Aaron moved underneath me, his legs flexing and his hand holding my waist securely, just as if—
Whoa.
He stood up. “We haven’t met before,” he told my aunt. Then, he stepped forward. Somehow keeping my body in his delicate but skilled hold. “I don’t want you running for the closest exit,” he whispered in my ear.
What the—
“Soy Aaron. Encantado,” he said louder for my aunt. While keeping me tucked to him.
So, he was going to carry me around in his arms until I talked to him. About last night. About our almost kiss. My head swiveled back, eyes narrowed.
“No, no, no,” Tía Carmen called, stopping Aaron’s advances in her direction. “You can sit back down, cariño. No need of formalities. We are all family.”
Aaron obeyed, placing us both back on the stool immediately.
Charo, who had been hovering around the kitchen during the exchange with my aunt, placed a tray on the breakfast bar. It contained fruit, cereals, nuts, a plate with all different kinds of cheese and embutido, and a few slices of bread too.
My eyes widened as I wondered how and when had that arrived to the apartment.
“I got a few groceries yesterday,” my cousin explained.
Cocking a brow, I zeroed in on her. That meant planning.
“Have you tried some jamón, Aaron?” she asked, ignoring my glance.
“I have. It’s delicious but—”
Tía Carmen leaned on the table. “Do you like chorizo too? This one is really good.”
“Here,” my cousin said, not waiting for his answer and serving him a few slices of both Spanish delicatessens on a small plate. She placed it in front of us. “Try it. I always buy the best kind.”
My fake boyfriend thanked her, probably staring at the plate and wondering if they actually listened when people talked. Taking pity on him, I patted his forearm, which was still around my waist.
“Y qué intenciones tiene este chico con nuestra Linita?” Tía Carmen asked my cousin as she snatched a slice of bread off the tray. What intentions does he have with our little Lina?
My jaw fell to the floor.
Charo seemed to think about it for a moment. “No lo sé, Mamá.” Her eyes zeroed in on the man behind—or rather beneath—me. “Aaron, what are your intentions with Lina? You are not just fooling around, are you? What do you think about marriage? Because Lina is about to turn thirty and—”
“Charo,” I interrupted her. “Ya basta,” I hissed. “And I’m only twenty-eight. Jesus.”
Aaron chuckled behind me. “Marriage is one of my favorite institutions.”
My jaw hit the floor.
“I’ve always wanted to get married.”
My breath hitched, my mouth still hanging open.
“Have a bunch of kids. A dog too.”
Swallowing hard, I tried my best to conceal my pure shock. I tried to take ahold of my mind, which had wandered away with dangerous rose-tainted images, born of Aaron’s words.
Fake. He’s only saying what every family wants to hear.
And then he really went for it. “We love dogs, don’t we, bollito?”
Managing to pick up my jaw from the floor, I answered with a weak, “Yeah.” Then, I shook my head and somehow recovered. “That’s why we’ll have a bunch of them. Instead of kids.”
His chuckle tickled my ear.
“But there’s plenty of time to talk about that,” I gritted out with a fake smile.
“Ay que bien! Dogs, babies, true love. Just in time before you are a little too old.” Charo clapped, and I shot her a look. “Mujer, no te pongas así.” Don’t be like that, she said. “Did you try that jamón, Aaron? If you ever get married and move to Spain, you’ll have all the jamón you’d ever want.”
Move to Spain?Jesus, what did she want? To make me lose my shit?
My cousin continued, “You see, Lina had to leave to America all those years ago because of everything that happened and—”
“Charo,” I cut her off, my breathing growing heavy. “Déjalo ya, por favor,” I begged her to drop it.
The doorbell rang again. And I muttered a not-so-quiet curse under my breath.
“Oh! They are here!” my cousin announced.
What? Who?
Then, she proceeded to link her arm with her mother’s, and they slipped out of the kitchen together.
Aaron’s hand squeezed my arm gently, and I released all the air in my lungs.
I was on edge after that. And I was going to ignore—no, forget—his comment about marriage and kids and dogs because it was completely irrelevant.
And I did as soon as his fingers trailed down to my wrist. The touch—the caress—so featherlike, so brief, but so very powerful that it created a riot of shivers to spread across my whole body.
“Relax,” he said in my ear. His fingers started moving in circles over the skin of my wrist. The brush of his fingers was lazy, calming. “That’s it,” he whispered as his fingertips kept flicking over my skin.
My shoulders gradually relaxed until my back settled completely against his front.
Aaron’s chin rested on the top of my head, and then he said, “We’ve got this.”
I wanted to believe him, to believe that we could fake date our way through this improvised family reunion today and then tomorrow. But as I finally surrendered and let my body fall into his, it felt like way more than just that. I realized a part of me didn’t want to believe in just that. Because it felt right to be in this kitchen, sitting on his lap, while he brushed his fingers over the sensitive skin of my wrist as we endured my family’s inappropriate antics.
We felt like a we, Aaron and I.
