I shook my head lightly, trying to make sense of myself. All this dancing and spinning was clearly messing with me. “Well, as much as I am sorry for your wallet, considering the amount the donation reached, I am happy I got to see that sulky face when I beat her,” I admitted, shocking myself at how pleased I had really been. “I’m also sorry for those doggies and what they had to endure last year with that woman. What kind of hypocrite donates money for a charity that focuses on animal shelters and doesn’t like dogs? Those poor guys. I’d adopt them all if I didn’t live in a tiny studio apartment. Hell, I’d happily volunteer to spend some time with them any day.”
“I can take you, if that’s what you want.” Aaron’s words hung in the air. A part of me wanted to say yes. Yes to the chance of seeing a new side of him. Perhaps another smile too. “You just bought a date anyway.”
“With your money.”
“Regardless,” he countered. “It’s part of the package deal.”
That pang of unprecedented hurt hit me again, reminding me of what this was. Part of the deal. That was Aaron, a man of his word.
Aaron’s head reared back, revealing his face. His gaze was searching.
“I …” I hesitated, feeling stupid for considering for just an instant that maybe he’d offered because he genuinely wanted to take me there. “I just …”
Shit.
Everything that had happened tonight was spinning in my head. Aaron in a tux. All these … new and different ways I was feeling around him. The auction. His smile. His laughter. Dancing. My body against his, flushed together. All of that and then the fact that we would be going to Spain in a matter of a few weeks.
Everything tangled together in knots that messed with my head.
Aaron kept looking at me, a strange emotion behind his blue eyes. He was probably waiting for me to say something that wasn’t mumbled words.
“Would that …” I shook my head. “I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble,” I finally managed to say. “I guess that someone could check if the auction contract was fulfilled?” I didn’t know if this contract existed. Didn’t even know if anybody would even check anything. “The last thing I’d want is to hamper the good that the fundraiser has achieved tonight.” I kept going, Aaron’s features unchanging, “Nobody needs to know that the date is fake anyway. Right?”
He kept looking at me in that searching way I didn’t understand. “No. Nobody needs to know.”
“Or that we are going as friends, right?” That had not sounded right. Were we even friends?
“Is that what you want to be, Catalina?” Aaron shot back calmly. “Friends?”
“Yes,” I answered. But did I? We had never been, and that had never had anything to do with me. That hadn’t been on me. “No,” I rectified, remembering that one big obstacle that had stood between us since the beginning. One that Aaron had put there, not me. It had been him, the one who never liked me, not the other way around. It wasn’t fair of him to ask me now. “I don’t know, Aaron.” My palms felt clammy and my throat dry, and I was … confused. “What kind of question is that?”
Aaron seemed to ponder my words. “Yes or no?” he pressed.
My mouth opened and closed. We had stopped dancing at some point. My palms, which had been on Aaron’s chest, dropped down. Aaron’s gaze followed the motion. Something locked tightly behind that unreadable mask that was his expression.
“Forget I said anything,” he said, his arms, which had been still around me, falling down. “This was a bad idea.”
That made me physically flinch, and I didn’t really understand why I had done that or what he’d meant by this.
Both of us stood in front of each other, unmoving. And as much as Aaron had been distant and dismissive in the past, he had never looked this … aloof. Almost as if I had said something that hurt him.
The urge to reach out and place my hand on his chest resurfaced again. And I couldn’t, for the life of me, begin to fathom why. Not when a small voice in my head—which I assumed was common sense—was telling me that I should be glad, that this was us getting back on track to where we should stand.
But I wasn’t any good at listening to sense these days. So, when my arm lifted—because I was like that and I couldn’t help but comfort those around me with hugs or touches or whatever they needed—and Aaron stepped back, away from me, it actually stung. So much that I had to scold myself for being that stupid.
“See?” I said under my breath. “This is why I don’t know if we can be friends. Why we have never been.”
Tonight had been a fluke, and this was the reason. Everything always escalated out of control when it came to us.
“You are right.” His voice was unspeakably flat. “Being your friend has always been the last thing on my mind.”
His words, together with mine, felt like hail falling unrelentingly on me. On us, as we stood there in front of each other. Poking holes in the little bubble we had been in for the past few hours. The one we had been in while we danced. Right before the truce that had been silently established blew up in our faces.
Just like I should have expected.
I blinked at him, not knowing what to say.
“If you’ll excuse me,” he said, “I’ll be back in a few minutes and take you home.”
He turned around and left me right where I was.
Rooted to the place.
