No. I kicked it out.

He hadn’t even mentioned it again since Monday. It had been four days. Not that if he had, it would have changed anything. I was on my own. But I had no reason to believe he had been serious.

And it was okay; Mamá had said so.

I opened my mouth to follow up with my decision of growing the hell up and to stop acting like a compulsive liar for something I should have the maturity to face alone, but of course, luck wasn’t on my side. Because my mother’s next words immediately killed whatever I was about to say.

“You know”—the way her voice sounded should have tipped me on what was about to come—“every person is different. We all have our own pace to put back together our lives after going through something like that. Some people need more time than others. And if you haven’t managed to get there yet, then there’s nothing to be ashamed of. Daniel is engaged while you are not. But that isn’t important. You can come to the wedding alone, Lina.”

My stomach dropped to my feet at the thought.

“I’m not saying Daniel needed to put his life back together in the first place because, well, he jumped off that boat, unscathed.”

And wasn’t that the damn truth? Something that, on top of everything, would make things even worse. He had merrily continued his life while I had … I had … gotten stuck. And everybody there would know. Every single person attending that wedding would know.

As if reading my mind, my mother uttered my thoughts, “Everybody knows, cariño. And everybody understands. You went through a lot.”

Everybody understands?

No, she was wrong. Everybody thought they understood. Nobody did. They didn’t realize that all those pobrecita, poor little Linas, accompanied by all those pitiful looks and nods, as if they got why I had been scarred and not able to find somebody else, were the reasons why I had lied to my family. Why I wanted to crawl out of my skin at the prospect of showing up alone when Daniel—my first love, my ex, the groom’s brother and best man—being there with his fiancée would only reinforce their assumptions of me.

Single and alone after fleeing the country, heartbroken.

Stuck.

I was over him; I truly was. But, man, all that had happened had … messed me up. I realized that now—not because it’d suddenly hit me that I had been single for years, but because I had lied—and what was worse was, I had just made up my mind not to go back on my lie.

“Everybody understands. You went through a lot.”

A lot was a very gentle way to put it.

Nope. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t be that Lina in front of my whole family, the whole damn town. Daniel.

“Lina …” My mother said my name in that way only a mother could. “Are you still there?”

“Of course.” My voice sounded wobbly and heavy with everything I was feeling, and I hated that it had. I exhaled through my nose, straightening in my chair. “Nothing happened with my boyfriend,” I lied. Lies, lies, and more lies. Lina Martín, professional liar, deceiver. “And I am bringing him, just like I said I would.” I forced out a laugh, but it sounded all wrong. “If you’d just let me talk before jumping to silly conclusions and sermonizing me, I could have told you.”

Nothing came through the speaker of the phone. Only silence.

My mother wasn’t stupid. I didn’t think any mother was. And if I believed for a second that I was out of the storm, I was probably wrong.

“Okay,” she said oddly softly. “So, you are still together?”

“Yes,” I lied again.

“And he’ll come to the wedding with you? To Spain?”

“Correct.”

A pause, making me realize my hands were sweating so much that the phone would have slipped if I hadn’t been gripping it as tightly as I was.

“He’s in New York too, you said?”

“Yep.”

She hummed and then added, “American?”

“Raised and born.”

“What’s his name again?”

My breath got stuck somewhere along my throat. Shit. I hadn’t given them a name, had I? I didn’t think I had, but …

My mind raced through my options very quickly. Desperately. I needed a name. What an easy, manageable thing. A name.

A simple name.

A name of a man who didn’t exist or I still had to find.

“Lina … are you there?” my mother chimed. She laughed, somehow sounding nervous. “Have you forgotten your boyfriend’s name?”

“Don’t be silly,” I told her, hearing my distress in my voice. “I …”

A shadow caught my eye, distracting me. My gaze shot to my office door, and exactly how he had wedged himself into my life one year and eight months ago—with horrifyingly bad timing—Aaron Blackford walked through the threshold and placed himself in the eye of the storm.

“Lina?” I thought I heard my mother say.

In two strides, he was in front of me, across my desk, letting a stack of papers drop on its surface.

What is he doing?

We didn’t visit each other’s offices. We never needed, wanted, or bothered to.

That icy-blue gaze of his fell on me. It was followed by a frown, as if he were wondering why I looked like a woman currently dealing with a life-threatening crisis. Which was exactly what I was doing. Getting caught in a lie was far worse than lying. After only a couple of seconds, his expression morphed into an appalled one. I could see the judgment in his eyes.

Out of every single person who could have walked into my office right now, it’d had to be him.

Why, Lord? Why?

“Aaron,” I heard myself say in a pained voice.

I was vaguely aware when my mother somehow repeated his name, “Aaron?”

“Sí,” I murmured, my gaze locked with his. What in the world does he want?

“Okay,” Mamá said.

Okay?

My eyes widened. “¿Qué?”

Aaron, who had caught the Spanish words, put two and two together with an ease that shouldn’t have surprised me.

“Personal call at work?” he queried, shaking his head.

My mother, who was still on the line, asked in Spanish, “Is that him, the voice I’m hearing? This Aaron you are dating?”

My whole body locked up. Eyes wide and mouth agape, I stared at him as my mother’s words resonated inside my clearly empty skull because what in the world had I done?

“Lina?” she pressed on.

Aaron’s frown deepened, and he sighed with resignation as he stood right there. Not leaving.

Why isn’t he leaving?

“Sí,” I answered, not realizing she’d take that word as confirmation. But she would; I knew she would do exactly that, wouldn’t she? “No,” I added, trying to backpedal.

But then Aaron tsked and shook his head again, and whatever had been about to leave my lips scattered.

“I …” Oh God, why is it so warm in my office? “No sé, Mamá.”

Aaron mouthed, Your mother?

“¿Cómo que no sabes?” came at the same time.

“I … I …” I trailed off, not really knowing who I was talking to. The scowling man or my mother. I felt like I was flying on autopilot while my plane approached the ground at a breakneck speed, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it from crashing. None of my controls were responding.

“Ay, hija,” my mother said with a laugh. “What is it? Yes or no? Is that Aaron?”

I wanted to scream.

All of a sudden, I had this powerful urge to cry or open the window and shove the phone out and onto New York’s merciless traffic. I wanted to break something too. With my bare hands. While I stomped my feet with frustration. All at once. I wanted to do all those things.

Curiosity filled Aaron’s blue eyes. He tilted his head, watching me as I struggled to even take a decent breath.

I covered my phone with my other hand and addressed the man in front of me in a broken, defeated voice, “What do you want?”