All I wanted was to get on a flight and go tell Alba how I felt about her. But I knew that would get me nowhere. She was there to make a go of her career and it would be selfish and terrible of me to distract her with my bullshit. I needed a plan. I needed a strategy, but there was no way I could just fuck off to chase after Alba and leave Cecilia on the hook for whatever disaster was brewing.

“Did you hear me, malaka?” my father called, annoyed, which only made me angrier.

“No, I’m not listening,” I roared, irritated at his tone when it was his fault we were even in this situation. “I’m trying to think of how we fix this. Did you tell Cecilia?”

“No, not yet.”

“Dad, I’m not talking about this anymore without Cecilia in the room—”

My father’s mouth scrunched up like he’d just bitten into a lemon. The man adored my stepmother. I had no doubt about that. For years she had been his most trusted advisor for the business, but the moment he retired at fifty-five and she expressed interest in running things with me, he’d turned into a regressive, antiquated asshole. I imagined it had to do with the fact that my stepmother was twenty years younger than him and he felt insecure in some ways. But Cecilia loved my father and he was not helping himself by not giving her the place she deserved in the business. Hell, Cecilia wanted all this a hell of a lot more than I did.

Again Alba’s words buzzed in my ears. What if I could walk away from all this?

“Did someone say my name?” Cecilia asked, her impeccable timing saving me from the fight that was already brewing between me and my old man. She strode in on her ever-present three-inch stilettos, dressed a little more casual than her usual today in designer jeans and a red sweater.

“Hey, Papi,” she said happily when she noticed my father standing against the glass wall in my office—I was about to make the gagging sound I typically did whenever she called my father Daddy but the moment she got a good look at him she stopped in her tracks. “What’s wrong?”