The Spanish Love Deception

As my … date?

I blinked, his words echoing inside my head.

Then, something unhitched inside of me. The absurdity of whatever this was—whatever perverse joke this man I knew not to trust was trying to pull off—made a snort bubble its way up my throat and reach my lips, leaving me quickly and loudly. As if it had been in a rush to get out.

A grunt came from behind me. “What’s so funny?” His voice dropped, turning colder. “I’m completely serious.”

I bit back another burst of laughter. I didn’t believe that. Not for a second. “The chances of him,” I told Rosie, “being actually serious are the same chances I have of having Chris Evans pop out of nowhere and confess his undying love for me.” I made a show of looking right and left. “Nonexistent. So, Rosie, you were saying something about … Mr. Frenkel, right?”

There was no Mr. Frenkel.

“Lina,” Rosie said with that fake, toothy smile I knew she wore when she didn’t want to be rude. “He looks like he’s serious,” she spoke through her freaky smile. Her gaze inspected the man standing behind me. “Yep. I think he might be serious.”

“Nope. He can’t be.” I shook my head, still refusing to turn around and acknowledge that there was a possibility my friend was right.

There couldn’t be. There was no way Aaron Blackford, colleague and well-established affliction of mine, would even attempt to offer something like that. No. Way.

An impatient sigh came from behind me. “This is getting repetitive, Catalina.” A long pause. Then, another noisy exhale left his lips, this one much longer. But I did not turn around. I held my ground. “Ignoring me won’t make me disappear. You know that.”

I did. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t keep trying,” I muttered under my breath.

Rosie leveled me with a look. Then, she peeked around me again, keeping that toothy grin in place. “Sorry about that, Aaron. We are not ignoring you.” Her grin strained. “We are … debating something.”

“We are ignoring him though. You don’t need to spare his feelings. He doesn’t have any.”

“Thanks, Rosie,” Aaron told my friend, some of the usual coldness leaving his voice. Not that he’d be nice to anybody. Nice wasn’t something Aaron did. I didn’t even think he was able to pull off friendly. But he had always been less … grim when it came to Rosie. A treatment that had never been for me. “Do you think you can tell Catalina to turn around? I’d appreciate talking to her face and not to the back of her head.” His tone dropped back to minus zero degrees. “That is, of course, if this is not one of her jokes that I never seem to understand, much less find funny.”

Heat rushed up my body, reaching my face.

“Sure,” Rosie complied. “I think … I think I can do that.” My friend’s gaze bounced from that point behind me to my face, her eyebrows raised. “Lina, so, erm, Aaron would like you to turn around if this is not one of those jokes that—”

“Thanks, Rosie. I got that,” I gritted out between my teeth. Feeling my cheeks burn, I refused to face him. That would mean letting him win whatever game he was playing. Plus, he had just called me unfunny. Him. “If you could, tell Aaron that I don’t think one can laugh at, or much less understand, jokes when one lacks a sense of humor, please. That would be great. Thanks.”

Rosie scratched the side of her head, looking pleadingly at me

. Don’t make me do this, she seemed to ask me with her eyes.

I widened mine at her, ignoring her plea and begging her to go along.

She released a breath and then looked around me one more time. “Aaron,” she said, her fake grin getting bigger, “Lina thinks that—”

“I heard her, Rosie. Thank you.”

I was so attuned to him—to this—that I noticed the slight change in his tone that signaled the switch to the voice he only used with me. The one that was just as dry and cold but that would now come with an extra layer of disdain and distance. The one that would soon lead to a scowl. I didn’t even need to turn and take a look at him to know that. It was somehow always there when it came to me and to this … thing between us.

“I’m pretty sure my words are reaching Catalina down there just fine, but if you could tell her that I have work to do and I cannot entertain this much longer, I would appreciate it.”

Down there?

Stupidly large man.

My size was average. Average for a Spaniard, sure. But average nonetheless. I was five foot three—almost four, thank you very much.

Rosie’s green eyes were back on me. “So, Aaron has work, and he would appreciate—”

“If—” I stopped myself when I heard the word sounding high-pitched and squeaky. I cleared my throat and tried again. “If he is so busy, then please tell him to feel free to spare me. He can go back to his office and resume whatever workaholic activities he had shockingly paused to stick his nose in something that does not concern him.”

I watched my friend’s mouth open, but the man behind me spoke before a sound could come out of her lips, “So, you heard what I said. My offer. Good.” A pause. In which I cursed under my breath. “Then, what’s your answer?”