With Alejandro Cruz, I was ready for everything life had to offer us.