Tangled: A Moreno Brothers novella Read online

  “But you don’t need to do that; you’ve already been a teacher.”

  “This isn’t the same, Romero. Teaching at a university level is a completely different monster. I’ll be teaching adults, not middle-school brats.”

  “How old’s this guy?”

  All right, she knew this was coming. No matter how many years they were married, Romero would always be Romero. She’d tell him everything he needed to know so that he’d feel better, but no way was she allowing him to make her feel guilty about anything regardless of the circumstances.

  “I don’t know exactly, but if I had to guess, I’d say mid to late thirties.”

  “Is he single?”

  Isabel took a deep breath, biting back what she really wanted to ask. Does that really matter? But since she knew no matter how much he’d claim it didn’t, it did. She may as well tell him the truth.

  “He’s recently divorced.”

  Romero stared at her now, the severity in his eyes weakened a bit but his interest even greater. “And why do you know that?”

  Isabel shot right back without wavering, “Because he mentioned it when I told him about needing to be home for the kids. He said he understood. He remembered when his kids were our kids’ age and not wanting to miss out on anything. He said I should enjoy these years because they fly by fast. Then he said now that he’s divorced he hardly sees the kids at all and he wishes he’d spent more time with them when he’d had the chance.” Reaching for Romero’s hand, she could already feel the tension in his arms again. “What are you thinking?” she asked, and he stared up at her silently for a moment. “Don’t think about it, baby. Just tell me what’s going through your head this very instant.”

  His expression softened a bit as he pulled her down to lie with him. “That I love you,” he said softly, kissing her nose as soon as she was close enough. “And that I’m gonna pass out the moment we shut off the lights.”

  Isabel searched his eyes, surprised by his response. This was so not where she thought this conversation was headed. But he smiled and it was genuine, so she smiled, relieved that for now this didn’t appear as if it might be an issue.

  Since they’d been married and especially once she decided to stay home, there’d been very few incidents where his temper or suspicion of any guy around her caused them to argue. They’d come a long way since their explosive beginning. But then, since she’d been home with the kids, there’d been very few times she had to spend around other men when Romero wasn’t around.

  Isabel decided this was a good thing for them. She was bound to get back into the work force, and they were beyond ridiculous insecurities. Obviously, Romero had grown in the years they’d been married or they might still be discussing Elliot. Instead, Romero’s arms were already wrapped tightly around her, and he breathed in deeply, sounding as content as she felt.

  ~*~

  Romero climbed back into bed, careful not to wake Izzy. She’d been mumbling since he’d gotten out of bed in the first place.

  “No,” she mumbled softly. “No albondigas for you.”

  He chuckled softly, staring at her. She hadn’t done this in a while. Her mumbling in her sleep was something that only happened once in a great while. But over the years, he’d noticed it usually happened when she went to bed especially tired. Last night had been so good it didn’t surprise him that she’d slept this soundly.

  Most of the time, the things she said in her sleep had to do with him or the kids. She’d even scolded Max once in her sleep for cussing in front of the kids. It was always highly entertaining, and he loved teasing her about it.

  He frowned, knowing his chuckling had woken her because she began to shift and open her eyes. Even half awake, she was fucking beautiful, and he had to smile. She stared lazily at him, her expression a bit confused obviously about waking to him staring and smiling at her the way he was. “What are you the soup Nazi now?”

  “What?” she asked, her brows pinching together.

  “Were you dreaming about albondigas?”

  She stared at him for moment then smiled, her face flushing instantly. Romero groaned, burying his face in her neck. Jesus, he’d never get enough of seeing her blush. Even after all these years, it still happened often, and Romero still found it to be one of her most adorable quirks.

  “What did I say?” She laughed, nudging him away playfully.

  “You said, ‘No albondigas for you.’”

  Repeating it made him laugh again. Izzy nudged him again for laughing at her, but she was smiling now too.

  “I don’t remember what exactly I was dreaming. I just remember I was in the kitchen and the kids were running amuck.”

  Romero finally managed to pull himself away but not before kissing her on the nose. He laughed some more. He’d figured as much because she often disciplined the kids, especially Romeo, by threatening to hold their favorite dishes or special treat she made for them hostage until they behaved.

  “You hadn’t done that in a while,” he said just as the kids ran in the room and jumped in the bed with Izzy.

  “Well, with the kids back in school,” she said, squeezing Romeo in her arms, “and me going back to work soon, you can expect it to happen more often. I’ll probably go to bed completely spent more often now.”

  The mention of her going back to work squashed Romero’s good mood a bit, but he didn’t want to be too obvious about it. He really did want to be supportive of her decision to go back to work, but, like Manny, he secretly had wished she’d waited longer before doing so.

  His security firm was highly successful and only becoming more and more lucrative each year. Financially, they didn’t need her to go back to work, but Romero understood that wasn’t why she was doing it. She’d worked hard to earn her degrees. It had taken her longer than all her siblings to earn her master’s because she’d done online classes and just a class on campus here and there in the past five years. But she’d finally done it last year, and Romero was very proud of her. At the time, he’d hoped it was just a goal she wanted to achieve but that she wasn’t seriously going back to teaching this soon.

