By Natalie Caña
On Sale Date: October 29, 2024
ISBN: 9780778305460
MIRA Trade Paperback
Price: $18.99 USD
Buy Links
HarperCollins:
https://www.harpercollins.com/products/sleeping-with-the-frenemy-natalie-cana?variant=41483891343394
Amazon:
https://www.amazon.ca/s?k=9780778305460&tag=hcg-02-20
Barnes & Noble:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/sleeping-with-the-frenemy-natalie-ca-a/1144022278
Bookshop.org:
Social Links
Author Website: https://nataliecana.com/
TikTok: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMRy2wJ2C/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/nataliecana/
About the Book
The third book in the riotously funny Vega
Family Love Stories finds big-headed firefighter Leo Vega trying to reignite a
flame that’s gone cold and finally bring his secret love affair into the open.
Vega Family Love Stories:
Book 1: A Proposal They Can't Refuse
Book 2: A Dish Best Served Hot
About the Author
Natalie Caña loves to incorporate her you’ll-never-believe-what-just-happened-to-me personal experiences, enthusiasm for telenovela tomfoolery, and love for her Latinx culture into creating funny, heartfelt, and just a little bit over-the-top contemporary romances for characters who look and sound like her.
PROLOGUE
THE NIGHT OF KAMILAH VEGA AND LIAM KANE’S FIRST
ENGAGEMENT PARTY
LEO VEGA
ALREADY KNEW WHAT WAS IN STORE FOR HIM WHEN HE knocked on the door in front of
him, but he did it anyway. The situation was too important for him to ignore.
“What?” the
grumpy voice said from the other side.
“It’s me,”
he said.
“I know who
it is. I have a camera doorbell.” Leo could practically hear the eye roll.
“What do you want?”
“We need to
talk.”
“I’m not
really in the mood to talk.”
Leo knew
that he had two options if he wanted to be let in: be annoying or be cajoling.
There was a fifty-fifty chance with either option. It all depended on whether
the person on the other side of the door was more pissed or more hurt. His best
guess was pissed because of the hurt. He went for cajoling, praying it worked.
“Come on. Open the door. I just want to check on you.”
There was
noticeably less anger when the voice responded, “I’m fine.”
“I need to
see you with my own eyes.”
A snort
slash growl. He moved close and put his forehead against the door. “Please,
bombón,” he said in a deep murmur. “Let me see you.”
A hiss of
annoyed breath filtered through the door, but it had obviously worked.
He heard the
locks being disengaged and he stepped back when the door swung open. There she
stood, still in the body-hugging dress she’d worn to his sister’s disastrous
engagement party. She looked almost as perfect as she had when she’d first
walked in and nearly caused him to stroke out on the floor, except for one
thing. All the immaculate makeup on her face was gone and her eyes were swollen
and red rimmed.
He knew
there was a good chance she’d push him away, but he couldn’t stop his response.
He stepped into the apartment and palmed her damp cheek. “Come here.” He pulled
her into a hug and was mildly surprised when she let him. “Ay, mi Sofi.”
Sofi didn’t
respond, she just buried her face in his neck and squeezed him.
He tightened
his hold on her and firmly told himself to ignore the way her body felt against
his, but it was impossible. It always was. It had been since they were teens.
Sofia Santana just did something to him on every single level. To attempt to
ignore her was like trying to ignore being tased. Even if he managed to shut
his thoughts down, his body wasn’t going to let him not react to the inundation
of sensation.
“What
happened?” he asked after a few minutes of silence. “All I could understand
from a blubbering Kamilah is that you left because you’re mad at her.”
Sofi pulled
back. A scowl appeared on her face. “Of course it’s all because of me, right?”
Leo frowned.
“I didn’t say that. I’m just trying to understand what happened.” It was hard
for him to believe that she hadn’t known about this whole fake engagement stunt
either. He’d figured that she had to be in on it too. Kamilah and Sofi did
everything together from the moment they met. It was often annoying to him just
how close they were.
“She lied to
me,” Sofi said.
“She lied to
all of us,” he pointed out. He was angry about that too, but Sofi wasn’t the
type to get so upset about something like this. At the end of the day Kamilah
and Liam faking an engagement to keep their grandpas from selling the family
businesses they wanted to run didn’t really affect Sofi that much. It wasn’t
like she had a stake in either business, not like Leo did.
Sofi pushed
away from him. “Not about that,” she scoffed. “I knew about that stupid shit
with Liam. I warned her about that blowing up in her face, but she did it
anyway.” Leo suddenly remembered something else that had come up. Something
that had affected Sofi. “You didn’t know she’d turned down the scholarship in
Paris,” he concluded. Kamilah and Sofi had planned to move to Paris together
after high school, but when their abuela got sick, Kamilah lied to everyone and
told them she hadn’t gotten the scholarship that would have made the move
possible.
Sofi
actually growled in anger. “Can you believe that bullshit?” She stalked down
the short hallway into her living room. “Not only did we say we were going to
do that since middle school, but we had plans. Firm plans. I had a school lined
up! We were looking at apartments!”
Leo could
understand how that would be frustrating at the very least, more likely
heartbreaking. “Why didn’t you just go anyway?”
