The Spanish Love Deception: A Novel

Everything went downhill after that day.

As much as my intention had been to sort out the whole thing with Aaron, our conversation hadn’t relieved me in the slightest. Sure, I had made it very clear that he was off the hook, but his words still hung over my head. They had for the last two weeks.

“There is something you are not telling me,” he had said. “But I’m patient.”

It was like waiting for a bomb to drop.

And on top of not knowing where we stood after that cryptic statement, I hadn’t brought myself to tell Rosie about it. Yet. I would—as soon as I figured a contingency plan for my wedding situation. Which was only three days away. Three.

I eyed the analog clock I kept on my desk. It was eight in the evening, and I was not even close to being done with the day.

How could I be when nothing was going according to plan? I hadn’t found anyone to replace Linda and Patricia, so I was still covering for them myself. I still hadn’t figured out how I’d be entertaining our guests for the whole sixteen hours Open Day was planned to last. And I had found that our hopefully prospective client, Terra-Wind, had been getting cozy with one of our biggest competitors. Not because they were better than us, but because they were one of those consulting companies that offered their services at ridiculously low rates.

A crisis I had been dealing with for the last three hours.

“Thank you, Miss Martín,” a man in a dark suit spoke from the screen of my laptop. “We will study your offer and come to a decision.”

I nodded. “Thank you for your time,” I said, making myself smile politely. “I look forward to hearing back from you, Mr. Cameron. Have a good evening.”

Hitting End on the conference call I had been on with the representative of the decision board of Terra-Wind, I took off my headphones and closed my eyes for a moment. Jesus, I didn’t even know how that had gone. I just hoped I had gotten through to him. My team was worth every extra penny, and Terra-Wind was a renewable company that had the resources and the potential to do something for the state of New York. I wanted this project.

Opening my eyes back up, I watched my phone flash with my sister’s name, causing a twirl of mixed emotions. Any other day, I would have automatically picked up. But not today. I had already sent several of her calls to voice mail. If it were a real emergency, my whole family would have been blasting my phone.

“Lo siento mucho, Isa,” I said as if she could hear me. “I don’t have time to deal with another bridal apocalypse.”

I silenced my phone, placed it screen down, and moved onto the stack of résumés that HR had sent over for the vacancies I needed to fill. Two—I’d check a couple of them and take the rest home with me.

Four résumés later, I was dropping my trusty highlighter down. I let my back fall on the backrest of my chair.

My head was spinning, probably due to the fact that I had been working on mostly an empty stomach. Again. Because I had been dieting. Wrongly, most likely. Closing my eyes, I scolded myself for being that dumb.

But, as much as I hated myself for it, I couldn’t stop thinking of standing in front of Daniel. My ex, the groom’s brother and best man. Who, unlike me, was happily engaged. Or in front of everybody. I could already feel every single soul attending the ceremony watching me, watching us. Measuring my reaction and assessing me—from the way I looked to the way my lips would tug down and pale when I finally faced him. Looking for possible answers that would explain why I was still single after all this time while Daniel wasn’t.

Did she ever get over him? Did she ever get over everything that had happened? Of course not. Poor thing. What happened must have really messed her up.

So, was it that silly of me to want to stand there and look good? Not just fine. Not just getting by. To everyone watching, I wanted to look complete. Beautiful, flawless, unaffected. I needed to give the impression that I had my life back on track. All figured out. Happy. With a man on my arm.

Objectively, I knew how dumb all of it sounded, how much I shouldn’t be measuring myself in terms of having a man, looking thinner, or having clear skin. But, God, I knew that was what everybody else would be doing.

I shook my head, trying to vanish those thoughts out of my mind but only accomplishing to make it worse with the way my head kept spinning. My body was screaming at me for something, anything that would appease the hollowness in my stomach.

Water. That would help.

Grabbing my phone and slipping my badge on the pocket of my camel slacks, I stood on weaker legs than I would have liked and made my way out of the office. There was one of those water dispensers down the corridor. Three more missed calls from my sister. With the time difference, she’d be asleep by now.

Lina: Lo siento, bridezilla. *crazy face emoji*

I typed, and the text blurred for a second. I stopped walking, trying to get my eyes to focus back on the screen.

Lina: Hablamos mañana, vale?

I continued, but the characters in the screen started dancing. My fingers lost all certainty, vacillating over the keyboard of the device. My sight doubled and then blurred, not managing to pinpoint with clarity the words I thought I was typing as they appeared on the text bubble.

A shaky breath left my lips as I attempted to hit Send.

