15. Clara

CHAPTER 15

CLARA

C lara and Luis stood in the penthouse in front of a wall covered in little square samples of paint. They had set aside the day to turn Luis's office into a nursery at Luis's insistence. It amazed Clara that he wanted to be part of it so badly that he set aside a full day of actual work to spend on it. He had told Clara that family was deeply important to him, but she hadn't really seen evidence of it before today. They were both sipping on glasses of sparkling cider because Luis had insisted on celebrating the launch of the nursery, but he refused to drink if Clara couldn't. Her determination to not fall for this man was in deep, deep trouble.

"Okay," Luis said, pointing to the wall of samples. "First choice. Are we going blue or pink on this one?"

Clara eyed him suspiciously. "I don't know anything you don't know, if that's what you're implying."

"Not at all." Luis smiled. "It's just a bit of a gamble. Do you want to put money on one or the other. Don't worry if you lose. You have plenty where that came from." He waggled his eyebrows at her, and she scoffed playfully. "Ah, nothing's ever enough for my lady." He strode closer to the wall and looked over the shades of pink.

"Were you hoping for a girl, then?" Clara asked. "I thought you'd be getting excited for a son."

"Why?" He whirled on her. "Because of my heritage? Don't you think that's kind of problematic?" He was playing with her, clearly, trying to make her blush. It was working, but Clara didn't mind. She knew him well enough. It didn't hit her until she actually had the thought, though. She knew him, and he knew her enough to joke this way. And that meant something, didn't it?

"All right," Clara said, playing along. "I'll see your point and raise you my own. The gender binary is outdated and unfashionable."

He arched one eyebrow. "Well, well, well. I see what you did there. And I meet your challenge with yellow and green."

Clara took another sip of her sparkling cider and stood back to stare at the whole wall. "Purple and gray would be far edgier, don't you think? We should be ahead of the times. What if our little one is punk or goth? Are we just going to teach our new human that those aesthetic choices are inferior? Is that an acceptable precedent to set?"

"Now you're getting smart on me," he said with a playful grumble.

"I've been smart this whole time," she countered. "You just couldn't see it because of all that rampant sexism getting in the way."

He gasped melodramatically. "How dare you. I don't have a sexist bone in my body. Do you have any idea how many women I've championed in the beer industry?"

"What like five?"

"Oh, that does it." He picked up a can of black paint — why did they even have that paint? — dipped his hand in and began finger-painting over all the other colors. "You want edgy? I'll give you edgy. We're going full Addams Family here. I'm perfectly fine with Rosemary's Baby , aren't you? Let's tell our kid they can grow up to be whatever they want by giving them the ultimate blank slate."

"Don't be ridiculous." Clara set her drink down, too, and picked up a small can of white paint. She then began finger-painting alongside him, faster than he was, to win what she now perceived to be a competition. "White is the ultimate blank slate. That's why blank canvases are white."

"Slate," Luis said, smearing his paint over hers to create a messy, marble gray, "is dark gray. Much closer to black, you see? So ‘blank slate' is a phrase that is definitely not referring to any shade of white at all."

Clara pushed closer with her own improvised artwork. "I think I know what the phrase means, especially considering English is my first language."

Luis gasped, and for the briefest moment, Clara was certain she'd taken things too far. Maybe his heritage was a sensitive subject for him. But he couldn't hold in his laugh for long. "So you're just going to lean in to being hugely problematic, are you?"

"That's me," Clara said with a sly smile. "I'm the whole problem. Still want to marry me?"

"Shut up — you know I do," he snapped, and in a second he was practically on top of her. She put her hands out to stop him from coming any closer, forgetting that her hands were covered in paint.

As soon as she saw the white handprints she left on his fancy black shirt, she froze. "Oh, no," she began. "I'm so sorry. I?—"

But she couldn't finish because Luis had smeared black paint all over her blouse. "Now we're even."

Her heart was pounding as she dared to move even closer to him. She hadn't seen this level of playfulness in him before today, and she couldn't have predicted how sexy she would find it. The very thought of him having a similar play-battle with his children — that he was a humorous person without the kind of massive ego she'd become accustomed to on her recent dates — was making her absolutely crazy for him. He just wanted to laugh. And she just wanted to pull him in and make him moan like she did that first night.

Her cheeks had to be redder than red, as hot as she felt just looking up at him. By the fire she saw in his own brown eyes, he had to be fighting the same feelings. Then she reasoned, what harm would it do to kiss him just this once? They'd already gone about as far as they could physically go when it came to intimacy. She was already carrying his child. It wasn't like she had to be worried she might lose herself to him again.

