Chapter 4
“This is not a date.” Carla needed to be sure he knew that she didn’t like like him. She was merely accompanying him to the rooftop bar at the Hotel Saratoga because she wanted to catch the view of the old and new parts of the city. That, and Lola had given Jonah the look when he’d said he was going out. One that brooked no objection to Carla tagging along.
Carla had gone along with it because she liked architecture, so sue her. And she wanted to see how they had restored the eighty-five-year-old building. The outside of the hotel was painted mint green, with a colonnade on the bottom floor and balustrades around the two upper floors. The corner of the building was gently curved, like the Flatiron building in New York.
“Of course it isn’t, princess.” His sarcastic tone said that he saw right through her excuses for going with him.
With a twist of his mouth, he annihilated her justifications. She was definitely out and about with Jonah because she liked looking at him way too much, and she was also kind of curious about his friend. For some reason, it was hard to picture him having buddies. Was he as taciturn and self-righteous with them as he was with her? Was it a female friend? Was she cramping his style—cock blocking him—by coming with?
Given her activities the night before and how much she still wanted to climb all over Jonah, she would definitely be cock blocking him if his buddy was a woman.
They walked into the beautifully restored lobby, and Carla gasped. Though Lola’s house wasn’t nearly as big, the architects and designers who had restored and updated the interior did exactly what she wanted to do in her great aunt’s house.
“Close your mouth,” he said. “You’ll catch flies.”
Carla smiled up at him. “I do that with honey.”
“Sure, whatever.”
He gestured for her to go up the stairs ahead of him, so she put a wiggle in her step as she ascended toward the rooftop.
“Hurry up.”
Carla sniffed at him. “Seen enough?”
* * * *
Jonah would never see enough of Carla’s firm, little ass. But he wasn’t about to tell her that. He wasn’t about to give her any indication that she was anything but an annoyance to him.
Her little gasp when they’d entered the lobby was enough to make him half hard. Any more of her cuteness, anything resembling a sex sound might send him over the fucking edge.
And Charlie was going to eat this shit up with a spoon. If Charlie hadn’t kicked in half the seed money for this book project, he wouldn’t have agreed to meet the guy for drinks, much less brought Carla along with him. But he didn’t like the idea of Carla traipsing the streets of Havana all by her lonesome.
So, he’d just have to grit his teeth and try not to tear his erstwhile friend into tiny pieces while he flirted with Carla. And he’d flirt his rich, smug ass off. Charlie reminded Jonah way too much of his former best friend from college, and there were a lot of good reasons for the “former.”
Sure enough, as soon as they got to the roof, Jonah noticed Charlie noticing Carla.
“You brought me a treat?” Charlie’s question made Jonah grind his teeth and suppress a growl.
Instead of clocking the guy, Jonah lifted his chin. “More like a white elephant gift.” He only said it because he thought Carla was too busy looking at the city to hear his words.
He realized that he was wrong when she punched him in the arm. “Never liken a woman to an elephant. It’s bad for your health. If anyone around here is a crappy gift, it’s you.”
Charlie laughed, and Carla extended her hand. “Carla Hernandez.”
Jonah rolled his eyes at both of them. Until Charlie kissed Carla on both cheeks, and his shoulders tensed. He had no right to be upset. She wasn’t his girlfriend; she wasn’t even his lover. But he hated Charlie’s lips on her.
“Charlie Laughlin.”
“How do you know Little Mary Sunshine over here?” Charlie’s eyes got big when Carla asked that question, and he laughed again. So hard he doubled over.
“It’s not that funny.” Jonah narrowed his eyes at his soon-to-be former friend.
When Charlie caught his breath, he said, “Of course it’s funny. No one gives you shit like this. I fucking love it.”
Carla sat down in one of the orange chairs bordering the pool. “I’d hardly believe that. He’s so easy to give a hard time to.” She patted Jonah on the arm, and goose bumps rose on his skin. Carla had him on a leash and she didn’t even know it. “You can practically see the steam coming out of his ears.”
“Most people are afraid he’ll step on them if they piss him off.” Charlie had stayed standing. “A mojito? I owe you a drink for the best laugh I’ve had in ages.”
Carla nodded. “I’ll let you buy me two. That laugh was worth at least two.”
