The Saint's Devilish Deal by Knight Kristina

Author:Knight, Kristina [Knight, Kristina]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: reunion romance, vacation romance, Puerto Vallarta, contemporary romance, Mexico
Publisher: Kristina Knight
Published: 2013-11-29T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

“You’re killing me.”

Esmerelda snorted. She stopped outside yet another trendy gallery in Viejo Vallarta and Santiago sighed. In the last two hours she’d dragged him from the mercados of Rio Cuale, buying at least a truckload of colorful Mexican blankets and fluffy pillows, enough fresh linens to make up every bed in the villa three times, and two Huichol yarn paintings. Santiago usually left the decorating and designing part of his developments in the hands of professionals. Decorators, architects. People who knew what would look good in a sitting room or bedroom. As much as he didn’t want to be there, a small piece of him liked imagining them working together on each room. Setting it up to create the wow factor that was needed for their future guests.

And that was reason enough to get Esme out of these shops and them back onto his plans. She didn’t need to redecorate the villa when a few cans of paint would do a serviceable job over the next six months. But, seeing the happy look on her face, he couldn’t shut her down. There was more than enough money in the villa accounts now to pay for everything, he reasoned, and most of it could be re-sold when the time came for them to move on.

Them? No, him. Simple translation error. He would move on and so would Esme, but they wouldn’t move on together. No, this friends-with-benefits arrangement had a definite expiration date: six months from now. The band around his heart tightened, threatening to chip away some of the icy layers to the red-blooded heat below. Santiago swallowed hard and clamped down on his emotions. It was better this way, for both of them.

She instructed the gallery vendor to send three sets of hand-blown margarita globes, a score of shot glasses, and fifty wine goblets to Casa Constance by Monday. Her gaze caught on a large glass wall hanging behind the register. Veins of yellow and green ran through the underlying blue glass with tiny waves of cast iron making swells throughout the pattern. She tugged Santiago’s arm, sending a sharp thrill straight to his heart, effectively cracking the piece of him he wanted to be frozen forever.

“Oh, that’s perfect for the entryway, don’t you think?” She was asking him? He didn’t want to be her sounding board. Didn’t want to be part of this process at all. It looked like glass. Beautiful glass, but glass all the same. He looked around as if the few customers in the store would have an answer for him. No one paid them any attention. She looked at him. Expectantly.

“Over the mantle?” Dios, he was an idiot. Walking straight into the pit of partnership. Why couldn’t he just walk away?

She smiled. “Of course, can’t you just see the colors pop against the white walls?” Esme wrote another check—her seventh of the day—and they left the store. They couldn’t need much more from the local artisans. Could they?

“We don’t have white walls. They’re still grey.

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