  Of course, Izzy’s sister Pat was the one doing most of the encouraging that she should go back to work. Despite his relationship with Izzy’s sister having improved enormously since he’d first met her, she was still Izzy’s overbearing sister. The woman would always be annoying when it came to a lot of things. Romero had just learned to deal with her ass. The good thing was, after all these years, she knew better than to purposely get on his bad side. And since Romero had been so convincing about being all for Izzy going back to work, Pat couldn’t know hearing her constantly nag Izzy about using her degree and getting back to teaching was annoying as shit.

  Still, it wasn’t just Pat. Izzy really did miss teaching, and she deserved to get back to it. So regardless of how disconcerting it was that she’d be working side by side with this recently divorced professor, Romero was going to be as supportive as he said he’d be. He trusted Izzy completely. The only consolation and hope he’d held onto was that she was already talking about how tired she’d be once she went back to work. She’d already said if it got to be too much she’d quit ASAP.

  Romero could only secretly hope now that it would be.

  Three

  Silly

  T

  hree weeks into her new job, Isabel was finally getting the hang of her new routine. But it didn’t make it any less exhausting than that first week. Before she figured out what the safest time was for her to leave the university once she was done so she’d be on time to pick up the kids, she’d been close to calling Manny or Max, who worked closest to their school, to pick them up because she thought she might not make it. Luckily, both times she had. It’d been close, but she’d made it. It took a few days, but she had it down now—not just what was the latest she could leave but what route to take that took the least amount of time.

  It was still tiresome, but at least it was less stressful. Not that R
omero would be a jerk about it, but she still didn’t want him to think she couldn’t handle this. When she started this, she thought it’d be a breeze. It was just four hours of her day. She remembered thinking “How hard can it be? Plenty of women work full-time and still deal with their household chores and families.” But she hadn’t taken into account the commute time to and from work, the extra hour she now needed in the morning to get ready while helping the kids get ready as well, and making their breakfast and lunches. Then there was the getting home and preparing them something to hold them over until she could get a real meal together for them.

  Having to squeeze in all the usual things she could do so easily before she had to work was so much more exhausting. Like the stuff she typically knocked out in one day on her errand day. Now she had to run errands several times a week because there was no way she could squeeze them all in during the few hours she had once she was out of work and still have dinner ready in time. It felt like far more than four hours of her day were being sucked up by this job.

  The family dinner time at the table every night was her thing, not Romero’s. So she knew he wouldn’t have a problem if dinner wasn’t ready when he got home. In fact, he often told her, even before she’d gone back to work, to let him know if she wanted him to just pick something up for dinner on his way home. After Romero’s grandma had died, Manny and Max had done their best to raise him, but he’d told her about the many pizzas and buckets of chicken or even frozen chicken wings they’d thrown in the oven for dinner. Having dinner at the table every night with her family was something Isabel remembered so fondly from when she was growing up. It was her family’s bonding time, and she’d been a stickler for wanting to instill the tradition in her own kids.

  It’d been easy to get them used to it, and the kids seemed to enjoy it as much as she had when she was growing up. Only now it was getting harder to have it all as perfect as she liked it to be with the rolls and salad and even dessert ready just in time.

  To top it off, with the holidays looming, she had added errands to run. Buying all the Christmas stuff for the kids was something she’d normally done when Amanda was in school and she could drop off Romeo with her mom or sisters for a few hours. With both of them in school now, this year should’ve been easier. Instead, her working during their time in school was making everything feel overwhelming.

  It was shameful to think not only had her mom done the same thing with four kids but she’d done it all while working full-time for years and years. Now here Isabel was working part-time for just a few weeks, and already it was beginning to feel like too much.

  But there was no way she was admitting this may’ve been a mistake. She knew it had everything to do with her need for everything to be as meticulous as ever despite her having less time to do it. Her only consolation was that Romero would be all for her quitting. Still, it was humiliating to think she couldn’t hang in there for at least a few months. What kind of example would she be setting for her kids if she quit this quickly?

  Another consolation was that the job itself was gratifying. Elliot was more than pleasant to work with, and it was nice for a change to be able to engage in adult conversation for the better part of her days. She remembered there was a time in her life when both kids were very little and she lived for the playdates with Valerie and the other girls so she could get some adult conversation instead of just baby talk when she was home alone with the kids all day. It wasn’t so bad anymore now that they were a little older, but it was still nice to discuss things that even some of the adults in her life didn’t get. So being in a university setting was the ideal job for her, and discussing these things with Elliot was incredibly refreshing.

  She was even beginning to get over the initial awkwardness of being alone in the classroom with him whenever he dismissed his class early. He gave her the option to leave early as well and would still give her credit for her full four hours. But it usually worked out if she stuck around because they would work on lectures together. He’d let her take the floor a few times already during his lectures and said whenever she felt up to it she could have at it and do the entire thing on her own.