Water. That’s what I need.

My head lifted off my phone, and my legs resumed again, taking me a few feet down the corridor. I knew that the water dispenser was right there, probably about five or six steps ahead of me. But white spots scattered across my vision, and everything blinked out for a second. White. Then, the fluorescent-illuminated corridor came back, narrowing, tunneling away.

“Whoa,” I heard myself murmur.

I was completely unaware of the fact that my legs had kept moving forward until I had to balance myself with a hand on the wall.

“Oh mierda.” I stumbled.

My eyelids fluttered closed, and I could feel how all the blood in my face rushed down, leaving me woozy and unbalanced. I willed my eyes to open back up. But all I saw was white. A white and misty blanket that covered everything in front of me. Although perhaps, it was the wall. I couldn’t be sure.

I … I messed up. Big time. Eight thirty. No one around. That kept echoing in my head as I tried to account for the signs that indicated I was going down. And I … dammit. I couldn’t remember. Couldn’t … think. My skin felt cold and clammy, and I just wanted to close my eyes and rest. I was vaguely recalling that being a bad idea when my limbs started giving out.

Then, I was lying down.

Good. That’s good. I’ll rest, and then I’ll be better. I toppled to the side. It’s cold, but it’ll … get … better.

“Catalina.” A voice seeped through the haze. It was deep. Urgent.

My lips were cool and felt detached from my body, so I didn’t answer.

“Fuck.” That voice again. Then, something warm fell on my forehead. “Jesus, fuck. Catalina.”

I messed up. I … knew. I had done something wrong, and I wanted to admit it out loud to whoever was there, but all I accomplished was a mumble that didn’t really sound like … anything.

“Hey.” That voice softened, no longer sounding angry.

And I … I was so tired.

“Open those big brown eyes.”

That warm pressure I felt on my forehead moved down my face, spreading across my cheek. It felt good against my cool and damp skin, so I leaned on it.

“Open them for me. Please, Catalina.”

My eyelids fluttered open for an instant, finding two blue spots that made me think of the ocean. I felt a sigh escape my mouth, that hollow and void sensation receding for an instant.

“There you are.” I heard the voice again. Even softer now. Relieved.

As I blinked slowly, my vision started to return in flashes. Deep blue eyes. Hair as dark as black ink. The hard line of a jaw.

“Lina?”

Lina.

There was something funny about that voice calling my name. The one everyone called me.

No, not everyone.

I blinked some more, but before my eyes could focus on a fixed point, I was lifted in the air. The movement was slow, so gentle, that I barely noticed it at first, but then we started moving. And after a few seconds, the motion was enough to send my head spinning again.

“Mi cabeza,” I said under my breath.

“I’m sorry.” I felt the words rumbling against my side, becoming aware of how my cheek was resting against something hot and hard. Something with a heartbeat. A chest. “Just stay with me, okay?”

Okay, I’ll stay. And I burrowed into the chest, ready to lose myself to the exhaustion rocking my body.

“Eyes open, please.”

Somehow, I complied. I let them fall on a shoulder that looked terribly familiar as we moved. And gradually, my vision eventually cleared. My head, no longer whirling, locked back on my shoulders. The sweat on my skin cooled down.

My eyes roamed around as recollection of what had happened spilled down my mind. I fainted, for not eating enough. Like a total dumbass. Sighing, I looked up, my gaze zeroing in on a chin that stretched into a jaw that was topped by lips that were pressed tightly.

“Aaron,” I whispered.

Blue eyes met mine for an instant. “Hold on. Almost there.”

I was in Aaron’s arms. His left arm around my legs, hand spreading on my thigh. His right one around my back, his long fingers splayed across my hip. Before I could delve into that or on the comforting and amazing warmth emanating off him and into my skin, he was putting me down.

Confused, I looked around me. My gaze stumbled upon that horrible, disturbing framed piece of art of a kid with huge eyes. I had always hated it, and I knew exactly where it belonged. We could only be in Jeff’s office. He was the only person I knew personally who didn’t find that frightening.

My ass settled on a plush surface, and my back followed, resting on something that felt a lot like a pillow. I placed my hands on my sides, noticing the fabric beneath my fingers. Leather. A sofa. Jeff had one in his office. It was one of those leather settees that looked all pretentious and classy.

Aaron’s palm brushed my face again, and my attention returned to him. He was close, really close. Kneeling on the floor in front of me. His touch was comforting, but his expression didn’t match the soothing quality of his fingers against my skin.

“Do you want to lean back?” he asked, an edge on his voice.

