The Spanish Love Deception Elena Armas (free ebook reader for ipad .TXT) 📖

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