  She still wasn’t feeling that confident. Elliot was one of those professors she remembered from her early days in college. He had a gift. He was so confident when he spoke, and he just had that it factor when it came to speaking to his students. Some of his lectures were absolutely mesmerizing and thought-provoking. How packed each one of his classes was, was proof of how captivating he could be. Isabel knew from experience only the professors as charismatic as Elliot were the ones whose classes stayed as full as his did throughout the entire semester. She didn’t know it for a fact, but she was fairly certain his classes were probably the first to get filled, and there was very likely a long waiting list to get in.

  The thought of giving a full lecture as he sat and listened to her was actually a bit daunting, even though the few times he’d given her the floor he’d called her a natural. She knew he was just being kind. While she did feel confident and did notice she had everyone’s full attention the little time she got up to speak, she knew she wasn’t nearly as good as he was.

  Today was one of those days he’d finished up early and he’d excused his students, leaving them alone to go over lectures, she imagined. They’d remained in the empty lecture hall long after the students had been dismissed, discussing what he’d spoken of today.

  Though she’d never tell Romero because without a doubt he’d be beyond annoyed by it, this was by far what she considered the biggest perk of her job. When she first told Romero she’d decided to get her master’s in political science, he’d teased her that she’d done so to spite his uncles. They’d made no secret of their abhorrence of anything political. As far as they were concerned, all politicians were crooks and liars.

  Isabel had no interest in running for office. But just like her late father who’d dabbed in politics a bit, she too had always had an interest in political science. And since politics was considered a touchy subject unless she was discussing it privately with one of her siblings or her mom—who were about the only people she knew who were even interested in discussing politics at all—she didn’t get to discuss it often. Being able to do so in length with someone who spoke as eloquently as Elliot, was probably her favorite part of the job.

  “I actually agree with you that health care reform as is, is a bit flawed, but for business owners like my husband and me, and even his uncles who’ve always been self-employed as well, some kind of healthcare reform was needed and should’ve come a long time ago,” Isabel said as Elliot listened intently. “Fortunately, both my husband’s and his uncles’ businesses are doing very well, so health insurance is not an issue, but there are too many self-employed citizens out there who aren’t as fortunate, and most of those people would be uninsured if it weren’t for the laws that were recently passed.”

  “You mentioned that before about your husband being self-employed.” He eyed her curiously. “Security firm, right?”

  “Yes.” She nodded. “And he stays real busy.”

  “I take it you two met in college. Was he a business major?”

  “No, actually, he didn’t attend college.”

  Isabel was long over the idea that her sister had once tried to put in her head that only someone with a college degree could be successful—in her sister’s mind anyway. One of the reasons she knew her sister didn’t voice her opinion much about that anymore was because Romero and his uncles were living proof that her theory couldn’t be further from the truth. While his uncles’ business was very different from Romero’s, even in a weak economy, both businesses were thriving. And she was extremely proud of Romero. He was a self-made man, and even now, the business continued to expand.

  “Really?” Elliot seemed genuinely intrigued by this. “Oh wow. So he just started his business all on his own?”

  “Yep,” she said proudly. “I mean it wasn’t that simple.”

 
“Of course, of course,” Elliot agreed quickly. “No business ever is.”

  “He had to get certified in numerous things, pass a lot of state and county tests, and build a solid clientele, etc. He still takes exams whenever any of those certifications need to be renewed since the laws change all the time. He’s also a private investigator. The business has expanded extensively since he first started it. Not to brag or anything”—she smiled as he stared at her—“but when I think of how far he’s come, it really is quite impressive that he started what’s become such a big firm all on his own.”

  “It does sound impressive,” Elliot agreed again, smiling with her, “and interesting. I imagine there’s never a dull moment.”

  “No.” She laughed softly. “He comes home with wild stories all the time.”

  “I’ll bet.” Elliot sat even further back in his seat. “So I’m curious. How did you two meet?”

  “Mutual friends,” she said, trying not to feel weird about the turn the conversation had taken.

  So far most of their conversations had been strictly politics and work-related with a few inquiries about her kids and family. But she supposed this was normal and he was just curious. She had to admit after getting to know him over the past few weeks, even if their conversations had been purely professional, she’d been very impressed with him in more ways than one. Clearly having a PhD in political science and with all the lectures he’d given made him very well-read and well-spoken. Those qualities in a man alone were attractive enough regardless of his looks, but Elliot was all those things and good-looking. She, too, had been curious about why any woman would divorce him.

  This was another reason why she was certain there was never an empty seat in lecture hall on the days he lectured. On top of captivating his audience with his well-expressed views, he was also very easy on the eyes. With all he had to offer, there was no doubt’ he was a favorite professor. Isabel had seen it in the admiring eyes of all his female students. So the question of why any woman would divorce such a catch was a curious one, though Isabel didn’t dare ask something so personal.