That evening, as Carlos packed his suitcase for tomorrow’s trip, he couldn’t stop thinking about the conversation he’d had in Alice’s office.

It was hours later, and his feelings were still all over the place.

Part of him was grateful for her confidence in him.

Part of him was proud that he had such an opportunity available to him.

But most of him was increasingly annoyed with the way Alice had made the decision for him without waiting for him to accept or decline her offer.

As he folded his T-shirts carefully, he mumbled, his proper English taking a dive as he articulated his feelings “You know what? I never said I wanted a promotion. I’m still on the fence about grad school, por Dios. How ’bout you stop steamrollin’ me and let me make my own decisions in my own time, eh?”

He sighed with annoyance, picking up the snow-white shirts and placing them into the corner of his rolling suitcase, then adding six carefully rolled pairs of khaki-colored socks. Since they’d be in the Caribbean in August, where it would be hella hot, he’d decided to eschew business suits and ties for khaki pants with long-sleeved oxford dress shirts. He wished he could add sandals to his more casual attire as well, but he knew that would be taking it a step too far. No way would Alice be wearing sandals. She’d be in heels, as always.

“Loosen that hair a little and let the blood flow. You too uptight. I don’t mean no disrespect, because you know how I feel ’bout you, querida, but…” He stopped talking, his hands freezing over the small, neat pile of socks as he let the spoken stream of consciousness suck all the air out of his room.

Fuck. There it was.

You know how I feel about you, querida.

You know how I feel about you.

And yet, she didn’t.

Not at all.

She didn’t know that most of his best dreams featured her.

She didn’t know that of every woman in the world, he admired her the most.

She didn’t know that asking him to stop working directly for her was painful for him.

She didn’t know anything.

“Because you never say nothin’,” he murmured, straightening up and putting his hands on his hips as he sucked his lower lip into his mouth. He took a deep breath, then sighed. “What’m’I s’posed to say?”

Shaking his head, he pivoted back to his dresser and pulled out seven pairs of black boxer briefs, throwing them on the bed to be refolded before he packed them. Reaching for the first pair, he folded them in thirds, then in half, setting them to the side.

“What? Like…I have a thing for you? A crush?” He grimaced, feeling irritated. “Nah. You can’t do that. She’s your boss, pendejo. She don’t wanna to hear that from you.”

He folded another pair. Then another.

When we return from Puerto Rico, you’ll be promoted to Shane’s group and given a commensurate raise.

He growled softly, finishing the fourth pair.

“No, thank you,” he said, using proper English. “I’m happy where I am, Alice. I like being the office manager. I like helping out Shane with the Latin American clients. I like—Fuck.”

He sighed again, folding number five.

“I like being with you. I like working with you. I like seeing you every day—fifty times every day. And…”

He grabbed number six, making the creases tight.

“And if you wanna to know the truth, I’ll tell it to you: I don’t want nobody else takin’ care of you,” he said. “I don’t want nobody else gettin’ your coffee or answerin’ your phones or runnin’ your office, ’cause I know they ain’t gonna to care ’bout it—and you—like I care. So, no, cariño, you’re not promotin’ me to Shane’s team, entiendes? You’re not movin’ me somewhere else. Know why? ’Cause I take care of you, Allie. Me. That’s what I do. And not just ’cause it’s my job but—”

Ring. Ring.

His voice cut off, and Carlos snapped his head up from folding the final pair of underwear.

Ring. Ring.

Someone was at the door? Huh. Who? He wasn’t expecting anyone. He folded the thirds in half and added them to the neat tower.

Ring. Ring.

“Dios mío, I’m coming!” he yelled, hurrying down the stairs. “Calmate!”

Arriving at the front door, he unlocked and opened it, looking up to find his cousin Lena standing on the stoop outside, a sour expression on her face.

“Hey, Lena!” he said, reaching out to hug her. “Que paso?”

She allowed him to embrace her but didn’t hug him back, pulling away to sidestep around him into his apartment. She stood with her back to him for a long moment before turning around.

“My friends?” she said, her eyes narrow and furious. “You’re fucking around with my friends now, Carlitos?”

