One Night To Risk It All

“Thanks,” she said. She had changed a lot from who she’d been at twenty-one, and it had been a long hard road with lots of pitfalls. But she had changed. She hadn’t made peace with all of her past, but one thing she had made were good friends like Siobahn. She’d been the one who’d introduced her to Scarlet and had started her on this path.

“I’ll text you when I’m close.”

“I’ll be here. I’m eating leftover ham, which isn’t healthy, but I’m a bit hungover,” Siobahn said.

Marielle had to laugh. She didn’t drink like that anymore but remembered those days. She hung up with her friend, realizing that Bianca might never forgive her, but Marielle had to find a way to forgive herself. She couldn’t keep beating herself up for old sins.

Not saying it would be easy, but she was going to definitely make that one of her resolutions.

Four (#ub57a9d35-265d-5a1f-a803-1ec1f7f9745e)

The weather this first week of January reflected Marielle’s mood as she left her building on the Upper West Side. It was bitterly cold with a messy sleet and rain falling. The doorman held an umbrella over her head as she dashed to her waiting car. Her driver held the door open as she slid onto the leather seat and the welcome heat. She thanked them.

Scarlet had been true to her word and helped her out despite the fact that it must have caused friction with her new in-laws. But then again Scar knew what it was like to be the center of negative attention. They’d grown up in similar worlds, Marielle thought.

But even career pluses couldn’t take away the ache inside when she thought of that encounter with Bianca. It wasn’t that she’d really considered Inigo to be a guy she wanted in her life. For all she knew, they might not even be compatible. He might be one of those guys who drank beer out of a bottle and didn’t use a coaster…or something like that. But the fact that she didn’t get to let it fall apart the way her relationships always did…that bugged her. That had to be what was bothering her.

But she couldn’t miss a guy whom she’d slept with one night and that was it.

She wouldn’t let herself.

She wasn’t that girl.

She had never needed a man after Jose. He’d changed that dream of hers. The one where she met a guy and he swept her off her feet and they lived some sort of fantasy life providing her a Disney Channel–perfect family, not the messed-up one that was hers. But she’d learned that she was better on her own.

Men were fun.

Inigo had been fun.

Until…

But that was in the past and she was moving on. She had an interview with a lifestyle brand that wanted to work with her. She had a manager who had worked hard to get the appointment for her, and she was glad for it. She’d even gone all in and dressed like Blair from Gossip Girl. She wanted to look the part of what they wanted. On every influencer account she’d checked out, the look was a mix between Jackie O and The Official Preppy Handbook.

The heels she wore were designer, but her manager said if she wanted the work, she needed to make a decision to either flaunt her family name or hide it. She couldn’t use it when she wanted to and then drop it when she didn’t.

So she’d decided to use her middle name instead of her last name and pretend she wasn’t part of one of America’s richest families. She didn’t want to rely on the name. She’d seen what it had done to her brother Darian. Holding an unlit cigarette in the garage and looking like a trapped animal. But her brother believed in the family mission statement and would do whatever Carlton instructed.

Marielle and Carlton had never gotten along. As her father’s trusted right-hand man, he’d been the one to step in and divert the media attention from her after the affair with Jose had been made public. He’d quieted things down and done his magic to keep her out of the spotlight. But she still didn’t like him. He always wanted Marielle and her brothers to present this perfect Kennedy-esque image of family.

They were more like the behind-the-scenes Kennedys. The ones who’d been real and human and made mistakes.

“Excuse me,” she said, bumping into a man who had stepped out of a building while talking to the man behind him.

She stumbled, he caught her and she smiled her thanks. He smiled back and then she heard someone clear his throat behind him. She glanced over the man’s shoulder and straight into the dark chocolate eyes of Inigo Velasquez.

“Inigo!”

She turned on her heel, but she was already a bit off balance and stumbled for one step before straightening her spine and continuing along the sidewalk.

“Have a good one, Marielle,” he called after her.

She lifted one hand and gave him the bird as she kept walking. She knew he didn’t deserve that from her, but she was just ticked off about him and the situation.

She’d almost gotten him out of her head, and of course she’d see him again. It was kind of like the Marielle law. If she never wanted to see a man again, they’d run into each other. That included her father, Carlton and former lovers.

She finally got to the ad agency for her appointment and stepped into the lobby, moving off to the side to compose herself for a moment.

Was it just her, or did Inigo look even cuter than she remembered? His lips had almost lifted in a smile before tightening. She thought for one second he might have remembered the fun they had before he recalled who she really was.

She took a deep breath. None of that mattered now. She pulled her iPhone from her bag and opened the voice memo that Siobahn had recorded for her. She had made up a song for her to remind Marielle of her new path.

Marielle rules the world,

A badass who makes things happen,

Leaving only smiles in her wake.

She smiled and listened to it two more times. Now the song was in her head. Siobahn had used notes that were designed to stick in the listener’s mind. And as she tucked her phone away after checking her lipstick, makeup and hair, she heard the song playing in her mind.

She smiled at the security guard and gave him her ID. He raised one eyebrow at her last name, but it wasn’t uncommon, so she just kept smiling as he asked her to put her bag on the scanner and then cleared her to go into the building.

Inigo Velasquez was a memory. A happy memory that she had left behind.

Yeah, right.

Dante Peterson punched Inigo on the arm as Marielle walked away. Both of them were unable to tear their eyes off her. How was it possible she had gotten even more beautiful since he’d last seen her?

She gave him the finger, and he almost smiled before he caught himself. She was his family’s enemy. He had to remember that.

“Dude…she doesn’t like you,” Dante said.

“That’s not true. She liked me just fine. I’m the one who doesn’t like her,” Inigo said.

“Sure you are,” he said.

“Screw you, Dante,” Inigo said. “She’s the other woman. The one Jose was cheating with.”

“Well, damn. That really sucks.”

“Agreed.”

“So how do you know her?” he asked as the Moretti Motors driver pulled up and got out to hold the door to the Vallerio sedan. The car was classy, powerful and the hallmark of the vehicles that Moretti Motors made.

“Where to, Mr. Velasquez?” the driver asked.

“We need to go to the Four Seasons,” he informed the driver, sliding into the car first with Dante following behind him.

He really didn’t have time to think about Marielle. There were some suspicious things going on with the racing team at Moretti Motors, and Inigo had just left a meeting with the team boss. It was believed that someone on one of the teams was sabotaging his car to ensure that Esteban Acola, the top driver on the Moretti Racing team, would win.