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“Either something happened over the weekend, or she woke up this morning with a heap of regrets,” I say. “We’ve seen this before.”
Amaya takes a seat at the table with Mikey, carefully cutting his pancakes into smaller pieces. She keeps busy with her plate and talking to Mikey but consistently avoids looking at us. I whip out my phone and text her.
Good morning, beautiful, everything okay? I ask.
“What are you doing?” Finn says, eyeing me intently.
“What the hell does it look like?” I shoot back. “I’m checking the temperature of the situation.”
“Why do I feel like we’re back in high school, and we just got turned down by the head cheerleader?” Kace sighs deeply, then gives me a curious look. “What did she say?”
“Nothing yet.”
I look up, and my eyes lock on Amaya’s for a brief moment before she texts me back.
Morning. All good, thanks.
She then shifts her focus back to Mikey. My inner peace feels cracked. I don’t like this. I’m trying to find a good excuse for her coldness, but there isn’t any.
“She needs some space,” Kace declares, choosing to focus on his breakfast instead. “She’s probably just busy being a mom.”
The more I sit back and analyze the situation, the more convinced I am that Mikey could be Kace’s son. Amaya hasn’t confirmed anything. Kace hasn’t asked her yet, either, but then again, Kace is an expert at being in denial in general.
The kid is his spitting image—the same curly blonde hair, the same bright blue eyes, the same damn features altogether, except for a few details that I recognize on Amaya’s beautiful face. I’d be willing to bet that Mikey is, in fact, Kace’s boy. But I try not to bring the subject up too often. It tends to irritate Kace, and I think I understand why.
Amaya’s son. Her rules. And Kace knows not to tamper with that particular balance. You don’t rattle the mama bear. Not ever.
“Are we going to proceed with a second date, then?” Finn asks after a while.
“Of course,” Kace replies. “I think Amaya just needs some room to breathe and to process what happened Friday night. It was pretty intense, even for the three of us.”
“And given that we didn’t go all the way like we normally would, that says something,” I add with a slight nod. “Chances are that she’s a tad overwhelmed.”
“So, what, we wait for her to come to us, then?” Finn replies, visibly displeased with the idea.
Before Kace can answer, however, another hurdle emerges as Ramada Chesterfield decides to waltz into the breakfast room like we’ve been waiting for her. “Gentlemen! Good morning!” she quips as she saunters over to our table, a white summer dress flowing over her sinuous curves while the gold and pearl bracelets on her wrists jingle with every movement.
I don’t like her. She’s fake from top to bottom, and I’m not talking about the surgical enhancements she’s had done, either. I mean her character.
Ramada pretends to be this boss queen who commands the attention of anyone caught breathing in her presence. The problem is she’s a trust fund baby born into entitlement with an army of servants at her disposal.
Every single success that she has had comes from her family’s connections across Silicon Valley and nothing else. What irks me the most is that she’s got her sights set on Kace, and he doesn’t think it’s a problem since he’s not entertaining the same attraction.
“Morning, Ramada,” Kace says.
“How are you?” she asks, careful to sway her hips before she stops at our table, heels clicking across the hardwood floor. “I haven’t heard from you in a couple of days, babe. Didn’t you enjoy our brunch?”
“I did, thank you. It was a constructive conversation, to say the least,” Kace says, keeping his business face on. He can tell that both Finn and I are watching him like hawks, and the three of us know that Amaya can see and hear everything from her table. This whole moment just got a savage infusion of awkwardness pumped into it, and we must carefully navigate it so as not to widen the wedge that already seems to exist between Amaya and us. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to my partners about it yet, though,” Kace adds.
“Talk to us about what?” I ask.
Kace gives me a slight smile. “A business proposition,” he says. “Ramada is considering investing in a new crypto venture in Sacramento, and she wants to know if we’d be interested in joining her. The entrepreneur in question is looking for multiple investors in order to minimize the risks before he puts the business onto the market.”
Ramada giggles and moves closer to Kace, eager to place a hand on his shoulder. I can see Amaya watching while Mikey gets busy with his scrambled eggs. I don’t like the look in her eyes. Dismay. Sadness. The kind of darkness I don’t ever want to see on her face again. It beckons me to do something.
“It could’ve been more than just a business brunch but I didn’t want to scare Kace away,” Ramada says, squeezing his shoulder. “We could do a business dinner next and blur those lines then.”
Kace laughs nervously, and I decide to intervene with a wry smile. “Tell you what, Ramada. Send us an email with the guy’s business proposal, and we’ll look it over. We’ll discuss it together. But I want to see a thorough risk analysis first.”