“No, I’m okay.” I willed my voice to convey the strength I wasn’t feeling. His eyebrows draw into a scowl. “You look so mad.” It was an observation that should have been kept as a thought probably, but I guessed that, given the circumstances, I wasn’t in the disposition to be picky with what left my mouth. “Why are you mad?”

“When was the last time you ate, Catalina?” His scowl deepened, and he shifted on his knees, straightening his back. I watched him pull something out of his pocket.

I grimaced. “Lunch? I think. Maybe more like brunch because I didn’t have time to get breakfast, so I just had something at around eleven.”

His hand froze midair in front of me, allowing me to see that something he was holding. It was wrapped in white wax paper. “Jesus, Catalina.” He shot me a look that would make anyone else cower. One that would definitely help with his soon-to-be new position.

But even if my tank was literally empty, I wasn’t anyone else.

“I’m fine, Mr. Robot.”

“No, you are not,” he shot back. Then, he very carefully placed on my lap what I already knew was a delicious Aaron Blackford homemade granola bar. “You fainted, Catalina. That’s really far from being fine. Eat this.”

“Thanks. But I’m okay now.” I looked down, my gaze getting acquainted with the gifted snack one more time. With shaky hands, I snatched it. Unwrapped it with clumsy fingers. “Do you always carry these on you?” I hesitated, my stomach complaining for some reason.

“Eat, please.”

So odd, how he could say please and make it sound like a threat.

“Jeez.” I took a bite. Then, I spoke with a mouthful—because who cared? He had literally just picked me off the floor, white-lipped, sweaty, and on my way to dramatically passing out—“I said I’m okay.”

“No,” he thundered. Pinning me down with a warning. “What you are is a dumbass.”

I frowned, wanting to be upset but agreeing with him. He didn’t need to know I was on his side.

“Stubborn woman,” he muttered under his breath.

I stopped chewing, making an attempt to stand up and stomp out of that office. He stopped me with oddly gentle hands on my shoulders.

“Do not test me right now.” That damn scowl was back with a vengeance.

I gave up under the soft vise of his large palms and let my body fall back.

“Eat the bar, Catalina. It’s not nearly enough, but it’ll do for now.”

Feeling the ghost of his hands on the skin covering my shoulders, I shivered. “I’m eating. No need to boss me around.” I averted my eyes and resumed chewing, trying not to think of how much I wanted those palms back on my skin. Or those long and big arms around me. I needed the comfort. My body felt stretched too long, my skin chilled, my muscles overworked.

“Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

I nodded, not looking up. I simply limited myself to chowing down the snack.

Only a few moments later, Aaron was back. All determined strides and stiff back. “Water,” he announced, dropping a bottle on my lap. He placed my phone beside me too.

“Thanks.” I unscrewed the lid, chugging down a quarter of the bottle.

When I was done, I looked up again. Aaron was standing in front of me now. Still looking all angry and bunched up. I let my gaze fall off his face, feeling extra tiny, sitting there while he towered over me.

“So, I guess this will be your office soon. I hope they let you redecorate.” I eyed the horrible painting behind him.

“Catalina.” The way he said my name held a warning.

Ugh. I was not down for a lecture.

“That was so stupid. Not eating, risking hypoglycemia when the whole building is deserted. What if you had lost consciousness and no one was around to find you?”

“You were here, weren’t you?” I answered, still not looking at him. “You are always here anyway.”

A noise came out of his throat. Another warning. Don’t give me that shit, it told me.

“Why are you not eating?” His question felt like a punch, right in my stomach. “You always, always used to have something in your hand. Jesus, you used to pull pastries out of your pockets at the oddest and most inappropriate times.”

That had me looking up, meeting ice-cold eyes. I had; I was a snacker. That was part of the problem, wasn’t it?

“Why are you not doing that now? Why haven’t you done that for the last month? Why are you not eating like you usually do?”

Narrowing my eyes at him, I clasped my hands together. “Are you calling me a—”

“Don’t,” he hissed. “Don’t even try it.”

“Fine.”

“Tell me,” he insisted, his gaze hardening like stone. “Why are you not eating?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” My breathing quickened, every word costing me more and more effort to spit. To admit the truth. “Because I want to lose weight, all right? For the wedding.”

He reared back. Appalled. “Why?”

Most of the blood that had left my head earlier rushed back. Awful timing. Just like everything else about my life. “Because,” I breathed out. “Because that’s what people do before an important event like that. Because I want to look my best, as much as you won’t believe it. Because I’d like to look as amazing as I possibly can. Because, apparently, I have been going around, stuffing my face with pastries twenty-four/seven, and my body has definitely been storing it. Because I just … did it, okay? What does it matter?”

