That weekend was like a dream I feared waking up from.

We did all the things that couples normally did, from holding hands in the streets to making moony faces at each other. And yes, definitely also to making love. It had been mind-blowing before but now, with our hearts open to each other, every caress and every glance was much more charged, poignant and lasting. I never wanted that feeling to end.

But Sunday night rolled in and we finally drove down to Miami in our cars, chatting on the phone with each other the whole way. Tomorrow I was officially starting as the head designer at Tropicana, and Miguel was coming back to work after what turned out to be only a weeklong vacation. We knew there would be some talk about us and Miguel and I decided to quench people's thirst for gossip directly.

Monday morning rolled in and he called in for a team lunch offsite, that he and Angela were going to use to announce my new tenure officially, and that he and I were going to also employ as a Q&A. Our hope was to put the rumors to rest once and for all and move on with our lives.

Speaking of Angela, she received me as soon as I walked in with my shiny new badge. Her eyes twinkled as she embraced me.

"I knew you could do it."

It was Monday morning and I hadn't had enough coffee after a long, physically active weekend. It took me a minute to catch on. When I did, I shook my head and told her, "You made me think Miguel was leaving for good on purpose, didn't you?"

She shrugged a delicate shoulder. "I've always had a weakness for a good romance story."

Marisol was the first one to congratulate me after that. She give me a bear hug that almost left me with a permanent hourglass shape and squealed.

"I knew it! You and Miguel are perfect for each other." She clapped her hands. "And also you should've been head designer years ago, not that petty shithead."

"Things do work out sometimes," I said, still in a daze.

There was a hush as Miguel walked in, carrying his suitcase and a travel mug I knew to be full with a protein shake instead of coffee. I'd made it for my Crossfit weirdo after his early morning session. He paused at the entrance as more than one employee took turns glancing between him and I.

"Good morning," he said. "I hope to see you all at lunch."

And with that he locked himself in his office. I had to endure a whole morning of people grilling me for information on what had happened in the past couple of weeks, rather than on what my direction for the open projects was going to be. Eventually I did find my stride and picked back up where I'd left off with the app, as though there hadn't been a hiatus. When lunchtime came, it caught me by surprise. I struggled with tearing myself away from my work bench, but I had a commitment to attend.

Miguel's chosen venue was a Venezuelan restaurant nearby. He booked the whole place on a short notice on Sunday morning through the power of his charm alone. The owner worried that she'd lose revenue by booking such a large party, rather than having a continuous stream of incoming and outbound customers. But with a cutesy compliment here and there, all delivered in his mother tongue, he had convinced the lady that he would become her biggest fan.

"Should I be jealous?" I had joked when I heard him say that, but after hanging up from the call he covered me in little kisses that had me giggling.

Now he sat at the head of the table. Angela was on his right and I was on his left. It was she who stood up once everybody was settled in and said, "As our Tropicana family is aware, we have brought Addy back as our lead designer. For years she has been the backbone of our creative efforts, and we finally recognize that she has the vision to take us to the next level." She looked at me with a smile. "Let's give it up for Addy!"

A round of enthusiastic applause ran around the table, so loud and warm that I felt hot over the collar at all the attention. As they went on, I had to motion for them to stop or I was going to start crying.

Someone called, "Speech!" Which then became a chant. I stood up on wobbly feet, thinking about what to say.

I cleared my throat and said, "Um, thank you so much for your support now and for the entire time I've been at this company. You guys have all been truly stellar."

Even if our previous lead hadn't been, I wished to say. But I didn't, out of respect for Angela.

"I won't make any boasts about how perfect things are going to be from now on under my charge, because let's face it, our industry moves so fast that sometimes it's hard to keep up. We're small and it's hard to compete with the giants. We'll make mistakes, we won't win all the projects." I looked around me at the stoicism with which my words were received, but I didn't waver. I wanted honesty to be my spear and shield. "But, we will have fun. We'll do our best to create new products and meet our customer's demands. We'll go to new markets and innovate. That way we'll make Tropicana a world renown brand and it'll be rewarding for each and every one of us, because I will listen to all of your ideas. We will work together, what we accomplish will be a team effort."

"Hear, hear!" Marisol shouted, raising her glass of papelón.

I smiled and raised my own glass. "To a new, more transparent and fun era for Tropicana!"

We cheered and I sat back down, not so gently nudging Miguel to take it from there. He gave me a completely indiscrete wink.

"And now," he announced, his voice carrying over the chaos with ease. "We will open the forum for a Q&A, no holds barred."

A couple of the more polite people asked questions about some projects we were bidding on, but finally someone all the way at the end of the table asked, "So what really happened with Jean Paul?"

Angela picked that one up. "He has been let go for breaching his contract on privacy violation issues."

The murmuring gave way to another question, also from the back.

"Is it true that Miguel and Addy are dating?"

"Yes," he replied, all placid and serene like he was confirming the flavor of ice cream he wanted. "We are actually in a committed relationship and that isn't the reason why Addy got promoted."

I held my breath, watching for any hostility, but instead the whole table erupted in cheers and laughter.

"Okay, okay," Marisol said, raising her hand. "Since when? We want deets."

This time I was sure my entire face and neck were beet red.

Miguel and I of course didn't go into detail. We did admit to the fact that we'd known each other since high school, and even the glossed over story was enough to captivate the audience. There were a couple of honest fangirl-type of swoons. Someone mentioned that we were the first Tropicana couple, but to my surprise two more in-house couples revealed themselves. One of them was Marisol and one of the HR guys.