Jonah scowled at Charlie. “Beer.”
Charlie winked at both of them. “Maybe I’ll see if they have anything on the menu that will pull that stick out of your ass.”
When Charlie walked away, Jonah sat in the chair next to Carla’s and leaned over into her space. “Stop flirting with him.”
“You can’t tell me what to do.” Something defiant flashed in her eyes, and it made his jeans tighten over his cock. “Why don’t you want me flirting with him, huh? Jealous?”
“Why would I be jealous? I’m trying to save him from another messy divorce.” Jonah didn’t know for a fact that Charlie’s divorce was messy, but still.
“Maybe we’d be very happy together. He seems like a nice guy. Unlike some of my recent acquaintances.” Carla smiled, but her words still hit him.
She might be right about that, but the thought of Carla happy with his friend made him kind of sick. Shit. Maybe they belonged together. They even had the same first initials.
Jonah didn’t say any of that. He just stared at her, looking for some indication that she was joking. He didn’t know why he cared. She didn’t like him, and it wasn’t like they were going to start dating.
But it did matter. Charlie brought their drinks back, and Carla beamed at him. Jonah wanted that light shined on him. He didn’t deserve it, not after the way he’d treated her, but he wanted it just the same.
“Why are you here?” Jonah wanted to get this over with, so he could get Carla away from Charlie as soon as possible.
“Can you be nice for like five minutes?” Carla pinched his forearm, which did the same thing to him as all of her other touches—it made blood rush to his dick. It was sick and twisted, and he took a long swallow of beer to calm himself down.
“No, he can’t.” As usual, Charlie was going to say too much. Jonah held his breath, hoping that his friend wasn’t going to lay out why Jonah couldn’t have nice things. “Ever since college, he’s been a surly asshole.”
Jonah took in air, but stared Charlie down, trying to silently communicate a plea for discretion.
“You’ve known each other since college?”
“Yeah, we were the same year,” Jonah answered, hoping he could steer the conversation away from a trip down memory lane. “So, man, what are you doing in Cuba?”
“Vacation.” Charlie sat back and took a long drink of his mojito. He looked like a tool drinking through a straw. Normally, Jonah would give him shit about that, but he wanted this excursion to be as short as possible. “And I have a proposal for you.”
“Are you secretly in love with him?” Carla piped in, uninvited. He looked at her half-empty glass and color brushing her cheeks, glad that at least she was getting some amusement out of all this. “If you ask him to marry you, can I be in the wedding? I’ll give him away.”
“If I didn’t know you were in a rush to get rid of me before...”
Charlie looked back and forth between them for a long moment, with a smile that, back in college, would have meant a trip to Windsor, Canada, and a killer hangover. Now that they were over twenty-one and didn’t have to go over a border to drink, it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.
Charlie looked at him. “What ever did you do to make this glorious creature hate you?”
“I don’t hate him.” Carla smiled at Charlie again, which had Jonah on the edge of a coronary event. “He’s too pretty to hate.”
Jonah scoffed and pointed at his friend. “Clearly you have some vision issues.” Charlie had always been the best-looking, best-dressed, most well-connected guy that Jonah knew. He could charm the panties off a nun—literally—with barely a wink and a cocky grin.
Carla blessed him with her gaze, and he lost his train of thought. “I can see just fine.”
“Should my feelings be hurt?” Charlie asked. He never could stand not being the center of attention. “Do you want to hear stories about Jonah in college? There’s plenty of shit to mine there. I mean, clearly he hasn’t gotten better with women.”
Hearing Charlie talk about college and women in the same sentence set every nerve in Jonah’s body on fire. Shame and an intense desire for Carla never to know about his college football career—or why he left—raced through him.
“Tell me more.” Carla leaned in, oblivious to the turmoil inside of Jonah.
“No.” Jonah gritted his teeth.
“One story, nothing too embarrassing. I promise.” Charlie had to know that Jonah was about to explode, but his friend just winked. “I know it’s hard to believe, but I was quite the dilettante in college.”
“I’d never believe that about you.” Carla was fucking cooing over Charlie’s poor-little-rich-boy act. Fucking hell.