“Catalina,” he said, and I could hear in his voice how disconcerted he was. “That’s … ridiculous. You’ve never been like that.”

Did he think I couldn’t possibly want to … look beautiful?

“What, Aaron?” I whispered, not finding my voice. “What is so ridiculous exactly? Is it so hard to believe that from me? That I’m like that? Like I care about how I look?”

His throat worked. “You don’t need any of that goddamn shit. You are smarter than that.”

I blinked.

Then, I blinked some more. “Did you just say goddamn shit? At work?” I lowered my voice. “In Jeff’s office?”

Now that I thought of it, he had dropped a few bad words earlier, hadn’t he?

Looking down, he shook his head, his shoulders falling with something that looked a lot like defeat. “Jesus,” he breathed out. “Fuck, Catalina.”

Wow. “All this swearing,” I said while I tried to search his face for whatever was going on with him. “I don’t think my ears will ever recover, Blackford.”

One of his hands went to the back of his neck. His head fell back, reminding me a lot of that moment I hadn’t been able to forget. When he had followed that with wonderful laughter. When he had smiled freely. As brightly as one could smile. But he didn’t do any of that now. He just gave me a tug of his lips, tiny little wrinkles in the corners of his eyes.

“You are cute,” he said matter-of-factly. “But don’t think you can play that card now. I’m still mad.”

Cute? Cute as in cute or cute as in small and funny and something you smiled at with fondness? Or perhaps cute as in—

I stopped myself. Closed my eyes for an instant, so I would just stop thinking.

“Are you feeling better? Think you can stand?”

Opening my eyes, I nodded my head. “Yeah. No need to carry me around again.” Although the lurch in my chest at the thought reminded me how comfy I had been up there. “Thanks.”

“I can if I—”

“I know you can, Blackford,” I interrupted him. If he offered again, I might take him up on it. “Thank you for doing it earlier, but I got it under control.”

He nodded, stretching out his hand in front of me. “Come on. Let’s go. We’ll grab your things and get you home.”

I didn’t reach out for it with mine. “I can—”

“Cut it out, will you?” He stopped me. God, we both were so freaking stubborn. “Now, you can let me walk you out and drive you home”—he paused, like a total drama queen—“or I can carry you out of this building and into my car myself.”

Holding his gaze, I lifted my hand and held it in the air, just a few inches away from his. I measured his words. Assessed my thoughts. Vaguely ignoring the way I’d love nothing more than to see him trying option number two. And what was far more disturbing than that was, I didn’t think it was for the pleasure it would bring me to fight him on something like that.

“Fine,” I said, wrapping my fingers around his as well as I could, considering the size difference. “No need to get your panties in a bunch, Blackford.”

He sighed. But then he pulled me up, doing something with our hands. Something that somehow changed the positions of our palms, which were now against each other.

A flutter took flight in the middle of my chest. And as we exited the office, I realized it’d soon no longer be Jeff’s, our boss. This would become Aaron’s office.

Soon enough.

Which should have been reason enough to immediately drop his hand and run in the opposite direction. It should have been enough to stop myself from welcoming the warmth of his palm or letting him take me home.

It should have. But ironically, I hadn’t seemed to be listening to a whole lot of should haves lately. So, what was a couple more?

“Hello?” A distant male voice stirred me back to life.

Un poquito más, I silently begged as I fought to fall back into oblivion. Un ratito más.

“I’m Aaron.”

Aaron?

Eyes shut and every thought sticky and heavy, I halfheartedly tried to make sense of what was happening. Why was Aaron’s voice sounding right beside me? I wanted to go back to sleep.

I vaguely recognized the characteristic dull vibration of an engine. Am I in a car? A bus? But we weren’t moving.

A dream. Yeah, that made sense. Right?

Confused and overexerted, I buried deeper into the warmth of my bed and decided I didn’t care if I dreamed of Aaron. It wouldn’t be the first time anyway.

“Yes, that Aaron.” The male voice was no longer distant. “Yes, I’m afraid so,” he continued. Every word bringing me more and more awake. “She’s asleep right now.”

I felt a featherlike caress on the back of my hand. And my skin flared back to life. Feeling way too real for this being a dream.

“No, everything is fine.” Aaron’s baritone texture reverberated through my ears, and I found a weird comfort in recognizing it. “Okay, I will tell Catalina to call you back.” A pause. Followed by a chuckle. “No, I’m not one of those. I love meat. Roasted lamb in particular.”

