The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas (novels for students .TXT) 📕

My hands were in my lap when I felt Aaron’s palm fall against them. For the second time tonight, he interlaced our hands. Our fingers weaved together, each and every one of them. But this time, he kept our linked hands right where they were—on the top of my thigh. As if he was trying to tell me, this way—with them below the table, hidden from everyone else—meant that this was just for us. Not a part of the charade.

He squeezed my hand with purpose, his fingers tightening around mine, his palm warm against my skin. Just for us, it seemed to reassure me. To promise me.

And like the biggest dummy in the universe, I found the greatest comfort in those five long fingers. In that warm palm. So, I brought our joined hands closer to my belly, and I squeezed right back.

There was something lodged right in between my ribs that felt a lot like a ticking bomb.

“I can hear the gears in your head spinning,” Aaron said as he crossed the room in that pair of pajama pants, which was doing mad things to my belly again. Same went for the T-shirt. He was wearing the one he had slept in yesterday.

At least he was wearing one. I didn’t think I could take shirtless Aaron right now.

“I’m okay,” I lied, my head throbbing with every replay of my conversation with Daniel. It had been on a loop since we left the restaurant. “Just going through everything I need to get done before the big day tomorrow.”

Which was what I should have been busy doing.

Clad in my sleeping clothes too, I aligned the two pairs of heels—the ones I’d wear and the backup—on the floor. Right against the wall. Meticulously leaving the same space between them.

I stepped back, admiring my work. Nope.

Unconvinced, I knelt and rearranged them.

When I had something in my mind, I did one of two things. I compulsively ate or organized. And considering we had just had dinner and seeing the pile of neatly stacked clothes and perfectly in line items displayed on top of the dresser, it seemed that this one time, it was the latter.

Out of the corner of my eye, I sensed Aaron plopping himself on the bed with an ease and finesse no one his size should have.

“There’s smoke coming out of your ears.” He rested his back on the headboard, and the wood complained under his weight.

I reached for the shoes again, moving them an inch to the right. “I don’t think so,” I said in a clipped tone. Then, I moved the two pairs half an inch to the left. “For that, I would need to be overthinking something. And I’m not doing that.”

“Oh, but you are,” he said from his position on the bed. “Talk to me.”

I didn’t bother answering him. Hearing his sigh, I kept my focus on my task.

Maybe if they face the wall—

“Catalina,” Aaron called.

And the way he had said it made me turn around and face him.

“Come here.” He patted the bed with his hand.

Brows bunched, I sent him a look.

“Sit with me for a little while, and then you can go back to torturing those shoes into perfection,” he told me with a sigh. “Just for a few minutes.” Then, he placed his palm on the comforter again. When I didn’t say anything or move, he added very softly, like it would break his heart if I didn’t give him this one thing, “Please.”

That please, that freaking please and the way he had said it, launched my legs forward.

Before I knew what I was doing, my ass was on the bed, right beside his hip. I knew what he wanted to talk about. That cocktail of emotions and memories and questions that had slowly been assembling in my head. The one I had brought back to the apartment, and that I knew if I so much as opened my mouth, it would burst and spill right out of me. But that meant completely confiding in Aaron. Telling him about a part of my past that I didn’t find any joy in revisiting. Giving him a key that would help him understand—know—me better. And did I want to do that? Could I do it without wanting to tuck my head in his chest and look for comfort in him?

“I don’t want to bore you with the melodramatics of my life, Aaron,” I sighed, and I meant it. What I didn’t tell him was that beneath all that, there was only fear. “You don’t need to worry—”

In one smooth motion, Aaron picked me up and placed me between his open legs. Another sigh left my parted lips, but this one had nothing to do with exhaustion or whatever was brewing in my head.

“Anything that bothers you matters to me, and I want to hear about it,” he said from his position behind me. “Nothing about you is boring or doesn’t interest me—ever. Understand?”

I felt myself nod and perhaps mutter a quiet, “Yes,” too. My heart drummed too loudly in my ears to know.

Aaron continued, “If you want to talk about whatever happened, then we’ll do that.” His hands fell on my shoulders with a tenderness that disarmed me. Then, he brushed my hair to the side, and his fingers traveled to the back of my neck. “And if you don’t, then we’ll talk about something else. But I want you to relax. Just for a few minutes.”

He paused, and his thumbs started massaging along the line of my spine. I had to hold back from whimpering like a stricken animal. Only I wasn’t in pain.

“Sound like a plan?”

“Yes,” I answered, incapable of not melting into his touch.

There was a beat of silence, and Aaron’s fingers trailed up the back of my neck, gently kneading the muscles there. Another sound rose in my throat, almost leaving my lips. But I held it in.

“What your dad said during dinner made me think of something