“I’m sorry.” I reached my hand out across the table, taking hers. “I’m so sorry, Rosalyn Graham. I should never have kept this from you.”

“No, you shouldn’t have done that.” She pouted some more.

“In my defense, I was going to tell you on Monday, but we were interrupted by you know who.” I wouldn’t say his name out loud, as he often appeared out of thin air when I did. I squeezed her hand. “To make it up to you, I will ask my abuela to light a few candles to one of her saints, so you are rewarded with many children.”

Rosie sighed, pretending to think about it for a moment. “Fine, I accept your apology.” She squeezed back. “But instead of children, I’d much rather get introduced to one of your cousins maybe?”

I reared back, shock etched on my face. “One of my what?”

As I watched the light blush rise in her cheeks, my surprise only grew when she said, “The one who surfs and has a Belgian shepherd? He is kind of dreamy.”

“Dreamy?” None of my savage cousins could ever be considered dreamy.

Rosie’s cheeks turned a darker shade of red.

How the hell is my friend acquainted with one of the members of the Martín clan? Unless …

“Lucas?” I sputtered, immediately remembering that I had shown her a few of his Instagram stories. But it had all been because of Taco, his dog. Not because of him. “Lucas, the one with the buzzed head?”

My friend nodded casually, shrugging her shoulders.

“You are too good for Lucas,” I hissed. “I’ll let you take part in the kidnapping of his dog though. Taco is also too good for him.”

“Taco.” Rosie giggled. “That’s such an adorable name.”

“Rosie, no.” I retrieved my hand and reached for my bottle of water. “No.”

“No, what?” Her smile was still there. Hanging on to her lips as she thought of my cousin, I supposed, in ways that—

“No. Ew. Yikes, woman. He is a barbarian, a brute. He has no manners. Stop daydreaming of my cousin.” I took a cleansing gulp of water. “Stop, or I’ll be forced to tell you some horror stories from our childhood, and in the process, I’ll probably ruin the male specimen for you.”

My friend’s shoulders fell. “If you must … not that it would help my case anyway. I don’t think I need extra assistance for that.” She paused, sighing sadly. Making me want to reach out again and tell her that her prince would eventually show up. She just needed to stop picking up only the assholes. My relatives included. “But before that, we can actually talk about your horror story.”

Oh. That.

“I already told you everything about it.” My gaze fell to my hands as I played with the label on the bottle. “I gave you a play-by-play recap. From the moment I blurted out to my parents that I was dating a man who doesn’t exist to the moment I somehow made my mom believe his name was Aaron because of a certain blue-eyed jerk who had appeared out of thin air.” I scratched harder, ripping the label completely off the plastic surface. “What else do you want to know?”

“Okay, those are the facts. But what’s on your mind?”

“Right now?” I asked, to which she nodded. “That we should have picked up dessert.”

“Lina …” Rosie placed both arms on the table and leaned on them. “You know what I am asking.” She glanced at me sharply, which, when it came to Rosie, meant patiently but without a smile. Or a smaller than usual one. “What are you going to do about all of this?”

What the hell do I know?

Shrugging, I let my gaze roam around the coworking space, taking in the chipped, old barn tables and the hanging ferns adorning the red brick wall to my left. “Ignore this until my plane touches Spanish ground and I have to explain why my boyfriend is not with me?”

“Sweetie, are you sure you want to do that?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Yes.” Bringing both hands to my temples, I tried to massage away the start of a headache. “I don’t know.”

Rosie seemed to take that in for a long moment. “What if you actually consider him for this?”

My hands dropped from my temples to the wooden surface, and my stomach plunged to my feet. “Consider who?”

I knew exactly who. I just couldn’t believe she was even suggesting it.

She humored me by replying, “Aaron.”

“Oh, Lucifer’s favorite son? I don’t see how I should consider him for anything.”

Watching how Rosie clasped her hands together on the table, as if she were readying herself for a business negotiation, I narrowed my eyes at her.

“I don’t think Aaron is all that bad,” she had the nerve to say.

All I gave her was a very dramatic gasp.

My friend rolled her eyes, not buying my bullshit. “Okay, so he’s … a little dry, and he takes things a little too seriously,” she pointed out, as if using the word little would make him any better. “But he has his good traits.”

“Good traits?” I snorted. “Like what? His stainless steel interior?”

The joke bounced right off. Ugh, that meant serious business.

“Would it be that bad to actually talk to him about what he offered you? Because he was the one who offered himself, by the way.”

Yes, it would. Because I still hadn’t figured out why he had done that in the first place.

“You know what I think of him, Rosie,” I told her with a no-nonsense expression. “You know what happened. What he said.”

My friend sighed. “That was a long time ago, Lina.”

“It was,” I admitted, averting my gaze. “But that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten. It doesn’t mean that just because it happened a handful of months ago, it’s now somehow been written off.”

“It happened over a year ago.”

“Twenty months,” I corrected her far too quickly to hide that I had somehow kept count. “That’s closer to two years,” I muttered, looking down at the crumpled paper sheet that had wrapped my lunch.

“That’s my point, Lina,” Rosie remarked softly. “I have seen you give second, third, and fourth chances to people who have messed up far more. Some even repeatedly.”

She was right, but I was my mother’s daughter and therefore stubborn as a mule. “It’s not the same.”

“Why not?”

“Because.”

Her green eyes turned harder; she was not letting this go. So, she was going to make me say it. We were going to talk about it.

Fine.

“How about because he told our boss that he would rather work with anyone else in InTech? On his second day of work.” I felt my blood rushing to my face at the memory. “Key on anyone. Even Gerald for crying out loud.” I hadn’t overheard Aaron mention Gerald in particular, but I was sure I had heard everything else.

“Anyone but her, Jeff. Just not her. I don’t think I could take it. Is she even capable of taking on this project? She looks young and inexperienced.”

Aaron had told that to our boss on the phone. I had happened to walk past his office. I had accidentally overheard, and I hadn’t forgotten. It was all etched in my memory.

“He had known me for two days, Rosie. Two.” I gestured with my index and middle fingers. “And he was new. He came here and discredited me to our boss, indirectly kicked me out of a project, and put in question my professionalism, and for what? Because he didn’t like me after the two minutes we talked? Because I looked young? Because I smile and laugh and I’m not a cyborg? I’ve worked hard. I’ve worked my ass off, getting to where I am. You know what comments like that can do.” I felt my voice pitch high. Same went for the pressure of my blood now pumping into my temples.

Making an effort to calm myself, I released a shaky breath.

Rosie nodded, looking at me with the understanding only a good friend would. But there was something else there too. And I was under the impression I wouldn’t like whatever she had to say next.

“I get it. I do, I swear.” She smiled.

Okay, that was good. I needed her to be on my side. And I knew she was.