Meat. Yeah. That was something I also loved. We should eat meat together, Aaron and I. My mind wandered away for an instant, thinking of juicy and crispy lamb and Aaron too.

“Okay. Thank you, and likewise, Isabel. Bye.”

Wait. Wait.

Isabel?

Isabel as in my sister, Isabel?

More confusion tugged at my still-foggy mind. I felt one of my eyes flutter open. I wasn’t in my bed. I was in a car, which was immaculate. Obsessively so.

Aaron’s car.

I was in Aaron’s car. Not a dream.

And … Isabel. She had called me earlier today, hadn’t she? And texted me. And I had ignored all of it.

All at once, the events of the last hours snowballed down my mind, overwhelming my half-functional brain.

No. My eyes blinked fully open, and my body sprang up.

“I’m awake,” I announced.

As I whirled my head from one side to the other, my gaze stumbled upon the owner of the car I had been napping in. He passed both his hands through his hair, looking as humanly tired as one could.

His head turned in my direction. “Welcome back,” he said, looking at me strangely. “Again.”

My heart squeezed. Why exactly, I didn’t have the slightest idea.

“Hi,” I managed with my scattered brain.

“Your sister called,” Aaron told me, making my whole body tense. “Five times in a row,” he added.

I opened my mouth, but my tongue didn’t work through the words. Any words.

“It’s okay. Something about a weird text you sent her,” he explained and offered back my phone.

I clasped it, grazing Aaron’s fingers very briefly.

Feeling Aaron’s gaze on me, I checked on the text. God, it was intelligible. Alarmingly so.

Aaron continued, “Then, she went on about the seating or the tables, I think? Maybe something about the napkins too.”

I looked over at him, catching one of his hands shooting to his hair again. The muscles on his arm flexed, and my still-sleepy eyes seemed to be absorbed by that motion and that motion alone.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have picked up,” Aaron said, bringing my gaze to his face once more.

“It’s okay,” I admitted, shocking myself. “If she called me at three or four in the morning, Spain time, that meant she was genuinely worried. She would have probably sent the New York City Fire Department to my place if you had not answered.”

Something odd shone in his eyes. “I’m glad to hear that because your phone rang and rang. And you …” He shook his head lightly. “You sleep like the dead, Catalina.”

He wasn’t wrong.

Not even the arrival of the apocalypse—even if the very same Four Horsemen were galloping in my direction, shouting my name—could shake me awake when I was deeply asleep. Which was ironic really because Isabel talking to Aaron on the phone was my idea of a world-ending event.

My eyes widened with a realization.

Aaron had talked to my sister. He had mentioned meat. Roasted lamb. Which was on the menu for the wedding.

The connotations of that twirled in my weary head.

“Are you okay?” Aaron asked as I silently panicked.

“Yes,” I lied, forcing a smile. “Super-duper okay.”

Aaron’s brow arched. Maybe that had been a giveaway to how not super-duper okay I was.

“I told her you were fine, just asleep. But I think you should call her back tomorrow.” He pointed at my phone. “Judging by the five-minute monologue in Spanish before I could even tell her it wasn’t you on the line, I’d say she’ll feel better when you do.” Aaron’s lips twitched in what was the beginning of a smile.

“Yeah,” I murmured, a little too absorbed by his mouth when I should have been trying to manage a crisis. “Okay.”

That smirk stretched into a lopsided smile.

Ah, man. Why did it look so good on him? He didn’t smile nearly enough.

Which was not important.

What mattered was that Aaron had talked to my sister, and she never minced her words. Ever.

“So, Aaron,” I started, the words rushing out, “when you talked to my sister, you told her your name. Right?”

He cocked a brow. “Yes, that’s what people do when they introduce themselves.”

“Okay.” I nodded my head very slowly. “And how did you say that exactly? As in, Hey, I’m Aaron.” I dropped my voice, imitating his. “Or like, I’m just Aaron. I’m no one. Hello.”

He tilted his head. “I’m not sure I understand the question, but I’m going to go on a whim and go with option one. Although my voice sounds nothing like that.”

I exhaled through my nose, bringing the pads of my fingers to my temples. “Oh, Aaron. This is not good. I’m …” I blinked, feeling myself pale. “Oh God.”

Aaron frowned. “Catalina”—his blue eyes assessed me, concerned—“maybe I should take you to a hospital, get you checked out. You must have hit your head when you fell.”

