The Spanish Love Deception

That was how ridiculous I thought her observations were.

In my humble opinion, all those soapy shows she watched were starting to mess up her perception of reality. Hell, and I was the Spanish one out of the two. I had grown up watching soap operas with my abuela. But I surely wasn’t living in one. There wasn’t simmering tension between Aaron Blackford and me. I did not glare at him in a way he loved. Aaron didn’t love anything—he couldn’t do that without a heart.

Lina: All right, I have work to do, so I’ll let you get back to your coffee, but stop raiding the pastry counter. I’m concerned.

Rosie: Okay, okay. I’ll stop—for now. *heart emoji* Good luck!

Lina: *heart emoji* *fire emoji*

Locking my phone and placing it facedown on the table, I took a deep, energizing breath.

Time to get this show going.

The image of the chocolate brownie popped in my head. Assaulting me.

No, Lina.

Thinking of brownies—or any food—wasn’t going to help. I needed to make myself believe that I wasn’t hungry.

“I’m not hungry,” I said out loud, putting my chestnut hair in a bun. “My stomach is full. Packed with all kinds of delicious food. Like tacos. Or pizza. Or brownies. Coffee and—”

My stomach grumbled, ignoring my visualization exercise and invading my mind with memories of Around the Corner. The delicious scent of roasted coffee beans. The welcome sensory attack that involved taking a bite of a brownie that included three sorts of chocolate. The sound of the coffee machine steaming milk.

Another complaint rose from my noisy stomach.

Sighing, I reluctantly kicked out all those images off my mind and rolled up the sleeves of the thin cardigan I had to wear in the building, thanks to the AC being tuned up to the max in summer.

“Okay, stomach, work with me here,” I muttered to myself, as if the words would maybe make some kind of difference. “I’ll take us to Around the Corner tomorrow. Now, you need to stay quiet and let me work. Okay?”

“Okay.”

The word echoed in my office, as if it had been my stomach answering.

But I wasn’t that lucky.

“That was odd.” The same deep voice came again. “But I guess it goes with your personality.”

Not needing to lift my head to know who was behind that rich tone, I closed my eyes.

Damn you, Rosalyn Graham. You summoned this evil entity into my office, and you’ll pay for this in chocolate.

Cursing under my breath—because, of course, it had to be him hearing me rally myself—I schooled my face into a neutral expression and looked up from my desk. “Odd? I like to think of it as endearing.”

“No,” he answered quickly. Way too quickly. “It’s a little disturbing when you say more than a couple of words. And you were having a full conversation with yourself.”

I grabbed the first thing I found lying around in my desk—a highlighter. I breathed in and then out. “I’m sorry, Blackford. But I don’t have time to pick apart my quirks right now,” I said, holding my highlighter in the air. “Do you need anything?”

I took him in as he stood under the threshold of my office door, his laptop under one of his arms, one of his dark eyebrows raised.

“What’s Around the Corner?” he queried, starting in my direction.

Exhaling slowly, I ignored his question and watched his long legs closing the distance to my desk. Then, I had to watch him walk around it and stop somewhere to my left.

I swiveled my office chair, fully facing him. “Sorry, but is there anything I can help you with?”

His gaze fell behind me, on my laptop screen, his big body bending down.

My eyes shot to his face, probably looking at him in one of the ways Rosie had pointed out earlier—glaring—only without whatever crap she’d read between lines that didn’t even exist. His brows drew in.