The-Spanish-Love-Deception-www.indianpdf

office. A little after five p.m.” He looked down at his hands, and his eyelids
sheltered the blue in his eyes for just a heartbeat.
For a reason I couldn’t explain, my heart raced in my chest at the
memory. Embarrassment. It had to be the physical reaction to reliving that
embarrassing moment through Aaron’s words.
“Her cheeks were flushed, and there were some snowflakes still clinging
to her hair and coat. She was carrying a gift bag with a ridiculous pattern of
tiny party hats printed on it. As I took her in, I was certain that she had gotten
the wrong office, that she couldn’t possibly be there, carrying some kind of
gift for me. Maybe she was looking for the guy who had sat there before me.”
I watched his throat work as his words held his audience’s attention.
“And I was going to tell her, but I didn’t stand a chance. She started
babbling some nonsense about how cold New York was in winter and how
irritating people turned when it snowed, how chaotic instead of peaceful the
city actually was. ‘As if it’s my fault that New Yorkers hate the snow,’ she
said. ‘It’s like the cold numbs their brains, and they turn stupid.’ ” Aaron
smiled sheepishly. Very briefly, one moment there and the next gone.
And I kept staring at his profile, eating up his words and how they sent
me right back to that day.
At that point, my heart banged against my chest with growing urgency, as
if it were a wild thing, asking to be let out. Begging to ask all the questions
taking shape in my head and threatening to do it itself if I didn’t.
“She placed the bag on my desk and then told me to open it. But the cold
must have numbed my brain, too, because instead of doing that, I kept
gawking at it. Petrified and … intrigued. Staring at it and not having the
slightest clue as to what to do with it.”
He had done that, and his reaction had made me panic and jump into
crisis-control Lina. Which had been my second mistake that day.
“When I didn’t reach for it, she shoved her hand into the bag and pulled
the contents out herself.” Aaron chuckled, but he wasn’t laughing. Because
the curt noise was almost sad.
I wasn’t laughing either. I was too busy chewing on the fact that he
remembered everything. All of it. In detail. My chest filled with more
questions.
“It was a mug. And it had a joke printed on it. It said, Engineers don’t
cry. They build bridges and get over it.”
Someone laughed then. Isabel or perhaps Gonzalo—I wasn’t sure. With