He angled his body away, placing one hand on the steering wheel and lifting the other one to the ignition.

“Wait, wait.” I stopped him right before he started the car. “It’s not that. I’m okay. Seriously.”

He cut me a glance.

“I’m fine.”

He looked like he didn’t believe me.

“I promise.”

His hands dropped, falling on his lap.

“But I need something from you.” I watched him nod. Whoa, okay. That was easy. “I need you to tell me exactly what you told Isabel.”

“We talked about this. About a minute ago.” He brought one of his hands to the back of his neck.

“Just do it for me. Humor me.” I gave him a weak smile. “I need to know what you said.”

The man looked at me as if I were asking him to take his clothes off and perform a choreographed dance in the middle of Times Square.

Which I’d be totally down for—but again, not important.

“Please.” I tried my luck with the magic word.

Aaron stared at me for a long moment. And somehow, I discovered that six-letter word turned out to be the key to making him do something for me without putting up a fight.

He sighed, falling deeper into the seat. “Fine.”

“Oh, and be as detailed as you can too. Use her exact words if you can.”

He exhaled again. “After she switched to English, she said that it was nice to meet me. That you’d better have a good excuse for not picking up because that text was scary. That the stupid hippie who was in charge of the flowers was going to ruin her wedding because, now, the linen of the tables wouldn’t match her bouquet.”

That had me snorting. That poor florist was about to pay for his sins.

He continued, “And that she’d see me in a few days. At the wedding.” That last part wiped all humor off me. “Before that, she asked me if I was one of those hipsters who didn’t eat meat. Because in that case, she would have to uninvite me to the wedding. Then, she added that she was joking and told me that I’d better be there if I knew what was good for me. Especially if I loved roasted lamb. I said sure. I do love lamb, to be honest. I don’t eat it often enough actually.”

An ugly, loud, animal-sounding groan left my body.

“Mierda. Qué desastre. Qué completo y maldito desastre.” I brought my hands to my face, covering it with my palms and wishing that hiding from this stupid situation were as easy as that.

“She might have said something like that, too, when she thought it was you on the phone.” Then, with medical curiosity, he asked, “What does that mean exactly?”

“It means shit. Mess. Disaster. Catastrophe,” I answered, my voice muffled through my fingers.

Aaron hummed in agreement. “That would definitely fit the tone of the beginning of the conversation.”

“Aaron”—my hands dropped to my lap—“why did you tell her that you would be there? The wedding is only a few days away. I’m flying to Spain in three days.”

“We just went through this,” he said, sounding as exhausted as I felt. “I did not tell her I’d be there. She assumed I’d be there.”

I shot him a glance.

“After what went down?” I told him, trying a new approach to the topic. “After our conversation and how we agreed that our deal was off? You let her assume you’d be there.”

Had he forgotten about that? Because I had not.

“I told you we would talk about it.”

When? I wanted to ask him. While I was on my way to the airport? We were out of time to talk about anything.

“But we haven’t talked, Aaron.”

Two weeks. He’d had two weeks to reach out to me. And as much as I had hated myself for it, a part of me had waited for him to do that. I had just realized it. Well, at least that explained why I hadn’t brought myself to tell Rosie. Or my family. Yet.

I shook my head. I was so dumb. “And we don’t need to. We have nothing to talk about.”

Aaron clenched his jaw, not saying anything else.

My phone pinged a couple of times, but I ignored it. I was busy shooting daggers at Aaron.

Depleted of energy, I gave up and rested my head on the lush headrest of the copilot’s seat. My eyelids shut, and I wished I could shut down the world too.

The sound of my phone going off again with a couple more texts brought my eyes to my lap.

I ignored it again. “What am I going to do?” I thought out loud. “In a few hours, Isabel will be calling everyone to tell them she talked to Lina’s boyfriend on the phone.” I was screwed six ways from Sunday. “I guess I could always tell them I broke up with you.” I released a long sigh. Then, I turned to look over at him. “Not with you, you. But with—” I shook my head. “You know what I mean.”

At that, Aaron straightened in his seat, further cramping the space inside the car.

Before either of us could say anything, my phone went off again. I lifted it off my lap with the intention to silence it. “Por el amor de Dios.”

An alarmingly large number of messages flashed on my screen, confirming my suspicions.

Isabel: I just talked to your BF. *smirking emoji* What a deep, sexy voice he has. Send pics, pls.

Mamá: Your sister told me she talked to Aaron. If he wants a meatless menu, we can still talk to the restaurant and ask them to prepare a fish option. He’ll have fish, right? That’s not meat, is it?

