I wasn’t late to our meeting.

I

wasn’t late to our meeting.

Ever since that day a year and eight months ago, I was never

late.

Why?

Aaron Blackford.

One time. I had been late one single time in Aaron’s presence, and yet he

kept flaunting that fact every chance he got.

He never chalked it up to me being Spanish or a woman. Both unjustified

stereotypes when it came to being notoriously unpunctual.

Aaron didn’t do nonsense. He pointed out facts; he stated verifiable

truths. He had been disciplined to do that, just like every other engineer in the consulting company where we worked, me included. And technically, I had

been late. That one time all those months ago. It was true that I had missed

the first fifteen minutes of an important presentation.

It was also true that it

had been Aaron leading it—during his first week in InTech—and it was again

true that I had made a miserably loud entrance that might have involved

accidentally knocking over a coffee pitcher.

On Aaron’s stack of dossiers for the presentation.Fine, partly on his pants too.

Not the best way to make an impression on a new colleague, but tough

shit. Things like that happened all the time. Tiny, unintentional, unexpected

accidents like those were common. People got over them and went on with

their lives.

But not Aaron.

Instead, week after week and month after month ever since that day, he had barked stuff like, “Try not to be late to our ten o’clock meeting. It’s not

cute anymore,” at me.

Instead, every single time he entered a conference room and found me

sitting there, painfully early, he checked the watch on his wrist and raised his

eyebrows in surprise.

Instead, he moved coffee pitchers out of my reach with a warning tilt of

his head in my direction.

That was what Aaron Blackford did instead of letting go of that incident.

“Good morning, Lina.” Héctor’s kind voice reached me from the door.

I could tell he was smiling before I took in his face, just like he always

did. “Buenos días, Héctor,” I told him in the mother tongue we shared.

The man that I considered like an uncle after he welcomed me into the

close circle of his family placed a hand on my shoulder and squeezed lightly.

“Doing good, mija?”

“Can’t complain.” I returned the smile.

“You coming over to the next barbecue? It’s next month, and Lourdes

keeps telling me to remind you. She’s preparing ceviche this time, and you

are the only one that will eat it.” He laughed.

It was true; no one in the Díaz family was a big fan of the fish-based

Mexican dish. Which, to this day, I still couldn’t understand.

“Stop asking dumb questions, old man.” I waved my hand in the air with

a chuckle. “Of course I’ll be there.”

Héctor was taking his usual place to my right when our three remaining

colleagues in attendance poured into the room, mumbling their good

mornings.

Lifting my gaze off Héctor’s easy smile, my eyes tracked down the men

walking around the table to assemble into our ten o’clock formation.

Across from me appeared Aaron, eyebrows raised and gaze quickly

meeting mine. I watched his lips tip down as he took a chair out.

Rolling my eyes, I moved onto Gerald, whose bald head glinted under the

fluorescent light as he folded his rather chubby frame into the chair. Last but

not least, there was Kabir, who had been recently promoted to the position

everyone in this room held—team leader of the Solutions Division of the

company. Which pretty much encompassed all disciplines but civil

engineering. Which was a beast on its own.

“Good morning, everyone,” Kabir started with the enthusiasm only

someone who had been on the job for a month would have. “This week, it’s my turn to lead and protocol the meeting, so if you could, please say present

when I call your name.”

An exasperated grunt I was extremely familiar with filled the room.

Glancing at the blue-eyed man across the table, I found the irritated face that

went with the sound.

“Of course, Kabir,” I said with a smile even though I agreed with the

scowling man. “Please call away.”

Ocean eyes pinned me with an icy look.

Meeting his stare, I heard Kabir go through each of our names, obtaining

confirmation from both Héctor and Gerald, an unnecessarily cheery present

from me, and another grunt from Mr. Grumps.

“All right, thanks,” Kabir said. “Next point in the agenda is, project status

updates. Who would like to start?”

He was met with silence.

InTech provided engineering services for any entity that did not have the

ability or man power to design or engineer plans for their own projects.

Sometimes, they outsourced a team of five or six people, and other times,

only one person was needed. So, all five team leaders in our division were

currently working and supervising several different projects for several

different clients, and all projects never stopped moving forward. Eating away

milestones and encountering all kinds of issues and drawbacks. We had

conference calls with the clients and stakeholders on a daily basis. The status

of each project changed so briskly and in such a complex manner that there

was no way every other team leader could catch up in only a few minutes.

That was why Kabir’s question had been met with silence. And why this

meeting wasn’t completely necessary.

“Um …” Kabir shifted in his seat uncomfortably. “Okay, I can start.

