“I don’t get enough screen time,” Yadiel muttered under his breath, and Ashton regretted bringing up what was already a sore topic in their household.

“How do you know?” Abuelito Gus held up his smartphone, challenging Ashton’s assertion. “Everyone has one of these now. Anyone could be taking pictures of him at any time.”

That argument did not make Ashton feel better. “That’s my point—”

“Verdad.” Abuelita Bibi nodded and cast on a new color of yarn to her needles. She was taking advantage of the “cooler temperatures” of New York City to get some knitting done.

It was eighty-five degrees outside.

Then Abuelita Bibi turned on Ashton with that eagle-eyed dime el bochinche expression she wore when she sniffed out gossip. “¿Y la mujer?”

“¿Qué mujer?” Did she mean Yadiel’s birth mom? The only people who knew her identity were sitting in this room. Ashton had given Yadi a choice, and the boy had decided he would wait until he was ten to be told. He viewed ten as some magical age where all sorts of information and skills—mostly regarding video games and skateboarding—would be unlocked for him.

“La nena de las telenovelas americanas,” Abuelita Bibi clarified. “Jasmita?”

“Jasmine.” Ashton corrected her before he could stop himself. The last thing he needed was his family making up nicknames for her.

“Sí.” Abuelita Bibi gave him a look like, ¿Eres estúpido? “¿Pues? ¿La mujer?”

Ashton heaved a sigh. “We’re just . . .” The word friends turned to ashes on his tongue. “No sé.”

He had no idea. In all likelihood, Jasmine would never want to speak to him again. Regret hung like a lead weight around his neck, but it was an emotion he didn’t have the bandwidth to indulge.

Abuelito Gus wiggled his eyebrows. “Ella es muy hermosa.”

It was on the tip of Ashton’s tongue to extol her other virtues. Yes, Jasmine was beautiful, but she was also so much more than—

Ashton sighed. They were trying to change the subject and get him to come clean on the truth about his tryst with Jasmine, but he wasn’t ready to do that yet. The wounds were too fresh, hastily bandaged so he could get through the current crisis. But sometime soon, he’d have to poke at them, and then he’d become fully aware of everything he’d sacrificed. He’d been fooling himself, thinking he could make room for her in his life.

You’re fooling yourself if you think you can live without her, a little voice whispered in the back of his mind, but Ashton slapped it away. He should have stuck to his policy.

Just in case he needed the reminder, he’d received a text that evening from a number with a Miami area code that read Leave me out of this in Spanish.

It could only be from Yadiel’s mother.

Thoroughly exasperated, Ashton blurted out, “Am I the only one who remembers what happened before?”

Yadiel leaped off an armchair and crashed to the floor with a resounding thud that rattled everything on the coffee table. “What happened before?”

Carajo. Yadiel didn’t know about the attempted break-in. How could Ashton have been so careless? The weight of all these secrets was going to bury him.

Ashton wiped a hand over his face and said, again, “Mijo, this is an apartment. People live downstairs.”

Yadiel ignored him and bounced to his feet. “Papi, quiero visitar tu trabajo.”

This conversation was going off the rails. Just the thought of bringing his son to the studio now, when it was swarming with photographers and reporters and who knew what else, was enough to make him sweat. “No, mi amor. I’m sorry, but it’s not a good time for you to visit.”

“¿Por qué no?” Ignacio cut in. “Everyone knows about us now. Why can’t we visit the set?”

Ashton nearly choked. “We?”

“Sí, let’s all go.” Abuelita Bibi looked up from her knitting with an excited smile.

Yadiel cheered while Ashton panicked at the image of his worlds colliding. What would the cast and crew think? And, coño, what if they met Jasmine? His father would absolutely try to meddle.

Not to mention the potential for exposing them to the public, to the press, to . . . anyone with nefarious purposes.

“Espérate,” he began, but Ignacio got up and patted him on the shoulder.

“We’ll come tomorrow, okay?” Then he leaned in and said in a low voice, “The person you’re worried about is back in jail.”

The person—did he mean the stalker? “How do you know?”

Ignacio shrugged and gave him a crooked smile. “I check with my friends at the policía every month.”

Some of the tightness in Ashton’s chest eased. Of course Ignacio hadn’t forgotten what had happened. He’d been there that night. While Ashton had grabbed Yadiel out of his crib and called the police, his father had run outside with a baseball bat to chase the intruder away. What’s more, Ignacio had also been the one to file all the reports and follow up with the Miami PD while Ashton made immediate plans to sell the house and move Yadiel to Puerto Rico. Without his father’s help, Ashton never would’ve gotten through the experience.

Looking around at their smiling faces, at Yadiel high-fiving Abuelita Bibi, at Ignacio and Abuelito Gus discussing what they were going to wear to the studio, Ashton couldn’t deny them this. Even though it scared him.

He nodded. “Fine. I’ll ask the producers.”

God help him.

Chapter 33

Some small part of Jasmine hoped Ashton would have reached out while she slept, to offer an explanation, an apology, something. Instead, she got radio silence.

Oh, she had plenty of texts and voice mails, but not a single one from Ashton.

Everything about her . . . fling? Affair? She didn’t even know what to call it. But everything about her time with Ashton had been different from all her other relationships.

Except this part. The part where she ended up alone. Again. Shit had hit the fan, and he’d bounced. Left her hanging. Ghosted her.

Okay, so he was probably dealing with some shit over on his end. After everything he’d told her, she could understand why he’d gone to extreme lengths to protect his child. It was admirable, if misguided. No one could work in the public eye and expect complete privacy. She knew that all too well. Especially since the news about Ashton’s son had unleashed renewed interest in Jasmine and her love life.

The “love triangle” rumor had picked up steam, and now a lot of outlets were carrying the story. Jasmine indulged in an epic eye roll. Of all the ridiculous notions. There was no jealousy on the set or secret text messages, but the tabloids would write anything they could dream up to make the story more salacious.

They even unearthed Seth Thomas, Jasmine’s ex from Sunrise Vista, from whatever rock he’d been living under after a cocaine bust and multiple DUIs, to prove that Jasmine had a pattern of messy breakups.

As if she weren’t 100 percent aware of her own romantic failings.

Also, those things had happened to Seth long after they’d broken up and had nothing to do with her.

It hurt, being made out to be some kind of wild woman who threw herself at every man she worked with. Especially since, deep down, she worried it might be true.