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

was some intimidating shit. I thought he just needed a little push in the right direction. A little friendly welcome to fall into place.”

And then I proceeded to do a very dumb and impulsive thing. Just how I always managed to do. “And I couldn’t have been any more wrong.” I chuckled bitterly. “Maybe Aaron wasn’t nervous—I wouldn’t know. But he didn’t need any kind of push. He was not looking for friends. And he certainly was aware of what impression he was making.” I returned back to the present in that moment, and I was greeted by three pairs of confused eyes. My throat dried out. “I mean, that obviously changed. Eventually,” I added quickly in an unfortunately unconvincing way. “Because we are super in love, so yay!” Throwing my arms in the air, I cheered, trying my best to get the control back, but the gesture landed nowhere near where I’d wanted it to.

Isabel’s face fell slightly, and right before her frown could fully form, Aaron surprised me by coming to my rescue.

“Catalina isn’t wrong. That day, I was a little nervous,” he confessed, and my head swirled in his direction.

Aaron’s gaze was on my sister, which was good because we were in desperate need of some damage control that required all his attention and charm. But also because I didn’t want him to see my expression as I watched him. That trip down memory lane had left me a little too raw for hiding how I really felt about that day.

“I didn’t have any plans or hopes of making friends, not during that first meeting and not any day after,” he continued.

Well, that wasn’t a shock to me, not after almost two years of enduring the consequences of that position.

“And I was plenty obvious about it. The last thing I wanted was someone getting the wrong idea and thinking I was there for anything that wasn’t doing the best job I could. And in my book, that is not compatible with telling jokes and exchanging family tales. That day though, Lina showed up in my office. A little after five p.m.” He looked down at his hands, and his eyelids sheltered the blue in his eyes for just a heartbeat.

For a reason I couldn’t explain, my heart raced in my chest at the memory. Embarrassment. It had to be the physical reaction to reliving that embarrassing moment through Aaron’s words.

“Her cheeks were flushed, and there were some snowflakes still clinging to her hair and coat. She was carrying a gift bag with a ridiculous pattern of tiny party hats printed on it. As I took her in, I was certain that she had gotten the wrong office, that she couldn’t possibly be there, carrying some kind of gift for me. Maybe she was looking for the guy who had sat there before me.”

I watched his throat work as his words held his audience’s attention.

“And I was going to tell her, but I didn’t stand a chance. She started babbling some nonsense about how cold New York was in winter and how irritating people turned when it snowed, how chaotic instead of peaceful the city actually was. ‘As if it’s my fault that New Yorkers hate the snow,’ she said. ‘It’s like the cold numbs their brains, and they turn stupid.’ ” Aaron smiled sheepishly. Very briefly, one moment there and the next gone.

And I kept staring at his profile, eating up his words and how they sent me right back to that day.

At that point, my heart banged against my chest with growing urgency, as if it were a wild thing, asking to be let out. Begging to ask all the questions taking shape in my head and threatening to do it itself if I didn’t.

“She placed the bag on my desk and then told me to open it. But the cold must have numbed my brain, too, because instead of doing that, I kept gawking at it. Petrified and … intrigued. Staring at it and not having the slightest clue as to what to do with it.”

He had done that, and his reaction had made me panic and jump into crisis-control Lina. Which had been my second mistake that day.

“When I didn’t reach for it, she shoved her hand into the bag and pulled the contents out herself.” Aaron chuckled, but he wasn’t laughing. Because the curt noise was almost sad.

I wasn’t laughing either. I was too busy chewing on the fact that he remembered everything. All of it. In detail. My chest filled with more questions.

“It was a mug. And it had a joke printed on it. It said, Engineers don’t cry. They build bridges and get over it.”

Someone laughed then. Isabel or perhaps Gonzalo—I wasn’t sure. With all that crazy banging, my heart had somehow moved up my throat and to my temples, so it was hard to focus on anything besides its beating and Aaron’s voice.

“And you know what I did?” he continued, bitterness filling his tone. “Instead of laughing like I wanted to, instead of looking up at her and saying something funny that would hopefully make her give me one of those bright smiles I had somehow already seen her give so freely in the short day I had been around her, I pushed it all down and set the mug on my desk. Then, I thanked her and asked her if there was anything else she needed.”

I knew I shouldn’t feel embarrassed, but I was. Just as much as I had been back then, if not more. It had been such a silly thing to do, and I had felt so tiny and dumb after he brushed it away so easily.

Closing my eyes, I heard him continue, “I pretty much kicked her out of my office after she went out of her way and got me a gift.” Aaron’s voice got low and harsh. “A fucking welcome gift.”

I opened my eyes just in time to watch him turn his head in