The Spanish Love Deception: A Novel

Rosie came home with me that night.

We curled under a blanket on my bed and rewatched Moulin Rouge! on my laptop. How tragic—to find love and see it slip through your fingers before your eyes. I always wondered what Ewan McGregor would have done had he known since the moment he met the love of his life that their story wouldn’t last more than one hundred thirty minutes. Would he still take her hand in his and jump? Would he still hold on to every moment left even if only a few? Would he still lie down by her side, knowing that when she was gone, that space would never be filled again?

Rosie didn’t even think before giving me her answer. “Yes,” she whispered. “When you find that kind of love, time stops mattering. Come what may, Lina, he would love her regardless of how long they had.”

Then, we both bawled our eyes out. Rosie because she could never hold it in when “Come What May” kicked in, and me … well, mostly because I had welcomed the excuse.

So, I cried. I let those tears fall as I held my phone in my hand. Waiting for a call, a message, a sign that I knew I didn’t deserve. But that was what dumb chickenshits like me did. They cowered, hid under a blanket, and cried to “El Tango de Roxanne.”

Ugh. I didn’t like myself one single bit.

But come what fucking may, I’d still have to live with myself for the rest of my life. Find solace in the little time I had shared with Aaron. Past tense. Because when he had asked me to run into his arms instead of in the opposite direction, I hadn’t. When he had asked me to trust him—in us—wholly, I hadn’t been capable of doing it, even when I thought I had. And that had pushed him to walk away.

I pushed him away. I was the only one responsible for that.

Fuck. I wanted him here. With me, mending the broken pieces of this mess together. I wanted him to tell me that he believed we could still be fixed. Glued back together and good as new.

But that was so selfish and so very naive of me. Stupidly so. Sometimes, as much as we wanted something, we weren’t meant to have it. To keep it. Not when it complicated everything else. And this thing—love because that was exactly what it was—between us did. It complicated both our lives, the promises of both careers.

We were tripping each other, making each other fall, just how Daniel had said all that time ago.

We’d have grown to resent each other. Because that was what the poison born of malicious mouths did. It infected everything. And I knew just how much.

So, yeah, after Moulin Rouge–crying-gate, the following day obviously sucked. It was probably one of the worst, most miserable days I remembered, and I knew a fair bit about those. I dragged my feet the whole day, somehow managing to get through the eight to midnight Open Day for a bunch of faceless suits. Names and faces bounced right off me, and I presented topic after topic as if every word were being ripped out of me. If Jeff had been around to witness that lame attempt at being welcoming, accommodating, and approachable, he’d have fired me on the spot.

And I wouldn’t have found it in me to care.

That was how ironic life could be sometimes.

When I entered the building on day two without Aaron—which I realized was my new way to count down time—I waited for the whispers of my colleagues to reach my ears and their fingers to be pointed at me for no reason other than Gerald’s public accusations. By the time the clock hit five p.m.—after I spent the day wishing I’d get a glimpse of Aaron and dreading it, all at the same time—nothing had happened. None of my colleagues had batted an eyelash at me. No disgusting rumors, no nasty accusations, nothing. Not a flash of Aaron either.

On day three without him, an odd kind of restlessness burrowed itself in me. I missed Aaron. I missed the possibility of what had been growing between us, and that started overweighing everything else. It didn’t seem so important that the incident with Gerald had not led anyone to treat me any differently. I couldn’t find it in me to be relieved. What did it matter when there was a hole in my chest?

I missed Aaron’s face, the ocean blue in his eyes, his stubborn frown, the way his lips puckered when he was lost in thought, the wide line of his shoulders, how he effortlessly stood tall and big as life wherever he went, and his smile—that smile that was just for me. So much that I set camp in my office, left the door open, and waited for him to walk down the hallway at some point in the day. Or to hear his voice even if in the distance. That would have been enough to appease that need burning inside of me. But none of that happened.

On day four, I finally gave up and knocked on his office door, going unanswered. And when I asked Rosie if she had seen him around at all, she hugged me and said she hadn’t. Neither had Héctor or the few other people I had somehow found an excuse to ask.

That was exactly why I was pacing from one corner of the hallway to the opposite one as I waited to be called into Sharon’s office. Just like I had been doing at home last night. Or that morning in my office. Because he had disappeared. And I hated not knowing why, not seeing him, not having him around, not … having an excuse to call and ask him because I had pushed him away and the last thing he probably wanted to do was talk to me.