Mamá: Unless vegetarians eat chicken. Do they? Charo used to be flexotorian? Flexatarian? I don’t remember. But she still had jamón and chorizo. You know I don’t know about all those food trends.

Mamá: If he does, we can also ask for chicken. Ask him.

Oh sweet baby Jesus. How in the world was my mother awake?

Isabel: It’s weird that I don’t know what your boyfriend looks like. Is he ugly? That’s okay. I bet he makes up for it in other ways. *eggplant emoji*

Mamá: Just let me know what he eats. It will be fine. I won’t tell Abuela. You know how she is.

Isabel: I’m joking, you know. I wouldn’t judge your boyfriend by the way he looks.

Isabel: Also, I won’t ask for a dick pic because that’s your business, but I won’t complain if you want to show me one.

I groaned.

Isabel: Joking again. *heart emoji*

Isabel: Not about the sexy voice though. That was *fire emoji*

“So, that leaves us two options,” the man beside me said.

Whirling my head around and almost butting his in the process, I found him looking over my shoulder. Close—his mouth was so very close to my cheek.

I jerked my phone against my chest, the skin of my face heating up. “How much did you get?”

Aaron—my prospective boss—shrugged his shoulders. “Enough.”

Of course he did. This is The Lina Martín Show after all.

“At least, enough to advise against breaking up with me until you hear the options we are left with.”

This man had squeezed himself in my dilemma, right there in the thick of things. I should be mad. Furious. And I wanted to be. But that us, that knowledge of not being alone to deal with the whole mess I had in my hands—one that I had created and had snowballed into this complex web of lies that included him—made me feel a little … better. A little less helpless. A lot less alone.

“We?” I said, hearing the doubt in my voice. The reluctance to believe in what I was saying. The hope to allow myself to.

Aaron pinned me with a look I knew very well. This would be the last time he’d say whatever was about to leave his lips. “I’m not going to force this on you, Catalina. Not when there is something that you are not telling me. Something that made you change your mind so drastically after Jeff’s announcement.” He raised a hand, brushing the top of his hair back, as if he were readying himself for something. “I told you we would talk, and we didn’t. That’s on me. There is an explanation, but it doesn’t matter right now.” He let that sink in for a moment. And it did. It sank to the bottom of my stomach. “We can make it work. We’ll make it work if that’s what you want.” He paused, and a breath got stuck in my throat. “I’ll make it work.”

I stared into blue eyes that gleamed with resolution.

I wanted that. I wanted this to work. He had been right when he declared he was my best option. Because he had been. Even before all of this happened. But things had changed a few days ago.

He is being promoted. He’s becoming my boss. That is a deal-breaker. I learned my lesson with Daniel.

And now, it had all changed again.

Everyone back home will be expecting him. Now more than ever. It’s too late to back down.

Perhaps … if no one from work ever found out about our arrangement, there’d be no risk. No one had a reason to even imagine that we would go anywhere together, much less all the way to Spain for a wedding. No one had learned of the fundraiser.

My mind kept picturing the same scenario over and over again. Filling me with dread. Me, landing in Spain with no one by my side. Alone. Stuck in the past. Smiled at with pity. Glanced at with sadness. Whispered about.

My blood dipped to my feet, reminding me of earlier, when I had almost fainted.

“What’s option A?” I whispered, exhausted from trying to get to a conclusion on my own. “You said we have two options. What’s the first one?”

Aaron’s expression assembled into one that was all business. “Option A is, you fly home alone. As much as I advise against it, it remains an option.” Hearing that from someone who wasn’t me sent a shiver crawling down my arms. “I have no doubt that you will be fine. But that doesn’t mean it’s your easiest route to … whatever you want to accomplish.”

“I don’t want to accomplish anything.”

“That’s something neither of us believes. But it’s okay. Either way, you do have a second option. And unlike with option A, if you decide to go with option B, you won’t be on your own. You’d be bringing backup.” He placed his palm against his broad chest. “Me. You know better than most that a challenging project needs the right kind of backing and support to succeed. So, you take me, and I’ll do exactly that. You don’t have to face anyone alone. You are giving them exactly what you promised to them.”

Something lurched against my ribs. And I almost had to rub a hand against my chest to appease it.

“By bringing me as your plus-one and boyfriend, which is a part of this whole thing you very conveniently omitted telling me about, you tackle the problem at the source—showing up alone and single. As easy as that.”

Aaron Blackford had impeccably delivered his pitch. Straight to the damn point.