Sofi let out
a bark of unamused laughter. “Have you met my mother? You think she was going
to be okay with me going to Europe by myself? She didn’t want me to go even
with Kamilah, but once Kamilah wasn’t an option…”
Leo knew
Sofi’s mother pretty well and Alicia Santana was not someone you ignored when
she put her foot down. However, she wasn’t an unreasonable person and she
trusted her daughter. “I don’t know, bombón. I think she would’ve come around
eventually.”
“You don’t
get it, Leo. Once Kamilah said she wasn’t accepted, everything changed for me.
I had to—” She cut herself off. “Forget it. That’s not the point. The point is
that not only did she lie to me, she kept this a secret for twelve years.”
Leo wasn’t
exactly as upset about the situation as he could be. The truth was that he’d
been keeping a secret from his sister for longer than that. So had Sofi. “I
understand how learning all this would upset you, but Sofi, come on.”
She spun on
her heel and gave him a look that said, You’d better not be saying what I think
you’re saying, while her mouth said, “Come on, what?”
He gestured
between the two of them.
Sofi arched
a brow.
“Are you
really going to make me say it?”
She crossed
her arms and looked him up and down. “I guess you’d better because I don’t know
what you’re talking about.” He gave her a look. She couldn’t be serious.
“Sofi…” She
pursed her lips. Leo sucked his teeth. “Sofi, we’ve been together on and off
for how long now? Since you were like fifteen?”
“First of
all, we kissed once when I was fifteen and then nothing happened again until
much later. Second of all, we have never been together, we have sex when we are both single, bored, and horny,
which is not the same thing.”
Leo didn’t
let the hurt that statement caused distract him. “Yet, never once did you
mention it to Kamilah and you forbid me from telling anyone about it, because
you don’t want it to get back to her.”
“I don’t
want you telling everyone and their momma about it, because who I sleep with is
nobody’s fucking business but mine.”
Leo had to
roll his eyes at that. She was so weird about people “knowing her business.”
She tended to think that her life was so interesting that it was some sort of
gossip fodder. It was ridiculous. She worked at her father’s company, went
grocery shopping with her mom every week, and liked to go dancing with her
friends on the weekend. Her life was not that different from plenty of women he
knew. Shit, their secret relationship (because it was a fucking relationship)
was probably the most interesting thing about her life. “You never want her to
find out, because you know she’ll be upset about you lying to her. Sort of how
you’re mad now.”
“Are you
really throwing this in my face right now?”
“All I’m
saying is that it’s not easy to tell people stuff you know will hurt them, so
maybe you should give her a break.”
Her eyes
widened. “Give her a break,” she murmured to herself. When she looked at him,
there was anger and shock in her expression. “You really are standing in front
of me not only defending her, but trying to guilt me out of feeling my own
emotions right now.”
“I just
think given the circumstances we both owe her—” “I. Don’t. Owe. Her. Shit.” She
accentuated each word with a clap of her hands then paused, screwed up her
face, and shook her head as if disgusted. “I don’t owe you shit either. Why am
I even having this conversation with you?”
“Sof—” “I
should’ve known that at the end of the day you were going to pick her side over
mine.”
“How do you
figure?”
“Because,
Leo, that’s how your family operates. Y’all are all open and friendly and
welcoming until something happens. Then you close rank like a bunch of
elephants circling around the weakest members of the herd. It happens every
time Big Sam and your tía Iris break up. It happened when Chase left Kamilah.
Y’all still barely talk to your tía Alba’s husband after he said Puerto Rico
should become a state.”
“Not true,”
Leo argued. “He said that Puerto Ricans on the island wouldn’t be able to run a
country without the US, so they needed to be a state which is different than
just saying that Puerto Rico should be a state. And we hardly liked his
conceited and low-key racist ass before that. Plus, you were just as mad about
that as the rest of us were!”
“That’s not
the point, Leo!” she yelled at him. “Then what is your point,” he yelled back.
“Because you aren’t making any fucking sense.”
“My point is
that I’m done. I have no interest in doing this with you, your sister, or
anyone else in your family.”
Leo froze.
His body going cold. “What does that mean?”
“That means
that I’m not making up with Kamilah. I’m not coming around El Coquí anymore.”
She paused and looked him right in the eyes. “I don’t want you coming here
anymore either.”
Leo scoffed.
“You always say that and then you text to ask me what I’m doing and tell me to
come over.”
She passed
by him to open her door. “Yeah well, why don’t you go home and wait for that
message?”
“Sofi,” he
began.
“Bye, Leo.
Have a nice life.” Leo growled. He hated when she pulled that dismissive shit
with him and she knew it. “You have to be the most stubborn person I’ve ever
met,” he called.
“Didn’t I
already tell you goodbye?”
“One of
these days, you’re going to push me too far and I’m not going to come back.”
“Maybe I’ll
be lucky and today will be the day.”
Annoyed that
she was being so stubborn and unreasonable, Leo stormed out the door. It closed
with a snick behind him and Leo fought the urge to flip it off. Instead he
stomped down the stairs to the front door of the building. He hated that Sofi
did this to him. She’d push him away just to prove that she could. But she
didn’t actually want him to go anywhere, which was why she always called him
back. She’d do it again this time too. He knew she would, because—no matter how
much they fought—they couldn’t live without each other.
This was not
an ending. It was only an intermission.
Excerpted from SLEEPING WITH THE FRENEMY by Natalie Caña, Copyright ©
2024 by Natalie Caña. Published by Mira, an imprint of HarperCollins.
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