The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas (the mitten read aloud TXT) 📗

much larger it seemed up close, I leaned back in my chair. “Hello?” The word came out wobblier than I would have preferred. “What are you doing?”

He hummed, the soft noise sounding as close as he was. Right in my face.

“Blackford,” I said very slowly, watching how his eyes scanned the PowerPoint slide on my screen. It displayed a draft of the schedule I was assembling for InTech’s Open Day.

I knew what he was doing. But I didn’t know why. Or why he was ignoring me—besides because he was trying to be the biggest pain in my ass.

“Blackford, I’m talking to you.”

Lost in thought, he hummed again, that damn noise sounding all hushed and masculine.

And annoying, I reminded myself.

I swallowed the lump that had just magically appeared in my throat.

Then, he finally spoke, “Is that all you’ve got?”

He absently placed his laptop on my desk. Right beside mine. My eyes narrowed.

“Eight a.m. Meet and greet.” One bulky arm flew in front of my face, pointing at my screen.

I plastered my body to the backrest of my chair, watching his biceps flex under the fabric of the plain button-down he wore.

Aaron continued reading out loud from my screen, pointing with his finger at every item, “Nine a.m. An introduction to InTech’s business strategies.”

My eyes traveled all the way up to his shoulder.

“Ten a.m. Coffee break … until eleven a.m. That will require large amounts of coffee. Eleven a.m. Pre-lunch activities. Not specified.”

I surprised myself, noticing how his arm filled out the sleeve perfectly and completely, his muscles snuggled into the thin fabric and not leaving much space for imagination.

“Noon. Lunch break … until two p.m. Quite the banquet. Oh, and there’s another coffee break at three p.m.” That arm I had been focused on halted in the air and then dropped.

Flushed, I reminded myself that I wasn’t here to gawk at him. Or the muscles I noticed beneath his boring clothes.

“This is worse than I thought. Why didn’t you say anything?”

I snapped out my trance, looking up at him. “Excuse me, what?”

Aaron tilted his head, and then something seemed to catch his attention. My gaze followed his hand across my desk.

“An event like this one,” he said. Then, he picked up one of the pens I had scattered around. “You have never planned one. And you don’t seem to know how.” He dropped it in my cactus-shaped pencil cup.

“I have some experience with workshops,” I muttered as I followed his fingers repeating the action with a second pen. “But just for colleagues, never for prospective clients.” Then a third one. “Excuse me, what do you think you are doing?”

“Okay,” he answered simply, grabbing my favorite pencil, one that was pink, topped with a feather in the same bright color. He looked at it strangely, his brows arching up. “It’s not ideal, but it’s a start.” He pointed at me with the pencil. “This? Seriously?”

I snagged it out of his hand. “It cheers me up.” I dropped it in the cup. “Does it offend your tastes, Mr. Robot?”

Aaron didn’t answer. Instead, his hands went for a couple of folders I had piled up—okay, fine, they had been rather dropped down somewhere—to my right. “I know my way around events like this one,” he said, picking them up and squaring them on a corner of my desk. “I organized a couple before coming to work for InTech.” He followed that up with going for my planner, which had been lying upside down somewhere in the mess that I was starting to realize was my working space. He held it in his paw-sized hands. “We just need to work fast; there’s not much time to put everything together.”

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

“We?” I ripped my planner out of his hold. “There’s no we here,” I scoffed. “And would you please leave my stuff alone? What are you even trying to accomplish?”

His furtive hand moved again, going around the back of my chair. Aaron was almost sandwiching me between the desk and my chair as his head hovered above mine, his eyes roaming around my things.

I waited for my answer, watching his profile and trying really hard not to acknowledge the warmth I felt radiating off his body.

“There’s no way you can focus; your desk is all cluttered,” he finally told me in a matter-of-fact tone. “So, I’m fixing it.”

My mouth was hanging open. “I could focus just fine until you got here.”

“Can I see the attendee list Jeff drafted?” His fingers flew over the keys of my laptop, opening a window.

All the while, I felt my body growing … warm. Uncomfortable. But at least he had stopped touching all my things.

“Oh, here it is.” He seemed to scan the document as I just stared at his profile, starting to feel overwhelmed by his proximity.

Jesus.

“All right,” he continued, “that’s not a lot of people, so at least the catering will be relatively easy to get sorted. As for the … outline you prepared, that won’t work.”

Dropping my hands on my lap, I felt dread spreading in my belly, making me wonder how in the world I was going to pull this off. “I didn’t ask for your opinion, but thanks for letting me know,” I said weakly, reaching for my laptop and bringing it closer. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll get back to it.”

Aaron looked down just as I glanced up at him.

He searched my face for a brief moment that seemed to stretch into a full—and very uncomfortable—minute.

Stepping from behind me, he moved to my other side. He leaned on the table with strong forearms, which I might have looked at a second too long, and turned on his own laptop.

“Aaron,” I said for what I hoped was the last damn time tonight, “you don’t need to help me. If that’s what you are trying to do here.” That last part I muttered.

I rolled my chair closer to my desk as I watched him punch in his password, trying hard not to focus on those