by Elena Armas
Only the truth. The reality. We weren’t friends. We barely tolerated each other, Aaron Blackford and I. We were spiteful to each other, pointed out each other’s mistakes, criticized how differently we worked, thought, and lived. We condemned our differences. At some point in the past, I would have thrown darts at a poster of his face. And I was pretty sure he would have done the same because I wasn’t the only one driving along Hate Boulevard. It was a two-way road. Not only that, but it had actually been him, the one causing our fallout. I hadn’t started this feud between us. So, why? Why was he pretending to offer me help, and why would I humor him by even considering it?
“I might be desperate to find a date, but I’m not that desperate,” I repeated. “Just like I said.”
His sigh was tired. Impatient. Infuriating. “I’ll let you think about it. You know you have no other options.”
“Nothing to think about.” I cut my hand through the air between us. Then, I smiled my version of Rosie’s fake, toothy grin. “I’d take a chimpanzee dressed in a tuxedo before taking you.”
His eyebrows rose, amusement barely entering his eyes. “Now, come on; we both know you wouldn’t. While there are chimpanzees that would rise up to the occasion, it will be your ex standing there. Your family. You said you need to make an impression, and I will accomplish exactly that.” He tilted his head. “I’m your best option.”
I snorted, clapping my hands once. Smug blue-eyed pain in my ass. “You are my best nothing, Blackford. And I have plenty of other options,” I countered, shrugging a shoulder. “I’ll find someone on Tinder. Maybe put out an ad in the New York Times. I can find someone.”
“In only a few weeks? Highly unlikely.”
“Rosie has friends. I’ll take one of them.”
That had been my plan all along. It was the reason why I had grabbed Rosie so early in the day. Rookie mistake on my part, I realized. I should have waited to get off work and gotten Rosie to a safe, Aaron-free place to talk. But after yesterday’s call with Mamá … yeah. Things had changed. My situation had definitely changed. I needed someone, and I couldn’t stress enough that anyone would do. Anyone who wasn’t Aaron, of course. Rosie had been born and raised in the city. There had to be someone she knew.
“Right, Rosie? One of your friends must be available.”
My friend’s head popped in again. “Maybe Marty? He loves weddings.”
I shot a quick glance at her. “Wasn’t Marty the one who got drunk at your cousin’s wedding, stole the mic from the band, and sang ‘My Heart Will Go On’ until your brother had to drag him off the stage?”
“That would be him.” She winced.
“Yeah, no.” I couldn’t have that at my sister’s wedding. She’d rip his heart out of his chest and serve it as dessert. “What about Ryan?”
“Happily engaged.”
A sigh left my lips. “Not surprised. Ryan is a total catch.”
“I know. That’s why I tried so many times to get you two together, but you—”
I cleared my throat loudly, interrupting her. “We aren’t discussing why I am single.” I quickly glanced back at Aaron. His eyes were on me, narrowed. “How about … Terry?”
“Moved to Chicago.”
“Dammit.” I shook my head, closing my eyes for an instant. This was useless. “Then, I’ll hire an actor. Pay him to act as my date.”
“That’s probably expensive,” Aaron said flatly. “And actors aren’t exactly lying around, waiting for single people to hire and parade them as their plus-ones.”
I pinned him with an exasperated look. “I’ll get a professional escort.”
His lips pressed in that tight, almost-hermetic way they did when he was extremely irritated. “You’d take a male prostitute to your sister’s wedding before taking me?”
“I said, an escort, Blackford. Por Dios,” I muttered, watching his eyebrows bunch and turn into the scowl. “I’m not looking for that kind of service. I just need a companion. That’s all they do. They escort you to events.”
“That’s not what they do, Catalina.” His voice was deep and icy. Covering me in his frosty judgment.
“Haven’t you watched any romantic comedies ever?” I watched the scowl deepen. “Not even The Wedding Date?”
No answer, just more of that arctic staring.