“Easy? You are crazy if you think this is going to be easy,” I murmured. “If you can barely put up with me most of the time, imagine an army of Linas in all sizes and shapes. For three days straight.”

“I’m prepared.”

The question was, was I? Was I really prepared to take the leap and potentially risk history repeating itself?

But then Aaron spoke again, “I’ve never been scared to work for something, Catalina. Even when all odds are against me.”

The way those words hit me was close to making me gasp for air. As if that statement had carried extra weight and taken a swing at me.

I’m being stupid.

No. I was decidedly crazy if what was about to leave my lips was any indication of the level of how much I had lost my wits. But hell, it wasn’t like I hadn’t agreed to this before.

“Okay,” I pushed out. “You have been warned—twice. Now, I guess you are really stuck with this. We are stuck with this, you and I.”

“I wasn’t the one calling it off, Catalina.” He was right; I could give him as much. And then he said, “You were already stuck with me.”

I averted my eyes, not wanting to expose how that made me feel. “Whatever you say, Blackford. I just hope we don’t screw this up.”

“We won’t,” he declared firmly. “Or are you forgetting that when I put my mind to something, I never fail?”

I blinked, a little terrified of that last declaration. Oh hell, it would take a certain level of confidence, perhaps even madness, to pull this off anyway.

Ignoring how I could almost feel the relief lifting some of the weight off my shoulders, I finally let my gaze roam outside the car.

“This is not my street.” I did not recognize the area where we were parked. “Where are we?”

“Picking up dinner,” he said, pointing out the window at a food truck covered in a colorful pattern that intertwined luchador masks with floral motifs. “This place has the best fish tacos in the city.”

My stomach grumbled at the thought of fish tacos. Any tacos would obtain that reaction, frankly. But fish tacos? They were my guilty pleasure.

“Fish tacos?”

His dark eyebrows knit together. And I was so hungry that I could have kissed that frown. “You like them,” he stated rather than asked.

I did. “I actually love them.”

Aaron nodded as if he wanted to tell me, See? “You might have gushed over them to Héctor a couple hundred times,” Aaron commented casually. To which I blinked. A couple million times rather than a hundred. “How many will you take? My usual order is three.”

His usual order?

“Three sounds good,” I confirmed rather absently while my mind wandered away, picturing Aaron coming here as a regular. Ordering his three tacos. Sauce dripping off his otherwise spotless fingers. Perhaps some out of the corner of his otherwise unamused mouth.

Stop it, Lina, I scolded myself. Tacos are not sexy. They are messy and sticky.

“I’ll be right back,” he said as he unfastened his seat belt.

A couple of seconds too late, my fingers worked on my own seat belt with the purpose of me going with him.

“Don’t,” he ordered as he threw his door open. “Stay in the car. I’ll bring them.”

“You don’t have to mother me or buy me dinner, Aaron,” I complained, not wanting him to feel like he had to feed me or something. “You have done enough already.”

“I know I don’t have to,” he said, slipping out of the car. Leaning down, his head peeked inside. “I planned on coming here tonight either way. You just happened to be in the car,” he explained as if he knew I needed to hear it. He wasn’t wrong. “And you should eat something. It’ll be a few minutes.”

Giving up, I sighed. “Okay.” Fumbling with my fingers on my lap as he leaned away from the car, I called for him again. He stopped. “Make it four then,” I requested with a small voice. Farewell, stupid non-diet. “Please.”

Aaron looked at me in silence for a long moment. So long that I wondered if I shouldn’t have ordered an extra taco. When he finally spoke, he did so quietly, “Try not to fall asleep again, okay? I can’t promise there will be any food left when, or if, I ever manage to wake you up.”

My eyes narrowed. “You’d better not ever do that, Blackford,” I said under my breath a second after he smashed the car door closed and crossed the street to the Mexican food truck.

Not more than thirty minutes later, I held in my hands a warm takeout container that smelled absolutely amazing as I shut my apartment door behind me. Five tacos—Aaron had gotten me five and not four, like I had told him. With a side of rice with serrano peppers too. And he hadn’t let me pay for any of it.

“I got you,” he had said.

After that, he proceeded to save his number in my phone and asked me to send him my flight details the moment I got home. Then, he’d made me promise I’d eat and go to sleep. As if that wasn’t exactly what I had been dying to do.

So, without giving in to the panic that I’d surely wake up tomorrow in, I did exactly as he had said.

He. Aaron Blackford. My soon-to-be boss and even-sooner-to-be fake date to my sister’s wedding.

Because just like he had said, he really did get me.