Authors: Rhonda Laurel
Tags: #Romance, #contemporary romance, #multicultural romance
Shutter
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Shutter
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real in any way. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Published By
Etopia Press
1643 Warwick Ave., #124
Warwick, RI 02889
Shutter
Copyright © 2013 by Rhonda Laurel
ISBN: 978-1-939194-67-1
Edited by Melinda Fulton
Cover by Valerie Tibbs
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Etopia Press electronic publication: February 2013
~ Dedication ~
To Antonio: thank you for sending me on the journey to find love.
Chapter One
Antonio De Soto gazed at the rumpled picture of Lauren he pulled out of his wallet. Sure, the picture was three years old, but he liked this one of her. Bliss permeated through her that day. She looked almost angelic, her eyes shining, showing that shy yet mischievous smile he’d come to love. Being a photographer for many years, he thought there was no bigger crime than someone mishandling a photograph. But he knew the bigger crime was carrying around a picture of Lauren Miller-De Soto, his brother’s wife.
As he shifted in his first-class seat he glanced over and sighed. Fate had seated him next to an older gentleman who couldn’t seem to get settled in his chair. He would have preferred a young, nubile woman to pass the time with.
The older man attempted to adjust his seat for the fourth time. “Sorry about that, young man! Can’t seem to get comfortable,” the old man said with a smile.
“No problem,” Antonio returned, half listening to him.
“She is beautiful.” The man leaned over nosily to see what was clutched in Antonio’s hand.
“Yes, she is.”
“So how long have you been married?”
“Not my wife,” Antonio murmured.
“Oh.” The man cleared his throat. “How long do you hope she’ll be married?”
Antonio laughed. “She’s not getting divorced in this lifetime. And why do you think I’d want her to get divorced?”
The older man paused for a moment before answering. “That picture looks like it’s been looked at quite a few times. I have pictures of my kids in my wallet that don’t look that worn.”
“Well, this is my brother’s wife. They are happily married and have three kids.” Antonio was waiting for some look of condemnation, a snort of “you idiot” or some other indication that this man thought he was a wretch. Because it was the way he felt. After everything that transpired with Alejandro, he still felt a buried longing for Lauren that he kept tucked away for the sake of his renewed relationship with his brother.
The older man looked at him. After a few more moments he said thoughtfully, “You must love your brother very much.”
* * *
When he visited he got to spend time with his gorgeous niece and nephews, bond with his brother as an equal, and spend time with Lauren. Alejandro and Lauren were a lot more honest in their relationship and in turn Alejandro was more honest with him.
“I trust her and I love her. I love you. You’re my baby brother. I am going to trust that the two of you won’t screw me over,” his brother declared to him one night while they were out picking up takeout.
For so long he’d had a battle of wills with his older brother. Alejandro had bossed him around most of his life and he resented it. But after finding happiness with Lauren, his brother mellowed out and made an effort to respect him. Who would have thought five years ago they were tangled in a bizarre love triangle? The honesty exhibited by his brother now, uncloaked by machismo and bossiness, was refreshing and it was all beginning to be too much for him. In this place of honesty he found everyone had moved on except him. He kept himself in a constant flood of sensual gratification chasing women, but each time he looked into the eyes of a woman he couldn’t see what he saw in Lauren’s eyes. She was patient with him, trying to encourage him to go deeper than a cheap one-night stand. He had what his cousin Yesenia called the curse of the De Soto men.
* * *
“You know, that camera of yours is a phallus. If you stop aiming your lens at every woman you see, you could find the right one,” Lauren joked one night while they were playing Scrabble. Alejandro was upstairs trying to give the twins a bath.
“Do you think I’m shallow?”
“Yes,” she blurted out.
“Really?” he said with a hint of hurt in his voice.
“Yes you are. You objectify women. Then you select the pick of the litter in the immediate vicinity and hit on her. She usually says yes because she’s equally vain and flattered that you picked her. I get it with you hot, beautiful people. I’ve never understood it, but I grasp the feral concept of it all.”