“Do you even watch movies? Or do you just … work?”
There was a possibility that he didn’t even own a television. His expression didn’t change.
God, I don’t have time for this. For him.
“You know what? Not important. I don’t care.” I threw my hands up and then clasped them together. “Thank you for … this. Whatever it was. Great input. But I don’t need you.”
“I think you do.”
I blinked at him. “I think you are annoying.”
“Catalina,” he started, making my irritation grow with the way he uttered my name. “You are delusional if you think you can find someone in such a short amount of time.”
Once more, Aaron Blackford wasn’t wrong.
I probably was a little delusional. And he didn’t even know about the lie. My lie. Not that he’d ever do. But that didn’t change the facts. I needed someone, anyone, but not him, not Aaron, to fly to Spain with me for Isabel’s wedding. Because (A) I was the bride’s sister and maid of honor. (B) My ex, Daniel, was the groom’s brother and best man. And as of yesterday, I had learned that he was happily engaged. Something that my family had been hiding from me. (C) If you didn’t count the few and pretty unsuccessful dates I had gone on, I had been technically single for roughly six years. Ever since I had left Spain and moved to the States, which had happened shortly after my one and only relationship exploded in my face. Something that every single attendee—because there were no secrets in families like mine and much less in small towns like the one I had come from—knew about and pitied me for. And (D) there was my lie.
The lie.
The one I had sort of fed my mother and consequently the whole Martín clan because privacy and boundaries did not exist when it came to us. Hell, by now, my lie was probably on the Announcements page of the local newspaper.
Catalina Martín, finally, not single. Her family is happy to announce that she will bring her American boyfriend to the wedding. Everyone is invited to come and witness the most magical event of the decade.
Because that was what I had done. Right after the news of Daniel’s engagement had slipped past my mother’s lips and reached my ears through the speaker of my phone, I had said that I’d be bringing someone too. No, not just someone. I’d said—lied, deceived, falsely announced—that I’d be bringing my boyfriend.
Who technically did not exist.
Yet.
Okay, fine, or ever. Because Aaron was right. Finding a date in such a short amount of time was perhaps a little optimistic. Believing I’d find someone to pretend to be my made-up boyfriend was probably delusional. But accepting that Aaron was my only choice and taking him up on his offer? That was straight-up insanity.
“I see it’s finally seeping in.” Aaron’s words brought me back to the present, and I found his blue eyes aimed at me. “I’ll let you come to terms with it on your own. Just let me know when you do.”
My lips pursed. And when I felt my cheeks burn again—because how lame was I for him, Aaron Blackford, who had never even liked me a tiny little bit, to pity me enough to offer himself to be my date?—I crossed my arms over my chest and averted my eyes from those two icy and ruthless spots.
“Oh, and, Catalina?”
“Yeah?” The word left my lips weakly. Ugh, pathetic.
“Try not to be late to our ten o’clock meeting. It’s not cute anymore.”
My gaze shot to him, a huff stuck in my throat.
Jerk.
I swore right then and there that one day, I’d find a ladder high enough, climb it, and chuck something really hard at his infuriating face.
One year and eight months. That was how long I had
endured him. I had been counting, biding my time.
Then, with nothing more than a nod, he turned around, and I watched him walk away. Dismissed until further notice.
“Okay, that was …” Rosie’s voice trailed off, not ending the statement.
“Maddening? Insulting? Bizarre?” I offered, bringing my hands to my face.
“Unexpected,” she countered. “And interesting.”
Looking at her between my fingers, I watched the corners of her lips tug up.
“Your friendship has been revoked, Rosalyn Graham.”
She chuckled. “You know you don’t mean that.”
I didn’t; she’d never get rid of me.
“So …” Rosie linked her arm with mine and ushered me down the hallway. “What are you going to do?”
A shaky exhale left my mouth, taking all my energy with it. “I … I don’t have the slightest idea.”