Ay, carajo. Just when he’d mostly forgotten about Alicia-Felicia, she was back to bite him in the ass.

“Lena,” he said cajolingly, “come on.”

“Leticia no es unaputa!” Leticia isn’t a whore!

“Leticia!” he exclaimed. “That’s her name.”

Lena crossed her arms over her chest, her eyes popping out of her skull. “Oh, man, you have got to be kidding me here. You dogged my friend and you didn’t even know her name? Puerco.” Pig.

He crossed his arms over his chest, mirroring her. “What you want me to say?”

“Thanks for asking,” she said, her tone frosty. “I want you to make it right so I don’t have to avoid one of my best friends…or hear her calling my favorite cousin un cabrón every time I turn around.”

“Your favorite, huh?” he confirmed, grinning at her.

“You’re a cocky piece of shit,” she said with attitude. “But, yeah. My favorite.”

He winked at her. “How you want me to make it right, prima?”

“Ask her out nice. Take her to dinner. Dancing. I don’t know. Just fix it so she don’t feel like a whore.”

“She sorta acts like one,” said Carlos, raising an eyebrow.

“A mi no me importa!” yelled Lena. “I work with her, Carlos! I see her every goddamned day! She’s my friend, and I vouched for you on Sunday night. You gotta make it right.”

He uncrossed his arms, frowning at her. “Fine. I’ll take her to dinner. But not ’til next week. I’m goin’ away on business tomorrow.”

“Oh, yeah?” asked Lena, her posture finally relaxing. “Where you goin’, hotshot?”

“La Republica,” he said.

“Wow!” said Lena, grinning at him.

“And home too,” he added, grinning back at her.

“La Isla! To Toa Baja?”

“Nah. To Ponce. But still…”

“You gonna see la familia while you’re there?”

“Espero que sí,” he answered. I hope I can. Though, to be honest, he hadn’t really figured it out yet. He’d have to see if there was an afternoon or evening free when he could drive up from Ponce and spend a few hours with his folks. “Hey, you want a beer or something?”

She took her phone out of her back pocket and shook her head. “Nah. I gotta go. I got work in half an hour. I just needed to make sure we talked. You got Leticia’s digits?”

Probably not.

She pursed her lips. “I’ll send them to you.”

“Great,” he said as unenthusiastically as possible.

“You don’t have to marry her, pendejo. Just be nice so she don’t feel all weird about you and blame me.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, opening the door for Lena. “I’ll take her out. Fine.”

“Somewhere nice,” said Lena, leaning up on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “Promise me.”

“Te lo prometo. Anything else, mija?”

“Te quiero mucho. Travel safe,” she said, kissing his other cheek before heading out the door.

“Nos vemos, querida,” he called, pulling the door closed as she headed down the block, back toward Centro de Oro and the restaurant where she was a hostess.

As he locked the door, his phone buzzed, and he pulled it from the pocket of his sweat pants to find Lena’s text with Alicia-Felicia-Leticia’s phone number. He stared at the text as he headed back up the stairs to finish packing.

He had no interest in asking Lena’s friend out for dinner.

The only person he was interested in was someone he couldn’t have.

He pictured Alice. Her cool blonde hair. Her brown eyes. Her designer clothes and fancy education. Her small, perfect tits and pencil-thin body. She was an heiress. His boss. Way, way, way out of his league. The closest he was ever going to get to a woman like Alice Story was buying her coffee and answering her phone. The sooner he accepted it, the better.

When we return from Puerto Rico, you’ll be promoted to Shane’s group and given a commensurate raise. It’s for the best…It’s done.

Pausing by his suitcase, he opened a new text message and asked Alicia-Felicia-Leticia if she had any time to grab some dinner when he got back from his trip.

***

Alice shot up in bed, gasping, her breath coming in short, shallow, choppy bursts, the only sound in her still-dark bedroom.

“Oh, my God,” she panted, covering her heart with her palm and reaching for the glass of water on her bedside table. She took a shaky gulp, whimpering as she replaced the glass and sunk back down under her comforter. “Oh, no.”

Her clit was still trembling in soft, orgasmic waves, and she could feel warm moisture pooled in her underwear. She’d had a wet dream. At thirty-freaking-three, she’d just had a wet dream.