"I didn't know," I said to her, gaping.

She giggled. "Part of the fun was sneaking around, but there's really no need to do that, right? We're all adults here."

I mulled that over. With Mr. Diapers gone, every single person at this table was a grownass adult. None of us were perfect. Often we butted heads on creative differences, or silly things like the fact that Amy from accounting chewed too loud or Camilo from sales listened to merengue music everyday non stop. But all of these people made Tropicana a blessing of a place to work in. There were no backstabbers, no fat shamers, no sexual harassers. We were all genuinely doing our jobs and trying to make a difference in a shallow industry.

But eventually I had to wake up from the dream.

As we returned from lunch, with full bellies and easy laughter, Miguel and I walked together presiding the large group. He and I and three others were the first ones to get in the elevator and come back into the office. None of us were ready to be met upstairs by the barrel of a gun.

Or more accurately, none of us expected that the barrel of a gun would be pointed at my face the moment I opened the doors of Tropicana.

I froze, trying to comprehend what my eyes were seeing. But my head refused to believe that the weapon was really connected to Jean Paul's arm. That it was his snarling face behind it, just one step away from me. My hands lost all their strength, dropping my badge, my purse, my phone, my keys. The clattering mess made me jump, as if a bullet had already fired. As if the mess wasn't somehow my doing.

Was that what Jean Paul was thinking about at that second?

"The prodigal whore of the new owner has graced us with her presence again," he said, dripping with sarcasm. "What does it feel like to fuck your way to the top?"

There was a gasp behind me.

I looked all around me, trying to find an exit. But the problem was that I was standing at the only exit of the office space, and Miguel, Angela, Marisol and her HR boyfriend were right behind me. If I tried to run, any of them would be in the crossfire.

"Jean Paul," Angela wailed. "What are you doing?"

"Shut up, you stupid hag," he told her, not for a second removing his eyes or the gun from me. I didn't know anything about guns. I didn't know if it was cocked, if it could only fire one bullet at a time. All I knew was that it was very real and that I was helpless. But Jean Paul didn't care, he had all the leverage in this conversation. He continued as though he didn't even care that the office was empty and that the others might be on their way back.

"My parents gave their lives for your company," he said to Angela. "You promised them that you would take care of me forever, and this is how you repay me? By letting these strangers trample all over my hard work?"

Angela stepped forward and stood next to me. "I fulfilled my promise to help you, but the only person who trampled over your work was yourself."

"Shut up!" he screamed and raised his gun hand. In a flash he brought it down on Angela's face and knocked her over.

I felt a hard tug behind me and the next thing I knew, I was tucked behind Miguel. My heart raced in my throat, preventing me from screaming. I tried to force my way back to the front but he held firm. Next to me Marisol took my hand.

"Mr. Mercier," Miguel started, his anger contained by his low and rumbling voice. "This won't accomplish what you're after. Drop the gun."

Far from doing that, Jean Paul leveled the gun at Miguel's forehead. The wide smile on his face was jarring. He looked like a child about to get a new toy, not like someone threatening to commit murder. My hands clutched fistfuls of Miguel's jacket. I desperately wanted to put him behind me, but I didn't know how to accomplish that without enticing the madman into pulling the trigger.

The elevator dinged behind me and Marisol and I sucked in a breath.

"Perfect, more audience," was all Jean Paul said. I figured whomever had come out of the elevator had either frozen or ran, because I didn't feel anybody approach behind me. "See, I tried a first time to show everybody how corrupted this company's new owner was, for giving the best projects to his bed warmer. But no one cared. In fact, I got fired for trying to bring justice. Well," with his free hand he motioned around him and said, "I guess it's time I bring justice for good."

He connected eyes with me and said, "Say goodbye to your sugar daddy, you little weasel."

Time slowed down. A warped scream left my throat as I watched Jean Paul's hand tendons tighten. He was pulling the trigger and Miguel was in the way. It wasn't my whole life what flashed before my eyes, but the life I could've had with him. The things we could've accomplished. The anniversaries we could've had. The places we could've gone.

All of that vanished from my mind's eye as I saw Miguel leap. He jabbed at Jean Paul's extended hand a millisecond before the bang. The bullet went down, instead of where Jean Paul had intended. And I could breathe.

He wasn't strong enough to overpower Miguel, and with two hard blows the gun dropped from Jean Paul's hand. I finally snapped out of the trance and kicked the thing away. When I turned, both Marisol's boyfriend and Miguel had subdued our assailant, who screamed insults in English, Tagalog and every other language he knew.

Marisol screamed at someone to call 911 and as our colleagues burst in from the lobby to help detain Jean Paul, I finally saw the red stain that grew larger and larger down Miguel's pants leg.

I screamed.

The one bullet Jean Paul had fired had gone through Miguel's thigh. It hadn't hit the floor like I'd thought.

Miguel looked up at me with feral eyes, as if looking for another threat. I elbowed my way through our colleagues to reach him and press the full skirt of my dress on his wound. I only noticed the tears streaming down my face when Miguel started wiping them.

"You're safe," he said. This time his voice was weak and fading. He stumbled and fell against me.

But I wasn't. Not if he left me.

this chapter is dedicated to those of you who thought Addy was the next "Bernal Solis" to get shot, ahem