But I knew something for sure: I was not taking Aaron Blackford up on his offer. He wasn’t my only option, and he surely wasn’t my best one either. Hell, he wasn’t my anything. Especially not my date to my sister’s wedding.
Chapter Two
I wasn’t late to our meeting.
Ever since that day a year and eight months ago, I was never late.
Why?
Aaron Blackford.
One time. I had been late one single time in Aaron’s presence, and yet he kept flaunting that fact every chance he got.
He never chalked it up to me being Spanish or a woman. Both unjustified stereotypes when it came to being notoriously unpunctual.
Aaron didn’t do nonsense. He pointed out facts; he stated verifiable truths. He had been disciplined to do that, just like every other engineer in the consulting company where we worked, me included. And technically, I had been late. That one time all those months ago. It was true that I had missed the first fifteen minutes of an important presentation. It was also true that it had been Aaron leading it—during his first week in InTech—and it was again true that I had made a miserably loud entrance that might have involved accidentally knocking over a coffee pitcher.
On Aaron’s stack of dossiers for the presentation.
Fine, partly on his pants too.
Not the best way to make an impression on a new colleague, but tough shit. Things like that happened all the time. Tiny, unintentional, unexpected accidents like those were common. People got over them and went on with their lives.
But not Aaron.
Instead, week after week and month after month ever since that day, he had barked stuff like, “Try not to be late to our ten o’clock meeting. It’s not cute anymore,” at me.
Instead, every single time he entered a conference room and found me sitting there, painfully early, he checked the watch on his wrist and raised his eyebrows in surprise.
Instead, he moved coffee pitchers out of my reach with a warning tilt of his head in my direction.
That was what Aaron Blackford did instead of letting go of that incident.
“Good morning, Lina.” Héctor’s kind voice reached me from the door.
I could tell he was smiling before I took in his face, just like he always did. “Buenos días, Héctor,” I told him in the mother tongue we shared.
The man that I considered like an uncle after he welcomed me into the close circle of his family placed a hand on my shoulder and squeezed lightly. “Doing good, mija?”
“Can’t complain.” I returned the smile.
“You coming over to the next barbecue? It’s next month, and Lourdes keeps telling me to remind you. She’s preparing ceviche this time, and you are the only one that will eat it.” He laughed.
It was true; no one in the Díaz family was a big fan of the fish-based Mexican dish. Which, to this day, I still couldn’t understand.
“Stop asking dumb questions, old man.” I waved my hand in the air with a chuckle. “Of course I’ll be there.”
Héctor was taking his usual place to my right when our three remaining colleagues in attendance poured into the room, mumbling their good mornings.
Lifting my gaze off Héctor’s easy smile, my eyes tracked down the men walking around the table to assemble into our ten o’clock formation.
Across from me appeared Aaron, eyebrows raised and gaze quickly meeting mine. I watched his lips tip down as he took a chair out.
Rolling my eyes, I moved onto Gerald, whose bald head glinted under the fluorescent light as he folded his rather chubby frame into the chair. Last but not least, there was Kabir, who had been recently promoted to the position everyone in this room held—team leader of the Solutions Division of the company. Which pretty much encompassed all disciplines but civil engineering. Which was a beast on its own.
“Good morning, everyone,” Kabir started with the enthusiasm only someone who had been on the job for a month would have. “This week, it’s my turn to lead and protocol the meeting, so if you could, please say present when I call your name.”
An exasperated grunt I was extremely familiar with filled the room. Glancing at the blue-eyed man across the table, I found the irritated face that went with the sound.
“Of course, Kabir,” I said with a smile even though I agreed with the scowling man. “Please call away.”
Ocean eyes pinned me with an icy look.
Meeting his stare, I heard Kabir go through each of our names, obtaining confirmation from both Héctor and Gerald, an unnecessarily cheery present from me, and another grunt from Mr. Grumps.
