Young and Scambitious (Scambitious #1)

Gabriel

He wasn't sure what he would see, which version of her at least, when he arrived at the club. The Asylum Rose was in a part of town that used to be the place to be seen. That might have only been a year ago; now, it was the only establishment on the block that seemed to have any significant activity. He looked up the address before he dropped by and saw past news stories of brawls, shootings, and other modes of disorderly conduct. Of the rich and trying-to-be kind.

It didn't seem like the place where he'd see Jane del Mundo again.

Or Lydia Santiago.

One of the things he had learned to do in his line of work was not look back, literally and figuratively, but Gabriel risked it when he went back to Jane del Mundo's hotel. After already doing the somewhat-smart thing and not actually having sex with her. Only to discover that she had checked out.

No, wait. That there had been no Jane del Mundo registered as a guest.

Didn't she say she was on a month-long vacation? Was the month over? Did she say anything about leaving the next day? Was she actually staying with someone?

Briefly he wondered if he had gone into a stress-related episode again and had imagined the entire incident, from when he noticed her at the souvenir shop, and again at Non-fiction, and then at Fiction - Thrillers. When she showed up at the same place where he chose to have coffee he wondered if he had finally developed the power to control minds. Or maybe she had been following him.

He wasn't going to complain.

It couldn't have been a dream. He still remembered the feel of her skin, how she tasted, how her short moans tickled his ear. Every little thing about her was slightly unexpected, and he considered that proof that he hadn't made her up.

After a day of telling himself this, he crossed a line and found out who exactly had been staying at the hotel room that he had gone up to. The registered name was Lydia Santiago.

From there it was a simple matter of a Google search, a literary hunch, a lucky click, a surprising turn, that may not have been so surprising given her library itinerary. It led him to "Elizabeth Madrid," socialite, and this very club.

Gabriel saw her pop out from between two vehicles, but didn't approach her right away. She looked annoyed.

She also looked, well, like an "Elizabeth Madrid." Her dress draped against her body loosely, but was far from dowdy. The bare shoulder, the slight tapering at the waist, the legs that slid out from under a skirt that was very short. Criminally short. Painfully short.

"Gabriel?"

She saw, and acknowledged him, before he had a chance to surprise her. It looked like she was happy to see him.

"Jane," he said. "I didn't know you'd be in Manila."

"Oh well." She waved a hand, swallowing the last of something. "I'm still on holiday. And I have family here."

"I thought you'd be in Singapore longer."

One of her feet, clad in a shoe with an outrageously tall heel, lazily traced semicircles on the grimy street. He could almost see her hips twist behind the outline of her dress. Almost. Maybe he was having an episode again.

"Are you following me, Gabriel?" she said, almost playfully. Ninety percent playfully. He detected suspicion in the remaining ten.

"I have family here too," he said.

"Small world."

"Do you want to get a coffee?"

She nodded. But first, she reached into her bag and checked her phone. "Let's go now," she said.

--O--

He should have said something.

At first he was just checking how far she would go. But she was really great at it, transitioning quickly into artsy, wide-eyed Jane, Jane dressed somewhat inappropriately, but that Jane nonetheless. He would ask about her family in Manila, and she would start on a story about her favorite Jollibee burger and he would be engrossed in it, forgetting where he started. So he launched into his own tales, not for the purpose of covering up who he really was, but because he sincerely wanted to entertain her, the way she was keen on entertaining him.

They talked about hiking, and deep dives, and backstage passes to rock concerts, long marches in small revolutions.

"You're just a superhero, aren't you?" she said, sweetly, the only time her tone let on that she didn't believe most of what he said. "Scholar, world traveler. Do you fight crime too?"

He kissed her, and he made sure that he did it first, and right when she was mid-sentence ("I should go") in case she had been humoring him all night just to tell him that it wouldn't work, would never work.

But of course, because he expected it, she didn't say that either. Her touch was soft and strong, light against the skin on the back of his neck, but insistent in pulling him as close to her as possible.

"One time," she said, in a voice he barely recognized.

He could handle that. He didn't think he'd get another chance. And he was ready, finally. His hotel was just around the corner.  And he had protection in his wallet, made sure he did, since that day. In his wallet, in his pocket, in his gym bag, checked and replaced at the first indication of any fraying or damage to the integrity of the foil packet.

Later, when he finally got to use it, and she was moving astride him, he caught a hint of a small but genuine smile. He kissed it as if it would make it his, and not just slip back under the skin of whatever she was hiding as. This surprised her, and him, the timing of it, and she shuddered with release, against his lips, his body, prolonging that truth for a few moments longer.