Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 116046 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 580(@200wpm)___ 464(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116046 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 580(@200wpm)___ 464(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
My stomach cramped up, and I allowed myself to lean back into Ramón. “Yeah, wouldn’t want that.”
“I told her who I am—”
Letting out a somewhat hysterical laugh I said, “It just occurred to me that I have no idea who you are.”
Shuffling us over to the mirror above the dresser, he looked at me while he stood behind me, dwarfing me with his presence. Not only was he physically intimidating, he was older, probably late twenties maybe early thirties. A grown man for sure. I looked like a little doll next to his dark menace. He was all tattoos, dark tanned skin, and scars—someone that I should be scared of, but wasn’t. It was hard to be frightened of a man whose entire being melted into something softer, warmer, when he looked at you. I’ve never had a man so focused on me like this before. It was disconcerting and somehow sweet.
“My name is Ramón Cordova. I’m twenty-nine years old, never been married, no kids, and I’m CEO of the Investment arm of the Cordova Group.”
I frowned up at him. “You’re a CEO?”
A small smile cracked his face as he fingered his heavy gold ear gauge. “You find that hard to believe. What? You look at me and only see a criminal because I have a few prison tattoos? Kinda judgmental if you ask me, considering how offended you get when someone looks at you and only sees your body, not the beautiful soul within.”
Okay, this guy totally threw me for a loop. On one hand, he was super sweet. On the other, he was a jerk. Also, unfortunately, he was right. I was judging him. “I guess you just don’t seem like a nine to five kind of guy.”
“I’m not. My mom was smart enough to recognize that when she put me in charge of Investments. Instead of spending all my time behind a desk, I get to travel the world, looking for the best people to support, finding the next must-have product. Since I took over four years ago, I’ve been all over, meeting some of the most brilliant, and flat-out crazy, people in the world.”
“Wow,” I whispered, slightly stunned as my idea of who this man was shifted. “That sounds amazing. I would love a job like that.”
“Hannah said you’re going to school to be a teacher, right?”
A feeling of melancholy hit me as I thought about my old life. Funny how that works, how your life becomes divided between terrible events. For me, it would forever be the day I discovered monsters were real and they roamed the earth. All my old dreams, my old life, seemed like a bunch of superficial bullshit. Suddenly depressed at how anchorless I felt, I sighed.
“Yeah.”
He squeezed me a little tighter, making me look back into the mirror. “That wasn’t a very enthusiastic yeah. Teaching not your thing?”
I chewed on my thumb for a second, wondering how honest I could be with this man, this intimate stranger—whether he’d understand. “It’s not what I thought it would be.”
He made a motion with his hands for me to go on.
“It’s depressing.” I blurted out. “These kids that I see? They’re so bright, they have so much potential, and they’re forced to fight and scrape just to get enough to survive, let alone thrive. Broken families, poverty, drug addiction—you name something awful, and these kids have had to live with it. It hurts my heart.” Tears burned in my eyes, and I rubbed the back of my hand over my cheeks, not really seeing Ramón anymore. I stared at the far wall of my room, at the lovely floral watercolor framed between the two windows. “I mean, we struggled when I was growing up. Four kids were a lot for two working, middle-class parents to raise, but I’ve never had to deal with the reality of my mother being a prostitute, or my father being in prison for dealing drugs. Yeah, most of the kids I tutor are on the road to a bleak future, full speed ahead, but there are some really, really good kids out there that are fighting with everything they have to get out of the life they were born into. It’s not fair.”
I waited for him to tell me life wasn’t fair or some other well-meaning nonsense. Instead, he took my hand in his. I gratefully linked my fingers with his, needing his warmth to steady me. “You’re right, the world isn’t fair. I know I come from money, but I’ve spent a lot of time in South America in some savagely poor countries. Places I wouldn’t send my worst enemy. I’ve seen how bad poverty can get, and I know exactly what you’re talking about. Those kids, none of ‘em asked to be born into that filth. Shitty hand that life dealt them. All that potential, wasted. It’s a fucking shame, which is why my parents, through the Cordova Group’s philanthropic foundation, donate hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarships every year to low income students. It’s called the Maria’s Hope Scholarship, named after my paternal grandmother. Have you heard of it?”