Hector was something else.

I knew right away he wasn’t what he wanted us to think he was.

I’m not a super-sleuth or anything. It was just that, you spend enough time around bad people; you know them when you see them.

You also know the good ones too.

And there was something about him. Something about the way he held himself, the way he looked, the way he looked at me.

God, he was beautiful. Quite simply the most handsome man I’d ever clapped eyes on in my whole, entire life. This was saying something. My father surrounded himself with fit, athletic, good-looking men; his personal army was recruited specifically to reflect on him.

Hector had flatly refused the makeover my father usually demanded of the boys from the streets that he fashioned into gentlemen criminals. My father respected that too.

Hector was Mexican-American. He looked rough and was straight out tough. One look and you knew you did not mess with him. He had thick, black, wavy hair, black eyes, long legs, broad shoulders and a lean, amazing body. He knew who he was and what he wanted and he had a confidence that was unreal.

It was hard to describe but, put simply, he was magnetic.

He never gave a hint that he was who he was. Actually, I thought he was a cop not a DEA agent. Still, I did what I could.

It wasn’t much. I would just, say, leave my father’s keys lying around when I knew he was going to be out of the house for awhile but that Hector would be around. Then I’d notice the keys gone for an hour then back right where they were before. Then I’d get in my father’s secret safe (he gave me the combo) and I’d take out files or books and I’d set them in locked file cabinet drawers, drawers to which Hector had the keys. I’d lay them right on top (a time saver). I’d wait then go back and put them where they were supposed to be.

Once, when I overheard something I thought would be useful, I even left a note in what I thought of as “Our Drawer”. When I went back, it was gone and I knew my father didn’t take it, he was playing golf.

The note was kind of stupid not to mention playing with fire. My father could have found the note. He wouldn’t have suspected me (I typed it out on my computer). He knew I would never, never do anything like that to him. But he would have gone through his workforce and someone would have gotten the blame.

I never did that again, by the way.

In the meantime, I tried to show Hector the cold shoulder. I really did, honestly. For months I was what I knew all my father’s men and all the society boys and all my father’s colleagues called me, the “Ice Princess”.

No, it was not original but it was effective.

I was Pure Chill to Hector like I was to everyone else.

Then, one night, I melted.

I blamed lemon drops.

I’d gone out and had way too many lemon drops. They tasted like candy. I forgot they had so much vodka in them.

When I got home after a night with “the girls” (my semi-friends or, at least, the women my father wanted me to hang out with which was to say the women who enhanced his reputation – what could I say, everyone around my father had a job, that was one of mine), I’d been drunk.

I heard noise coming from my father’s study. It was late and the house was dark but this was not strange. My father worked odd hours. So I thought it was my father in the study.

I went to say goodnight like any good, dutiful daughter would do. Being a dutiful daughter was another one of my jobs and I did it both publically and privately. I didn’t have the courage to get on my father’s bad side not even behind closed doors. I knew what he was capable of, my mother didn’t leave for no good reason, trust me.

But it was Hector in my father’s study. Looking back, he was probably in there for reasons my father would frown on, frown on so much he’d have ordered Hector’s murder. No kidding, what did I say about my father’s bad side? I was being very serious.

I was too drunk to think twice about what I was doing. Not to mention I fancied that I was half in love with Hector (in the very, very back of my mind, the only place I let my true thoughts free).

Seeing as I was three sheets to the wind, the very, very back of mind was at the forefront for one shining moment. This allowed me to do something I rarely, rarely did.

I acted on impulse.

I threw myself at him.

And Hector caught me.

He didn’t even hesitate. I was all over him, he was all over me. We’d exchanged nothing but civilized pleasantries for months and that night, in my father’s study, we went at each other like animals in heat.

I think it went like this:

Me (with tilty head and stupid smile, all the while unsteadily walking toward him): “Hi.”

Hector (with cocked head and a small grin playing at his fantastic mouth as he watched me unsteadily walk toward him): “You okay?”

Me: “I will be when you kiss me.”

Oh God, just thinking about it makes me cringe but then again, it worked.

That was it. I had made it to him and was sliding my arms around his neck as I told him to kiss me. I pressed my body to his and he kissed me.

It was fantastic. It was so hot I couldn’t believe I didn’t melt on the spot. He was good with his hands, his tongue, his mouth, even his teeth.

Almost as good, he seemed to think I was good with those things too.

After awhile, he had me against the wall, my skirt up around my hips, his hand in my panties cupping my behind. His other arm was wrapped tight around my waist. Both were pulling me in deep, pressing me close to his hard hips. His mouth was at my neck, mine was at his, both my hands in his t-shirt, running up the hot skin of his back.

I didn’t think that it was tacky (my father would have thought it was tacky). I didn’t think anything. I couldn’t think anything. My entire mind was centered on Hector and what he was doing to me and how much I liked it.

Then Hector said, his voice a low, hoarse rumble against my neck, “I’ve been waitin’ months for you to get in the mood to go slumming.”

It was like someone had shoved me in a bath filled with ice.

He thought I was nothing but a society slut out for a quick, drunken f**k with the hired help.

I didn’t know what I was expecting. But for some reason, some incredibly insane reason, I expected more from him. The fact he didn’t give it to me cut through me like a blade.

I put my hands to his shoulders and pushed him away. I stared at him, eyes at Chill Factor Sub-Zero as I calmly pulled my skirt down.

Then I put all my effort into walking away without falling on my drunken face. That would kill any chance at a brilliant exit and at that moment I really needed to make a brilliant exit.