“For Christ’s sake,” she muttered, angry with herself, embarrassed and frustrated, though the leftover ripples of pleasure still made her breath catch as her dream came back to her in soft, seductive black and white.

…and gray.

The same gray as his eyes.

“Shit,” she whispered, rolling onto her side and pulling her knees to her chest. “Shit…shit…shit, Alice.”

She could only remember the dream in shaded bits and pieces, but it had started with her sitting on a garden bench in the mist. The bench was of white stone, cool against her bare skin. She hadn’t been naked, but she was wearing a short, thin silk robe. Her legs had been crossed, her eyes closed. The garden had smelled of honey-scented flowers and the sea, a heady mixture of warm salt and sweetness, which she could still smell as she recalled the gentle heaviness of his hands dropping to her shoulders.

She knew it was him, knew that he shouldn’t be in her private garden, touching her so intimately, so she hadn’t looked up at him, though her body had reveled in his touch.

Ah-leese…Ah-leese…cariño, he’d whispered near her ear, his breath hot on the side of her throat as his hand smoothed the silk fabric from her shoulders, baring them.

His lips touched her shoulders as the robe fluttered down her arms, leaving her small breasts naked in the silvery-gray moonlight. His hands reached slowly around her, covering her erect nipples with his palm. She leaned into his touch, letting her head fall back as his lips slid along the column of her neck, his tongue darting out to lick the small cove where her throat and collarbone met.

I have wanted this, mi amor…wanted you for so long, he whispered, his lips tickling her sensitive skin as his thumbs and forefingers gently squeezed the puckered, throbbing tips of her breasts.

Reaching up for his head, her eyes still closed, she threaded her fingers through his hair, pulling him closer to her face, turning to lift her lips to his. His kiss was strong and masterful, hungry and persistent, his tongue demanding entrance to her mouth and her lips helpless to resist him. She’d moaned when their tongues touched, the sound breathy and needy, while tiny lightning bolts of pleasure shot from her lips to her hips, the white heat pooling there. His fingers caressed her nipples, which were hard as little stones and greedy for the touch of his lips, for the hot wetness of his tongue licking and sucking. She whimpered with need, a swirling building between her legs as she struggled to turn around and face him.

Drawing away from her mouth, he’d grasped her hips and lifted her easily, spinning her around on the bench and dropping to his knees on the grass between her parted legs. She opened her eyes to find him staring up at her, his light eyes black with passion in the monochrome of his face. His bare chest rose and fell rapidly with hot breath that grazed the skin of her stomach. Holding her eyes, he parted the rest of her robe without permission and let the silk pool on the bench at her hips.

Naked before him, covered only with moonlight, she’d felt a tremor of unease, but he’d cupped her face, forcing her to look at him.

Do you trust me? he’d asked with his eyes.

With my life, she’d answered with hers.

His fingers had skated up the insides of her thighs while he gazed at her unwaveringly, not allowing her to look away. A small gasp escaped her lips as his questing fingers parted the slick folds of her sex, exposing the pulsing bud of her clit to the coolness of the night air. She’d sucked in a ragged breath as he lowered his head, his tongue landing with practiced perfection on her throbbing flesh.

Carlos, she’d whimpered, her hands landing on his bent head, her fingers curling into his black hair as her neck fell back, her eyes gazing up at the starry sky. She’d let him love her, trusting him, needing him, forcing herself to let go, to let someone else be in control, to…to…to…

And then she’d woken up.

As she remembered the erotic details of the dream, she rolled onto her back, her fingers slipping into her damp panties. On the verge of confusing tears, she closed her eyes and pictured his face, stroking herself with increasing pressure as she heard his voice in her head:

More, mi amor. Show me more. Bring yourself to pleasure and don’t stop until you shatter. I’m here. I will keep you safe…

His voice was firm and demanding, low and sensual, his accented English telling her what to do. Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes as her hips rocked and lifted. She was helpless to silence him, so she surrendered, letting his voice override the chaos of her mind until she was filled with him. Writhing under the sheets, Alice brought herself to orgasm, riding out the tremors and waves of deep pleasure until they started to fade. And as they did, an increasingly sharp shame started biting at her consciousness.