And when it was my mother’s head coming into view, followed by my abuela, my tía, and Charo, that realization solidified somewhere in the middle of my chest. Like a brick or a block of cement. Heavy, firm, and really hard to ignore. But it was when Aaron briefly peeled himself off me—just long enough to introduce himself to my abuela—that I felt the brick click into place, inserting itself like a Tetris piece in a nook that had been waiting to be filled. And by the time he returned his arm to my waist and my body to his lap, just after he looked down and smiled that smile just for me, I knew with certainty that I’d never be able to get that damn brick out of there.
It was there to stay.
Chapter Twenty-One
Surprisingly, everything was going smoothly. So far, no awkward or embarrassing moments had made me regret all my life choices, and no one had dropped any inappropriate questions that made me want to open a hole in the ground and plunge myself in.
With a little luck, I would even be able to get through this one dinner, unscathed. And I really thought I would.
I hoped this sense of contentment humming satisfactorily under my skin wasn’t a by-product of the food I had inhaled. Because that was what a Spanish feast could do to you. It could cloud your judgment.
We were all sitting around a round table on the terrace of a restaurant that faced the sea. The sun was setting on the horizon, about to reach the thin line where the ocean and the sky met, and the only sound filling the air around us besides the low chatter was the crashing of the waves against the rocks lining the coast.
To put it in a simple way, it was perfect.
The soft touch of a hand on my arm sent a handful of shivers rolling down my spine.
“Cold?” a deep voice I had come to anticipate in ways that made my breath hitch asked close to my ear.
Shaking my head, I faced him. Only a few inches separated us. Our lips.
“No, I’m fine.” I wasn’t fine. I had learned that when Aaron came this close, I was everything but fine. “Just full. I might have overdone it.”
“No place for dessert?”
My eyebrows bunched at the audacity. “Don’t be ridiculous, osito. I always have space for dessert. Always.”
Aaron’s lips curled up, and his smile reached the corners of his eyes, transforming his whole face.
Wowie. I hadn’t been prepared for it if the butterflies in my stomach were any indication.
“Lina, Aaron, more wine?” my dad asked from the other side of the table.
My parents had insisted we order wine even if the wedding was tomorrow—where alcohol would certainly flow in rivers of sidra, wine, cava, and whatnot. Nobody had tried to complain. Not even Isabel or Gonzalo, whose faces displayed the repercussions of our almost all-nighter. But in the land of wine, one simply didn’t go to dinner and not order a bottle.
“No, thanks. I think I’m going to save myself for tomorrow,” I answered, removing my glass from my dad’s reach. The bottle had already been hovering midair.
Unlike me, Aaron was too slow. So, before he could muster his answer, my dad was already refilling his glass.
“You snooze, you lose,” I whispered, leaning in his direction.
That bright smile that had taken his face returned, throwing me off my game in the blink of an eye. And then the arm that had been around the back of my seat stretched, and he playfully pinched my side.
I jumped in my seat, almost knocking a few glasses off the table.
Aaron’s other hand reached for his wine, bringing it to his lips. “Don’t be cute,” he said over his glass, pinning me with a look that made me shift in my chair. Then, he dipped his head and lowered his voice. “Next time, I’ll do more than just pinch you.” His lips finally met the glass, taking a sip.
Keeping my eyes on his lips for a few intense seconds, I was sure something had just popped in the vicinity of my female reproductive parts.
Cheeks flushed, I swiveled my head, searching for any evidence that someone at the table had heard that. My abuela was still busy cleaning her plate off. Gonzalo and Isabel seemed about to pass out from exhaustion and most likely a food coma by the time we reached dessert. My parents chitchatted animatedly with a waiter I hadn’t even realized was standing by our table. And Daniel—who had come alone because his and Gonzalo’s parents were arriving early tomorrow—was looking down at his phone like it held the secrets of the universe.
That day weeks ago, when I had untruthfully declared that I was dating a man after being told that Daniel was engaged and happier than ever, I had done it in panic after picturing a scene almost identical to the one we’d found ourselves in. Except that the chair next to me would have been empty. Or occupied by someone else like my abuela or Daniel’s fiancée, knowing my luck. Or hey, maybe it would have been that escort I had briefly considered hiring. But either way, it would have been someone who didn’t make my heart race with nothing more than a look or my belly tumble with one of those smiles that I was beginning to covet just for myself.
So, as I looked in Daniel’s direction, I realized a few things. First and foremost, my gut reaction to lie and thrust myself—and Aaron—into this ludicrous plan had been, perhaps, a little excessive. Then, there was the fact that despite being excessive, having Aaron with me had made everything easier in a way that I would never have fathomed. And last—and I struggled with wrapping my head around this one—there was a considerably large part of me, one that I was trying really hard to ignore but failing at it, that didn’t regret any of it.
And that was extremely dumb of me. Because the man I found myself flushing around—and not regretting having by my side—would soon become my boss.
“So, Aaron,” my mother said, returning me back to the present, “Isabel explained how you two met and started dating.” Her eyes sparkled, and I bet it had to do more with the wine. “That story you told them last night in the sidrería. It sounded so romantic, just like one of those movies we watch on the Netflix.”
Of course, my mother would veer the conversation in that direction.
“It’s just Netflix, Mamá,” I muttered, playing with my hands on the table. “And yeah. A proper office romance, just like in the movies, right?”
“Only this one is real,” Aaron said.
Real.