“Well, I was forever trying to get people into trouble, and Jonah was always keeping them out. That’s the pattern of our friendship.” Charlie took a sip of his drink. Nothing he said was false, but Charlie didn’t need to tell her why he was the way he was.. “Anyway, I had arranged a booze cruise on Lake Michigan for Memorial Day. And, in his typical way, Jonah found himself tying back his girlfriend’s hair as she barfed in the lake about an hour in. I had to keep him from jumping in and swimming to shore for Dramamine.”
“That’s sweet. Exactly what the perfect boyfriend would do.” Carla’s words, even though she was defending him, cut him open. He prayed that Charlie wouldn’t tell Carla the whole story. This wasn’t how he wanted her to find out; he didn’t want her to find out at all. He wanted her to continue thinking he was sweet and go ahead being wrong about him.
“You’re a lost cause then.” Charlie shook his head and took another long sip of his drink. “Carla, have you ever considered doing television?”
Jonah, relieved at Charlie’s insanely short attention span, looked at Carla then, the color in her cheeks intensifying as she looked down into her drink. She shook her head.
“Charlie’s a television producer, the family business. Ignore him unless you want Keeping up with the Hernandezes to be a thing.”
“The last thing I want to do is be on TV.”
“I don’t do trash reality TV.” Charlie had clearly picked up on some tension around Carla as a public figure. “I do mostly educational or competition shows—food, home improvement, travel.”
Carla perked up at hearing that. “I am an interior designer.”
Charlie pulled out a business card, and handed it to Carla with the kind of flourish and killer smile that Jonah had seen evaporate panties and inhibitions all over the world. “If you ever change your mind.”
“Thanks.” Carla slipped the card in her purse, and Jonah wanted to dig it out and toss it into the pool. He didn’t like the idea of Charlie and Carla even working together. He hated this jealous part of himself. Though he usually avoided it by not getting too involved with anyone, Carla had dug under his skin in record time. “Now, what’s your proposal for Jonah?”
Charlie sat back, which made Jonah grip his beer even tighter. “I’m trying to get him on TV, too. I want him to do a travel show.”
“Like a hotter, crankier, Anthony Bourdain?” Jonah’s skin crawled at the scrutiny from both of them. Carla’s eyes lit up, and she looked at him as though she was as attuned to him as he was to her. Charlie’s smug look had him wanting to rip his friend’s face off. That would actually be a win-win. He’d get to rip a face off, and there would be no more talk of a television show.
“Exactly,” Charlie said.
“I’m not interested in doing fluff TV. I told you that last year.”
“You weren’t listening to me, man.” Charlie shook his head. “I don’t want to do fluff. And you’re the only guy I know who can make himself at home anywhere. Look at you here. You meet new people and get them to trust you, to invite you in.”
“I don’t trust him.” For once, Carla’s smart mouth was going to help him.
“Yeah, well most people do.” Charlie folded his hands on his knees, and Jonah gripped the arms of the chair. He knew how dangerous Charlie’s hard sell could be. “That’s why you get such great pictures—it’s why they’re all covers.”
Jonah’s insides squirmed under Charlie’s look, but he didn’t give it away. He wasn’t used to praise. It had never made him comfortable during his football-playing days; it wasn’t comfortable now. Maybe because his football-playing days had taught him how quickly all the praise could be taken away.
Charlie must have known that he had him anyway. “Just tell me you’ll think about it.”
Jonah nodded, and his friend stood.
“Leaving so soon?” Carla looked up at him, confused. She wasn’t used to Charlie. “I was sort of enjoying you putting the screws to him.”
Hearing Carla use the word screws had him more excited than it should. Anything about her remotely adjacent to sex had him thinking about getting naked and sweaty with her.
“It was a pleasure meeting you, Carla. But I leave him in your capable hands.” Charlie walked off without another word.
Carla looked perplexed. “I don’t know that my hands are capable of much with you.”
“You irritate the fuck out of me.” That might be an overstatement. She didn’t irritate him as much as agitate him and turn him on, but that was just as bad.
“That’s not nice.” Her big green eyes were glassy, and he wanted to take the words back.
“I know you’re not trying, but we’re just oil and water.” Maybe if he kept reminding himself of that, he wouldn’t haul off and kiss her. Maybe he would be able to keep himself under control.
The fact that he wanted to take his comments back and kiss it better did not bode well for his plan to keep her at arm’s length.