She stood on her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck. Then he caught on, bent down, and kissed her hard. It wasn't a quick kiss either. He pushed her back into the wall, likely stamping their previous argument into her shirt as a permanent reminder of how he'd won. But if this was what losing to Luis felt like, she wanted to lose over and over again. She never wanted to win. His tongue was in her mouth and his hand slid down her back. He pressed his whole body into her, and she felt him harden against her as he pulled one of her legs up and slid his body between her thighs.

Had she been even a little inebriated, Clara would have pulled him down and let him take her right there on the protective plastic covering the nursery floor. She wanted him, and not just for fun, not just for the pregnancy, and definitely not just for the money. She wanted his sense of humor, his passion for family, and his obviously growing passion for her.

"We shouldn't be doing this," she murmured, still kissing him.

"No," he responded, "we shouldn't." But he didn't stop kissing her either, and she couldn't find the strength to make him.

"This isn't part of the deal," she breathed as she slid down with him onto the floor.

"Screw the deal," he said, and he continued to kiss her. "Take everything. I don't care. I'll give you everything I have, everything I am for one more night with you."

She stopped and pushed away from him. "What did you say?"

He sat up on his knees and squinted at her, looking deeply confused. "I'm trying to tell you that I lov?—"

She stopped his mouth by putting her hand over it, which made his eyes widen. If she let him say he loved her, she was going to have to admit she was starting to fall for him for real, and that was unacceptable. There was every chance in the world all her feelings were just hormones caused by the pregnancy, and they had agreed to keep everything all business. Yet here she was, kissing the man in a now paint-covered nursery, ready to dedicate the rest of her life to him just because he managed to make her laugh.

No, it couldn't come to that. There would be nothing but heartache in store for both of them when Clara realized Luis only loved her because of what she could do for him. And she had to admit to herself that her feelings were more than little influenced by what he had already done for her, not to mention what he'd promised to do in the future. Their relationship was far too transactional to be called real love, and Clara knew better than to fall into that trap again. She was going to be smart about things this time.

"Let's go to bed…" She paused and amended her sentence. "Let's go to sleep. I think we're both exhausted after everything that's been happening. So many big changes, yeah? Let's not take thing so far that one of us says something we can't take back later. I'm not looking to have my heart broken and neither are you, I assume."

Luis shook his head, confirming her suspicion that he was struggling in a very similar way. "It's been a long day," he said, his tone all reluctant agreement. "Maybe we're both just tired from all the excitement."

"Listen." Clara stood and backed away from him. "I'm all for having a bit of fun, if that's what we decide we want to do. I just need to know that's all it is — fun. I don't want to believe this is something more when we both know it can't be."

Luis stood, too, but instead of backing away, he took a step closer. "I respect your position." He was so businesslike that Clara almost missed the passion he had spoken with earlier. "There's just the question of why, I guess. You don't want this to be anything other than business, and I understand that to some degree. But if you happen to have any real feelings for me, then where's the problem? You're having my baby. You're living in my penthouse. We're getting married in a week. Wouldn't love just be the icing on the cake? Wouldn't it be better if we didn't have to pretend, if it was all genuine?"

"You're forgetting an important detail," Clara said, glancing away from him.

"And what's that?"

"A business arrangement is far more stable than a romantic relationship. You sign a contract and it's set in stone. You've made an agreement and your own emotions don't come into play. The second we make this thing real, it becomes unstable. Either one of us could get hurt and try to end things. If we take off our armor, we risk getting burned. Does that make sense? This is make-or-break for both of us, isn't it? So we should act like it. Protect the deal. If I'm not in love with you, I won't get my heart broken and take it out on you. You won't lose the marriage that you need for reasons far more important than love. The same goes the other way around, too. If I broke your heart, wouldn't you want to end things? And then where would I be? I'd be a single mother without a home or career."

Luis frowned down at her. "I would never let that happen, Clara. It doesn't matter what happens between us. You and the child will be cared for. I promised you that, and I always keep my promises."

Clara chewed her lip and considered what he was saying. But she could so easily see all of it going south if they got emotionally involved. She'd never had a relationship that lasted before, and she had no reason to believe this one would be any different. "It's just easier this way," she finally said. "It's just simpler if we don't make a mess of this."

She glanced around the room and saw the smears of paint on the wall, the handprints and marbled gray, the paint on their skin and clothes. Things had gotten messy so quickly in so many ways, and she wasn't ready to deal with it. She wasn't ready to get her heart broken again. But when she looked back over at Luis, who stood with his shoulders slumped and his eyebrows knitted, she had a hard time believing she hadn't, somehow, already broken his.