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

shocking myself at how pleased I had really been. “I’m also sorry for those doggies and what they had to endure last year with that woman. What kind of hypocrite donates money for a charity that focuses on animal shelters and doesn’t like dogs? Those poor guys. I’d adopt them all if I didn’t live in a tiny studio apartment. Hell, I’d happily volunteer to spend some time with them any day.”

“I can take you, if that’s what you want.” Aaron’s words hung in the air. A part of me wanted to say yes. Yes to the chance of seeing a new side of him. Perhaps another smile too. “You just bought a date anyway.”

“With your money.”

“Regardless,” he countered. “It’s part of the package deal.”

That pang of unprecedented hurt hit me again, reminding me of what this was. Part of the deal. That was Aaron, a man of his word.

Aaron’s head reared back, revealing his face. His gaze was searching.

“I …” I hesitated, feeling stupid for considering for just an instant that maybe he’d offered because he genuinely wanted to take me there. “I just …”

Shit.

Everything that had happened tonight was spinning in my head. Aaron in a tux. All these … new and different ways I was feeling around him. The auction. His smile. His laughter. Dancing. My body against his, flushed together. All of that and then the fact that we would be going to Spain in a matter of a few weeks.

Everything tangled together in knots that messed with my head.

Aaron kept looking at me, a strange emotion behind his blue eyes. He was probably waiting for me to say something that wasn’t mumbled words.

“Would that …” I shook my head. “I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble,” I finally managed to say. “I guess that someone could check if the auction contract was fulfilled?” I didn’t know if this contract existed. Didn’t even know if anybody would even check anything. “The last thing I’d want is to hamper the good that the fundraiser has achieved tonight.” I kept going, Aaron’s features unchanging, “Nobody needs to know that the date is fake anyway. Right?”

He kept looking at me in that searching way I didn’t understand. “No. Nobody needs to know.”

“Or that we are going as friends, right?” That had not sounded right. Were we even friends?

“Is that what you want to be, Catalina?” Aaron shot back calmly. “Friends?”

“Yes,” I answered. But did I? We had never been, and that had never had anything to do with me. That hadn’t been on me. “No,” I rectified, remembering that one big obstacle that had stood between us since the beginning. One that Aaron had put there, not me. It had been him, the one who never liked me, not the other way around. It wasn’t fair of him to ask me now. “I don’t know, Aaron.” My palms felt clammy and my throat dry, and I was … confused. “What kind of question is that?”

Aaron seemed to ponder my words. “Yes or no?” he pressed.

My mouth opened and closed. We had stopped dancing at some point. My palms, which had been on Aaron’s chest, dropped down. Aaron’s gaze followed the motion. Something locked tightly behind that unreadable mask that was his expression.

“Forget I said anything,” he said, his arms, which had been still around me, falling down. “This was a bad idea.”

That made me physically flinch, and I didn’t really understand why I had done that or what he’d meant by this.

Both of us stood in front of each other, unmoving. And as much as Aaron had been distant and dismissive in the past, he had never looked this … aloof. Almost as if I had said something that hurt him.

The urge to reach out and place my hand on his chest resurfaced again. And I couldn’t, for the life of me, begin to fathom why. Not when a small voice in my head—which I assumed was common sense—was telling me that I should be glad, that this was us getting back on track to where we should stand.

But I wasn’t any good at listening to sense these days. So, when my arm lifted—because I was like that and I couldn’t help but comfort those around me with hugs or touches or whatever they needed—and Aaron stepped back, away from me, it actually stung. So much that I had to scold myself for being that stupid.

“See?” I said under my breath. “This is why I don’t know if we can be friends. Why we have never been.”

Tonight had been a fluke, and this was the reason. Everything always escalated out of control when it came to us.

“You are right.” His voice was unspeakably flat. “Being your friend has always been the last thing on my mind.”

His words, together with mine, felt like hail falling unrelentingly on me. On us, as we stood there in front of each other. Poking holes in the little bubble we had been in for the past few hours. The one we had been in while we danced. Right before the truce that had been silently established blew up in our faces.

Just like I should have expected.

I blinked at him, not knowing what to say.

“If you’ll excuse me,” he said, “I’ll be back in a few minutes and take you home.”

He turned around and left me right where I was.

Rooted to the place.

Standing on legs that I didn’t trust without the support of his arms. My heart beating ruthlessly against my chest. Feeling the cold seep through my blood in his sudden absence and my head questioning everything that had happened tonight regardless of how much I reminded myself that it meant nothing.

Nothing at all.

We had never been friends.

We were back to being the same Aaron and Lina we had always been, and that was something that would never change.

Chapter Ten

When I entered InTech headquarters the following Monday, I was feeling like I had swallowed a ball of lead with my coffee