“Some of the hot women that I’ve met…didn’t have much under the cap. They were agreeable enough so that they lulled me into a false sense of happiness. And then the game would begin.”
“But you get what you want and the game ends just as quickly. There has to be a time in your life when you slowed down and actually wanted to know a woman for more than sexual reasons.”
Antonio glanced down at his letter tiles and realized he had the letters J, E, R, and K. He laughed to himself. Either they had some serious honesty mojo in the house or his treacherous thoughts were being channeled through the Scrabble board.
“I did once.”
Lauren looked down, then surprisingly back up at him. “I think I owe you an apology.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes I do.” She reached over and took his hand. “I kind of dismissed what you felt for me because I didn’t want to deal with it. Alejandro and I pretended like it never happened. But I know it was more than that. We had a connection at that time and we still do. It’s just a different kind of feeling now. It had something to do with pissing him off in the beginning, but I knew after we went to that festival together that it wasn’t about him anymore.”
“I know it was wrong, but it was real. How I felt about you. A little misplaced but it was real,” he said quietly.
“I know.”
* * *
When his buddy Felix called him and asked for help on a project he was doing for the community theater in his neighborhood, Antonio said yes without a second thought. Antonio met Felix Calderon when he was pursuing his undergrad degree at NYU. Felix, who always had a flair for drama, was a theater major. At first his brash, living out loud persona made Antonio shy away from him, but after several classes together and a very frank discussion, the two became friends.
Every once in a while they’d be in the same city and would get together, musing about how two kids from the Bronx were traveling the world and following their dreams. Felix lived in a quiet little art community on the west coast and was the ringleader for any production that occurred in the local community theater. He didn’t know exactly how he could help Felix, but he was grateful for the invitation.
After a smooth cab ride to Felix’s apartment, Antonio let himself in with the key Felix had given him and dropped off his things. He was hungry and Felix wouldn’t be home until six. He strolled the main street, camera in hand, eyeing some of the changes in the decor in the store windows since his last visit. Then he stumbled upon the café Metro Eatery, went inside, and parked himself at the counter.
The sound of Nat King Cole’s song “Mona Lisa” oozing out of the sound system immediately put him at ease. He read the menu, although he already knew he wanted. The roast beef on rye was a favorite of his, but what was making his mouth water was a slender woman with long, flowing red hair sitting at a table reading a fashion magazine. He imagined her name was Simone or some other sexy name that started with an S. Something seductive that made you want to say it over and over in throes of passion. Simone smiled and dropped her gaze back down to the magazine. Ah, the game begins.
Wasn’t this his problem? Meeting random women and having brief affairs? Well, it was according to every woman in his life. His mother constantly asked him when he was going to settle down. Yesenia kept sending him e-books to read about fear of commitment, and Lauren just sighed when he pooh-poohed her inspirational talks about finding his soul mate. He wasn’t sure he bought into that, the idea that there was one person in the world who was meant to be with him. It could have been his hound dogging that had him jaded, but then the disproof of his theory would pop into his mind. Alejandro was evidence that there was no curse of the De Soto men, just choices that one continually makes until you find someone that fits into those ragged grooves on the side of your body.
A woman seated on the other side of the counter broke him out of his daydream. She seemed to be laughing to herself but looked in his direction. He turned his attention to her. She looked up from her paper and shook her head.
“Hi,” he said, smiling.
She didn’t answer.
Determined not to be ignored, he leaned over and said it again. “Hi.”
She didn’t look up from her paper.
“I was wondering what you thought was so funny,” he said, a little louder.
Once she put down the paper, he saw a pair of glasses teetering on the edge of her nose. The first thing he noticed was her face. It was round but not too round and she had a cleft in her chin. Which made him think of something dirty he’d said one time to this woman he dated who had a cleft in her chin. Though he thought this prim woman sitting across from him with a scarf wrapped twice around her neck wouldn’t find his limerick even remotely funny. She seemed no-nonsense, but her pretty brown eyes were warm and inviting.