A Virgin for the CEO

29

"Tommy?"

She found Tommy standing alone by the edge of their garden, looking at the vegetation they worked hard to maintain, and he looked very dejected.

He glanced at her for a moment before he looked back at the garden again. His shoulders looked bowed as his posture was, and he seemed unseeing. Her heart melted at the sight, and she decided against the lecture she was about to impose on her little guy. Instead, she stood beside him and looked over at the garden herself.

"We'll transfer as much as we can bring there. It will be easier because we'll have faucet water. We can get a hose so Mama can water the plants and it'll be an exercise for her."

At the periphery of her vision, she saw him glance at her again. "Ate, I know you didn't want to move, but it was just so fast and—"

"I understand. Tommy..." She raised a hand to place it on his shoulder. "You made the right decision. This is good for you and Mama and for me, too."

He was looking at her. "I told him the truth, that it was my fault and it was just that one time. That I'll not let you—"

She pulled him to her to hug him. "He knows that already. Will you stop beating yourself up about it? For me? You don't have anything to worry about."

"Ate... you talk to him like you're not afraid of him."

She pulled back to look at him. "Because I'm not." Liar.

"I asked about him, about how he treats people here in the hacienda, and nobody ever said a bad word. They said he was fair and good, like the Señor. He isn't as approachable, but they said he's not been so ever since... like he is uncomfortable with too many people. The older ones said even as a child, when the señora was parading him around, he would cry when people starts to get too many. But he is never rude or looked down on the tenants beyond the part wherein he was acting the son of a very wealthy father, which he really is."

She looked at her brother. She had her own opinions about the gago (slang, like 'idiot' in English), but she could imagine how people perceived him. As manipulative as he was, he had been trying to make up for that night ever since. She could see that now. He was really trying.

"I suppose they are right. He hasn't hurt me. In fact, he's been helping us."

She saw his lips thin, even as they trembled a little. "Well, I told him to respect you because you are a respectable lady, Ate. Or I'll hurt him."

She blinked. "What? You threatened the señorito?"

He nodded. "On the phone, when he called me while I waited in the hospital, I told him that. But he said he respects you all the way."

"What if he fires you?"

He shook his head. "He said he wouldn't because he knew I was working to help you and especially Mama so he'll not. I'll still hurt him, anyway, if he hurts you."

She stared at him. "When all of this is settled and we're alone, I'll ask you about the conversation, okay?"

He nodded. But he hesitated. "But he treats you right?"

"Tommy, would I have talked to him like that if he treated me badly? If you include irritation as bad treatment, he does irritate me, telling me to do this or that without question. Like a spoiled bratty fool."

A corner of her brother's lips twitched. "But he's the boss. He can tell you to do this and that."

"He's your boss, not mine. I don't work for him."