This is wrong.

“This is wrong,” she said aloud, wiping away her tears and whipping the covers from her body. “He’s your employee.”

She stood abruptly and pulled her silk nightgown over her head, then slipped her debauched panties the rest of the way down her legs. Crossing her bedroom naked, she jerked open her dresser drawer and pulled out cotton underwear and a sports bra. Hooking it quickly, she pulled some black spandex bike shorts from another drawer and drew them up her legs. She stepped onto her treadmill and programmed it for a brutal workout. Her sleepy brain started to clear as her blood pumped furiously, her legs burning in protest.

“What are you thinking?” she demanded out loud, clenching her jaw as sweat started to collect at her temples. “Why are you letting this happen?”

If it wasn’t already too late, she’d call him and tell him the trip was off. She’d transfer him to Shane’s group first thing in the morning. She’d train his replacement herself.

But it was too late.

The vintners at Bahía de Plata were waiting to welcome them. Ramirez was expecting them. The trip was happening. It was too late to cancel, and besides, canceling because she was unable to control her subconscious fantasies about a subordinate? That was her problem. No one else’s. And it was up to her to figure out—fast—how to manage it.

But how? Could she help the way she felt? Could she help her attraction to him? Could she help her—goddamnit!—feelings for him?

A strangled sound of frustration escaped from her throat.

For years she’d worked with Carlos.

For years they’d had a highly functional, orgasm-dream-free work relationship.

Why now, suddenly, had her brain fixated on him?

“Why now?” she cried out, panting with exertion.

The answer—one she truly didn’t want—came to her quickly:

Traveling alone with Carlos had flicked a switch in her brain…but the feelings she was having were too strong not to have existed before this week.

Had she been silently, but desperately, attracted to him for the last three years?

Yes.

Even more than attraction, had she leaned on his care of her, of her business, of her office, of her staff?

Yes.

He had, in some ways—many ways—been taking care of her since the day she’d stepped up on her desk in defiance of her father.

Had working so closely with him allowed her to foster an intimacy with him that her brain had sanctioned as appropriate?

Probably.

And had the notion of traveling together been the key that opened the door to her feelings? What were her feelings?

Her finger moved to the control panel of the treadmill, steepening the incline of the machine.

Her feelings were…

“Fuck,” she murmured breathlessly, out of easy answers.

…more than coworkers, more than gratitude, more than admiration, more than reliance, different from friendship and much more than accord. In fact, Carlos Vega was the only man in the world whom she trusted implicitly, with whom she was her most vulnerable self without fear or reservations.

Oh, God. When had that happened?

Coupled with the way her body still trembled at the thought of her dream, she felt her heart throb, leading her perilously close to uncovering an emotion that Alice hadn’t felt for a man in many years.

“No,” she growled, panic making her taste bile at the back of her throat.

In love with a coworker? Worse, a subordinate? She shook her head, reaching up to swipe away more hot, uncharacteristic tears. “Absolutely not. You may not do this. You may not fall in love with him, Alice!”

Her phone buzzed loudly from her bedside table, and she pressed the stop button on the treadmill and crossed the room to look at the text:

PRIS: Up early with Kaitlyn and Theo and wanted to tell you to HAVE FUN! Remember, big sister, he’s hot, established, rich, and well educated. Let down your hair and GO FOR IT!

Alice gulped, staring at the glowing words.

“Ramirez,” she murmured, her lips tightening as she lifted her chin.

He was good-looking.

He was established.

He was rich and well educated.

And if she was in the market for a boyfriend, he was an infinitely more appropriate match for her than her coworker and subordinate, seven years her junior.

“Ramirez,” she said again, this time with more conviction. “Yes. Stop these ridiculous fantasies and choose him instead.”

ALICE: You’re right. I will. I will go for it!

Opening a fresh e-mail, she pulled up Eduardo Ramirez’s address and wrote him a quick message, sharing how much she was looking forward to seeing him again.

Then pulling her bra over her head as she stood up, she headed into the bathroom to take a shower and start getting ready for her trip.