Page 150 of Vicious Temptation

I chuckle. “Yeah. He had a problem.”

“Looks hereditary.”

Her teasing draws another laugh from me, and some of the heaviness from our conversation in the living room lifts.

“Do you listen to them?” she asks.

I pull an old jazz record from the shelf, one that always takes me back to weekends at my grandmother’s in Rio. My thumb traces the worn edge of the sleeve.

“I never knew why I liked track six so much growing up,” I say. “Years later, she told me my dad used to play it at every special occasion. Birthdays, barbecues, basically any excuse to celebrate.” I look down at the faded cover. “I don’t remember any of those moments with him, but somehow the song still feels familiar.”

Remi studies the record in my hands. “I guess some things stick with us even when we don’t realize it.”

“Yeah.” I lean against the shelf next to her. “I never really listened to these before, but I do now. Some nights after a rough shift, I’ll put one on and sit here for a while. It helps me relax, but I think part of me also enjoys imagining the things I don’t remember and wondering about all the things that could’ve been different.”

Remi gently takes the album from my hands.

“I think we all do that sometimes,” she says. “Wonder how different things might have been if we’d made a different choice or if something had happened differently.” She rests her shoulder against mine. “I can’t imagine not wondering what your life would’ve been like if your father had lived.”

I look down at her and find only understanding in her eyes. Without thinking, I reach up and cup her cheek, my eyes drifting to her lips before returning to her eyes.

“What are your regrets, Remi? Your what-ifs?”

She holds my gaze for a long moment before looking away. “It’s...complicated. I wouldn’t change my family.” Her voice softens. “They’re everything.”

I wait because I can tell there’s more.

“But...” she trails off as her hands come up to cover mine against her face. Her thumbs brush across my skin before she gently lowers my hands and takes a step back. “Like I said, it’s complicated.”

I don’t push her. Whatever she almost told me is tangled up in the people she loves most, and I know better than to force it out of her before she’s ready to give it.

She turns the record over in her hands, tracing the edges of a life that existed long before either of us knew the other. As I watch her, another what-if takes shape in my mind.

Remi and me without Helios. Without an assignment or a lie sitting at the center of everything between us. If I’d met her under different circumstances, she still would have caught my attention, as she did that night in Texas. I allow myself to picture what that might have looked like. We could have started without deception hanging over us or the knowledge that eventually, every lie I’ve told her will come crashing down. She could look at me the way she does now and have every reason to trust me, and maybe I could actually deserve it.

“Is this one new?” Remi pulls a vinyl from the shelf, still sealed in plastic. The moment she turns it over and sees the cover, curiosity gives way to amusement. “You listen to Selena?”

I laugh, take the record from her, and make my way over to the turntable.

“I bought it a little while ago, but I haven’t had a chance to play it yet. My aunt’s from Texas, so I practically grew up on Selena. Every Saturday morning at seven o’clock, she’d have one of her albums blasting through the house.”

Remi laughs. “I fear we had the same childhood.”

“Good to know.”

I tear off the plastic, set the record on the turntable, and lower the needle. I can feel her watching me as the first notes fill the room.

“Why Selena?” she asks.

“She reminds me of someone.”

Remi arches an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

I glance at her over my shoulder. “Great smile. Red lips. Big heart.”

Her eyes narrow. “You think you’re smooth, don’t you, Braga?”

A grin spreads across my face. “No.” A cumbia spills through the room. “I know I am.”