Yeah, I’ll go first.” He shuffled through a folder he had brought with him.

“This week, we are presenting to Telekoor the new budget we’ve been

developing for them. As you know, it is a start-up that’s working on a cloud

service to enhance mobile data on public transportation. Well, the resources

available are rather limited and …”

I absently listened to my colleague while my gaze roamed around the

meeting room. Héctor nodded his head, although I suspected he was paying

as much attention as I was. Gerald, on the other hand, was openly checking

his phone. Rude. So rude. But I didn’t expect anything else from him.

Then, there was him. Aaron Blackford, who I realized had been staring at me before my eyes met his.

His arm reached out in my direction, his gaze holding mine. I knew what

he was about to do. I knew. The long fingers attached to that massive palm

spread out as they met the object in front of me. The coffee pitcher. I narrowed my eyes, watching how his hand curled around the pitcher’s

handle.

He dragged it all the way across the surface of the oak desk. Very slowly.

Then, he nodded his head.

Infuriating blue-eyed grudge-holder.

I gave him a tight, closed-lip smile—because the other option was

launching myself across the room and pouring all the contents of the

goddamn pitcher on him. Again. But this time, intentionally.

Trying to distract myself from that thought, I averted my eyes and

furiously scribbled a to-do list on my planner.

Ask Isa if the bouquet she ordered for Mamá was peonies or lilies.

Order either a peony or lily bouquet for Tía Carmen.

If we didn’t, she’d be giving me, Isa—my sister and bride—and Mamá

the stink eye until the day she or any of us kicked the bucket.

Send Papá my flight details, so he knows when to pick me up from the

airport.

Tell Isa to remind Papá that he has my flight details, so he picks me up

from the airport.

I brought the pen to my lips, this awful feeling I was forgetting something

important making me uneasy.

Chewing on my pen, I scrambled my mind for whatever it was I was

missing. Then, a voice I was terribly—and unfortunately—doomed to never

forget thundered in my head.

“You are delusional if you think you can find someone in such a short

amount of time.”

My eyes bounced back to the man sitting across from me, meeting his

gaze again. As if I had been caught doing something wrong—like thinking of

him—I felt the heat in my cheeks and returned my attention to the list.

Find a boyfriend.

I scratched that.

Find a fake boyfriend. Doesn’t need to be a real one.

“… and that’s all I have to report.” Kabir’s words registered somewhere

in the back of my head. ushauwja

I continued working on my list.

Find a fake boyfriend. Doesn’t need to be a real one. And also, NOT

HIM.

Surely, I had other options. Not the escort though. A quick Google search

had confirmed that Aaron had been right. Again. Apparently, I had been lied

to by Hollywood. New York seemed to be filled with men and women

offering a wide range of varied and different kinds of services that were not

limited to escorting.

I grimaced and then chewed harder on the pen. Not that I’d ever admit

that to Aaron. I’d rather give up chocolate for a full year than admit to Aaron

that he was right.

But I was desperate at this point. He had nailed that down too. I needed to

find someone who would pretend to be in a serious, committed relationship

with me in front of my whole family. And that didn’t only include the

wedding day, but also the two days of celebratory events that preceded that.

Which meant, I was screwed. I was—

“… and that would be Lina.”

My name broke into my brain, making everything else vanish.

I dropped my pen on the table and cleared my throat. “Yes, here.” I tried

to reinsert myself in the conversation. “Listening. I’m listening.”

“Isn’t that what someone who wasn’t listening would say?”

My gaze shot across the room, meeting a pair of blue eyes on the verge of

showing amusement if the man behind them was capable of human emotions.

I straightened my back and turned a page of my planner.

“I was writing

down something for a call I have with a client later and lost track of the

conversation,” I lied. “Something important.”

Aaron hummed, nodding his head.

Thankfully, he let it go.

“Let’s recap a little bit. Just so we are all clear on where we stand,” Kabir

offered in a gentle voice.

He’d be getting a muffin tomorrow.

“Thank you, Kabir.” I gave him a bright smile.

To which he blushed and reciprocated with a wobbly one.

I heard an impatient exhale coming from across the room. Now, he would

not be getting a muffin tomorrow. Or ever.

“So,” Kabir finally said, “Jeff wanted to attend today’s meeting to tell

you personally, but you know how busy the schedule of a head of division is.

Lots of parallel appointments. He will forward you all the info you need

anyway, but I thought it would be a good idea to give you a heads-up before.”

I blinked. What the hell are we talking about? “Thank you again for that,

Kabir.”

“You are welcome, Lina.” He nodded. “I think that communication

between all five of us is key to accomplish—”

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