The company car was waiting for Eugenia in front of the main entrance.
The driver got out to open the door for her, but she paused for a moment on the sidewalk, clutching the folder against her chest and feeling as though Samuel's voice were still clinging to her skin.
A dinner.
Just a dinner.
She had repeated it to herself while saying goodbye to him, while walking down the hall, and while gathering her things. The phrase had lost strength with every repetition. It sounded less like a decision and more like a plea directed at herself.
“Ms. de los Santos?” the driver called kindly.
“Yes. I'm sorry.”
She got into the car and settled beside the window. The interior smelled of leather, air conditioning, and that discreet corporate fragrance that seemed designed not to awaken any emotion. Eugenia was grateful for the neutrality of the space. She needed something that wouldn't remind her of Samuel.
And yet, as soon as the car started moving, she saw him again.
Not as he had appeared in the boardroom, immaculate and confident, but in the moments she hadn't managed to push from her memory: the exact pause before he answered her, the way his eyes lingered on her and then looked away with an effort that was far too obvious, the change in his expression when he stopped speaking to her as the director and asked her to call him by his first name.
Samuel.
Eugenia closed her eyes.
She shouldn't have accepted. The invitation was improper, even if he had taken care to present it as a choice. Samuel was still her superior. Any gesture could be mistaken for a promise, pressure, or concession. She knew the rules. She had always known the rules.
So why had obeying them seemed so difficult?
The afternoon traffic crawled along. Through the glass, the city slid past in streaks of light, advertisements, and buildings whose windows were beginning to glow. Eugenia studied her reflection. It was still the same dress she'd worn that morning, though now it seemed bolder than it had when she'd left home. Every time she remembered Samuel's gaze, she imagined the fabric revealing more than it actually did.
She tried to tug the hem of her skirt down, even though there was no one there to watch her.
The movement was pointless. She wasn't uncomfortable because of the dress, but because she was aware of wearing it. Because she knew she had chosen those clothes while thinking of someone whose approval she didn't need and whose attention, nevertheless, she had begun to crave.
Her phone vibrated inside her purse.
Eugenia took it out and saw Andrés's name on the screen.
“Are you done? Want to meet when you get back?” the message read.
The right answer was simple. She could tell him yes, let him know the meeting had gone well, and allow the evening to settle back into its familiar shape. Andrés always knew how to make everything seem less complicated. He asked if she'd eaten, remembered her schedule, and took an interest in the little things. He was attentive. He was dependable. He was the man her family would welcome without a second thought, and the man she herself had imagined at her side whenever she thought about the future.
Eugenia typed: “Yes, I'm done. I'll call you when I get to the hotel.”
She read the sentence twice before sending it.
The message went through. Guilt appeared immediately, even though she hadn't exactly lied. The meeting was over. Samuel had invited her to dinner. She had accepted.
What she couldn't explain was why telling Andrés about it seemed impossible.
She rested her forehead against the cold glass.
“Nothing happened,” she murmured.
The words were lost in the hum of the engine.
Nothing had happened. She hadn't touched Samuel, nor had she allowed him to touch her. She hadn't made a promise or received one. She had only accepted a dinner. A conversation. A few hours in a restaurant.
But her discomfort didn't come from the facts. It came from what she had wanted to happen while he was speaking.
Eugenia opened her eyes.
She had wanted Samuel to keep looking at her that way. She had wanted to find out whether that attention could survive outside the office, without reports or figures to serve as a refuge. She had wanted to know what his smile would look like when he wasn't surrounded by managers, and what kind of man would emerge when he stopped acting like the company's National Director.
The thought made her breathe more slowly.
Andrés didn't throw her into that kind of disarray. With him, Eugenia knew where to put her hands, what topics to discuss, and how much silence she could allow. It wasn't a lack of affection. It was something more difficult to admit: beside Andrés, she had never felt she could become someone else.
Samuel hadn't promised her anything. He didn't even know her.
And yet, after only a few minutes, he had managed to make her feel seen.
Eugenia scolded herself for the exaggeration. A look wasn't knowledge. A clever remark wasn't intimacy. Samuel had a reputation for knowing exactly what to say to a woman to make her feel special.
Maybe that was all it was.
Maybe she wasn't any different from the others.
The thought should have reassured her. Instead, it produced such a swift, sharp pang of disappointment that Eugenia turned her gaze away from her reflection.
The car stopped in front of the hotel.
The driver got out again to open the door for her. Eugenia picked up her purse and folder, but before getting out, she looked at her phone. Andrés had replied with a heart and a question about what time she would get home the next day.
She felt the weight of guilt again.
“Forgive me,” she said, not knowing whether she was speaking to him, to herself, or to the woman she had been until that morning.
She started to get out of the car and, distracted by everything she was thinking or imagining, failed to notice that as she moved her legs to step out, her skirt had fallen open, revealing more than her modesty would have allowed on other occasions. The driver said nothing, but he did fix his gaze on what her open legs revealed for a second and a half.
In the hotel lobby, the air was warmer. A couple laughed near the front desk, and a man idly checked his phone beside the elevators. Eugenia walked between them, trying to maintain her composure, though inside she was still divided between two images.
In one, Andrés waited for her with his usual patience.
In the other, Samuel picked her up at eight-thirty and said her name as if he already knew the effect it had.
She wanted to think no one would notice her unease. However, when she felt her nipples become completely erect again, she shuddered, now actually assuming that everyone around her would look at her. Of course, no one did—especially once she noticed that she was alone in the elevator—but that did nothing to help her relax.
When the elevator doors closed, Eugenia leaned her back against the mirror.
“Samuel,” she whispered.
The name came out with an intimacy that made her open her eyes.
She could still cancel the dinner. All it would take was a brief message, an excuse about being tired, or a reminder of how improper the situation was. She could shower, put on her pajamas, and call Andrés. She could do everything a prudent woman would do.
The elevator reached her floor.
Eugenia stepped out, walked a few yards down the hall to her room, and opened the door. Once inside, she set her purse and folder on the table. Then she stood motionless in the middle of the room, listening to the unfamiliar silence of the hotel.
At eight-thirty, Samuel would be downstairs.
The thought moved through her body with a warm restlessness, far too similar to anticipation. And she realized that the dampness in her lower abdomen was still with her.
Eugenia took out her phone. She opened her conversation with Andrés and stared at the heart he had sent her. Then she closed that screen and searched for Samuel's contact.
She didn't write anything.
She only checked that the number was still there.
Then she placed the phone facedown and brought both hands to her face.
She stood in front of the full-length mirror and took off her dress. Then she unclasped her bra, noticing again that she had chosen one that seemed more suited to an intimate night out. She pulled down her thong. And she stood there for a long while, gazing at her naked body, which she had so rarely examined with such attention.
Was she looking for Andrés's name or Samuel's written somewhere on her abdomen? Did she want to find one of their faces in her round breasts, with their nipples so erect?
“Samuel...” she said softly again. And, without meaning to and almost without realizing it, she lightly ran a hand over her pubic area. The movement made the dampness between her thighs more noticeable.
“A dinner,” she reminded herself.
This time, she didn't try to convince herself.
She only wanted the time to come.