“All right, thanks,” Kabir said. “Next point in the agenda is, project status updates. Who would like to start?”
He was met with silence.
InTech provided engineering services for any entity that did not have the ability or man power to design or engineer plans for their own projects. Sometimes, they outsourced a team of five or six people, and other times, only one person was needed. So, all five team leaders in our division were currently working and supervising several different projects for several different clients, and all projects never stopped moving forward. Eating away milestones and encountering all kinds of issues and drawbacks. We had conference calls with the clients and stakeholders on a daily basis. The status of each project changed so briskly and in such a complex manner that there was no way every other team leader could catch up in only a few minutes. That was why Kabir’s question had been met with silence. And why this meeting wasn’t completely necessary.
“Um …” Kabir shifted in his seat uncomfortably. “Okay, I can start. Yeah, I’ll go first.” He shuffled through a folder he had brought with him. “This week, we are presenting to Telekoor the new budget we’ve been developing for them. As you know, it is a start-up that’s working on a cloud service to enhance mobile data on public transportation. Well, the resources available are rather limited and …”
I absently listened to my colleague while my gaze roamed around the meeting room. Héctor nodded his head, although I suspected he was paying as much attention as I was. Gerald, on the other hand, was openly checking his phone. Rude. So rude. But I didn’t expect anything else from him.
Then, there was him. Aaron Blackford, who I realized had been staring at me before my eyes met his.
His arm reached out in my direction, his gaze holding mine. I knew what he was about to do. I knew. The long fingers attached to that massive palm spread out as they met the object in front of me. The coffee pitcher. I narrowed my eyes, watching how his hand curled around the pitcher’s handle.
He dragged it all the way across the surface of the oak desk. Very slowly. Then, he nodded his head.
Infuriating blue-eyed grudge-holder.
I gave him a tight, closed-lip smile—because the other option was launching myself across the room and pouring all the contents of the goddamn pitcher on him. Again. But this time, intentionally.
Trying to distract myself from that thought, I averted my eyes and furiously scribbled a to-do list on my planner.
Ask Isa if the bouquet s
he ordered for Mamá was peonies or lilies.
Order either a peony or lily bouquet for Tía Carmen.
If we didn’t, she’d be giving me, Isa—my sister and bride—and Mamá the stink eye until the day she or any of us kicked the bucket.
Send Papá my flight details, so he knows when to pick me up from the airport.
Tell Isa to remind Papá that he has my flight details, so he picks me up from the airport.
I brought the pen to my lips, this awful feeling I was forgetting something important making me uneasy.
Chewing on my pen, I scrambled my mind for whatever it was I was missing. Then, a voice I was terribly—and unfortunately—doomed to never forget thundered in my head.
“You are delusional if you think you can find someone in such a short amount of time.”
My eyes bounced back to the man sitting across from me, meeting his gaze again. As if I had been caught doing something wrong—like thinking of him—I felt the heat in my cheeks and returned my attention to the list.
Find a boyfriend.
I scratched that.
Find a fake boyfriend. Doesn’t need to be a real one.
“… and that’s all I have to report.” Kabir’s words registered somewhere in the back of my head.
I continued working on my list.
Find a fake boyfriend. Doesn’t need to be a real one. And also, NOT HIM.
Surely, I had other options. Not the escort though. A quick Google search had confirmed that Aaron had been right. Again. Apparently, I had been lied to by Hollywood. New York seemed to be filled with men and women offering a wide range of varied and different kinds of services that were not limited to escorting.
I grimaced and then chewed harder on the pen. Not that I’d ever admit that to Aaron. I’d rather give up chocolate for a full year than admit to Aaron that he was right.
But I was desperate at this point. He had nailed that down too. I needed to find someone who would pretend to be in a serious, committed relationship with me in front of my whole family. And that didn’t only include the wedding day, but also the two days of celebratory events that preceded that. Which meant, I was screwed. I was—