Standing on legs that I didn’t trust without the support of his arms. My heart beating ruthlessly against my chest. Feeling the cold seep through my blood in his sudden absence and my head questioning everything that had happened tonight regardless of how much I reminded myself that it meant nothing.
Nothing at all.
We had never been friends.
We were back to being the same Aaron and Lina we had always been, and that was something that would never change.
Chapter Ten
When I entered InTech headquarters the following Monday, I was feeling like I had swallowed a ball of lead with my coffee that morning. And with every step I took in my office’s direction, the sensation kept intensifying, as if the ball were expanding and taking more and more room in my stomach.
I hadn’t been this … uneasy ever since that awful call a couple of weeks ago when I had heard that Daniel was engaged. The one phone call where the lie had come to be.
But this was different, wasn’t it?
This heaviness in the bottom of my stomach had nothing to do with something I had blurted out in a moment of desperation and stupidity.
Although maybe it did.
Because as much as acknowledging that the way I felt had anything to do with how Aaron and I had left things on Saturday was the last thing I wanted to do, I had. And as much as I refused to waste a second of my time worrying over it, I had.
Which was absolutely ridiculous because why would I want last Saturday—or him—to take any space in my head? I had no reason to. Not consciously at least. We weren’t friends. We didn’t owe anything to each other. And whatever he had said—or done, or looked like, or smelled like, or the way he had smiled or held me as we danced or even whatever he had whispered in my damn ear—should have bounced right off me.
But apparently, my mind had other ideas.
“Being your friend has always been the last thing on my mind.”
Those had been his words. He couldn’t have said it any clearer.
Fine by me. I had never wanted to be his friend either. Except maybe for a couple of days when he had first started at InTech.
But that ship had sailed long ago. I had blacklisted him for a reason, and that was where he should have stayed. In my blacklist.
The only teeny-tiny problem was that I sort of needed him. And I … God. I’d deal with that later.
Shaking off all of Aaron’s drama and burying deep that kernel of uneasiness so it did not grow into something else, I placed my bag on my chair, grabbed my planner, and made my way to the room where our monthly Breakfast & Broadcastwas held. Jeff, our boss and head of the Solutions Division of the company, and all five teams that he coordinated attended. And no, we didn’t have breakfast and watch the news. Unfortunately. It was just a meeting that took place once a month, where bad coffee and a really sad excuse for cookies were provided and where Jeff updated our division on the latest news and announcements.
Being one of the first in the room, I took my usual place, opened my planner, and went through a few reminders I had noted down for the week while the room filled out with people.
Feeling a soft brush of a hand on my arm and the light scent of peaches, I turned, already knowing who I’d find smiling down at me.
“Hey, Jim’s or Greenie’s for lunch?” Rosie asked in a hushed voice.
“I’d sell my soul for a bagel from Jim’s, but I shouldn’t.” Today was definitely not a salad day; my mood would plummet down even more, but the wedding was right around the corner. “So, Greenie’s.”
“Are you sure?” Rosie’s gaze slid to the cookies displayed on the narrow table placed at the entrance of the room. “God, those look worse than usual.”
I chuckled, and before I could answer, my stomach grumbled. “Kinda regretting not having breakfast,” I murmured, looking at my friend with a grimace.
“Lina.” Rosie frowned, her voice holding a warning edge. “That’s not you, sweetie. That diet you have been on, it’s just stupid.”
“It’s not a diet.” I rolled my eyes, ignoring the voice in my head that was agreeing with my friend. “I’m just watching what I eat.”
She cut me a look that told me she didn’t believe me. “We are going to Jim’s.”
“Trust me, after the weekend I had, I’d let you take me there, and I’d raid the place, but it’s gonna be a no.”
My friend searched my face, probably finding something in there because an eyebrow arched. “What did you do?”
I leaned back on my chair, a little huff leaving my lips. “I did not—” I stopped myself. I had done plenty. “I’ll tell you later, okay?”
Her eyes filled with concern. “At Jim’s.” With one last nod, Rosie shifted past me and walked to the chair next to Héctor, her team leader.
When I caught the eye of the old man, I waved at him with a small smile, receiving a wink from him.
And then—catching me completely off guard, even when it shouldn’t have—my Aaron radar went off. Warning me of his presence.
My heart lurched in my chest, and my gaze hunted him down.
He is not that good-looking. He’s just tall, I told myself as I took him in.
Something in my rib cage sped up.
It was the tuxedo because my body is surely not reacting to that button-down shirt and those pressed slacks, I thought as my eyes followed his long strides to the chair I knew he’d take a couple of rows in front of me and to my left.