“Lina, darling,” Sharon called as her head peeked out of her office, jerking me back into the present. “Please come in and take a seat.”

Following her inside, I let myself fall into one of the chairs. I watched the blonde lady sit down and lean over her desk with a secretive smile.

“Sorry about the wait. You know how some people think HR has the answers for everything.” She chuckled with bitterness. “Even for things like New York City Council deciding to repave the part of the road right outside their window.”

Any other day, I would have laughed too. Perhaps make a joke about how only the fittest could survive the city that never slept and always closed some road to keep you awake at all times. But I simply couldn’t muster the energy for that.

“I’m sure it makes up for a few awkward conversations.”

Sharon’s eyes scanned my face, something like understanding dawning in her features. What exactly she found or understood, I had no idea.

“All right, let’s cut to the chase.”

Good. I liked that. Just like I had always liked Sharon too.

“I’ve called you here in light of some serious allegations that have been made, which directly involve you.”

Something dropped to the bottom of my stomach, and I felt myself blanch.

“Oh … okay.” I cleared my throat. “What do you want to know?”

The woman inhaled deeply through her nose, as if she was readying herself for something.

“Lina,” she said, using a tone that I had heard from my own mother—comforting but also admonishing—“we both are aware that Gerald knows the right kind of people, and frankly, I will never understand how someone so horrible manages to make so many good ‘acquaintances.’ ” Her fingers air-quoted that last word. “But as much as he has remained untouchable so far, that doesn’t mean that he can’t be knocked down. For that, however, we must do something. We should at least try.”

I felt myself nod, still trying to process what Sharon was telling me. She was admitting to being on my side. Not only that, but also she wouldn’t remain a silent bystander.

“If that’s something you want to do, we can work together on an employee formal complaint. I can help you. You’d need to sign it and submit it to us, and after that, I’d try to push for a thorough investigation. I know many complaints are ignored, but more than a few people having your back will make a difference.”

More than a few people?

“What …” I trailed off, shaking my head. “What people? I don’t understand.”

She flicked her nails on the table, tilting her head. “After the altercation in the coworking floor, a number of people came by my desk to inform me of what had happened. Half of them wanted to file the complaint themselves, but just like I told them, it has to be you.”

“I … I just …” My gaze fell on my hands, resting on my lap. I felt my heart expanding with gratitude. With something else too. Realization. “So, they are on my side? They have spoken on my behalf and not Gerald’s?”

“They are, Lina.” Sharon smiled. “And they have. I know people like Gerald often go unpunished; it’s how the world works sometimes. But that doesn’t mean we should stop trying to change that, does it? Doesn’t mean that we stop fighting.”

Her words reminded me of the ones someone had told me, begged me to believe, only a few days ago. Words that I had chosen to ignore.

“You can think about what I just told you. Okay? Take your time to decide what you want to do.”

“Yeah, I will.”

There was so much to think about. So much to process. To anybody else, this might have been nothing more than a bureaucratic process I should have thought of before, but to me? Learning that my colleagues—those who had witnessed everything—were actively taking my side, it meant something. Although it didn’t change what I had done. How I had thrown away everything I could have had with Aaron. How I had denied him of the one thing he had asked of me. My full trust. My faith in us. And over what? He would have given me that much, and I had just given up without a fight.

“And please,” Sharon said, “if you could tell Aaron to come by as soon as he’s back. I can’t seem to get ahold of him.”

As soon as he’s back?

“Oh, erm, I don’t … I just …” My words tumbled out of me, mixing with the questions spinning in my head.

“It’s all good, Lina. He was very clear about your relationship. Came here first thing this week to ask if there was any kind of company policy or contract clause that would perhaps complicate things.”

The heartbeat that had flattened, accompanying me during these days without him, came back to life, peeking out. He had come to HR to be sure that all fronts were covered. To reassure me. Because he’d known that I’d need exactly that. Because he had wanted me to feel safe.

Tears that hadn’t been there before were in a rush to get to my eyes.

“Hey, it’s okay, Lina. There aren’t. There’s no reason for you guys to worry. No stones in the way.”

No. The only one taking those possible obstacles on our way and turning them into impediments we couldn’t get over was me.

“Okay,” I muttered, willing my eyes to hold tight a little longer. “That’s good.” Nothing was good. Not a single thing because I had ruined it anyway.

“All right, good.” Sharon’s blonde head bobbed, her motherly eyes warming up. “But please, do tell him to call me back, yes? I know these are hard times, but it’s about his promotion.”

Hard times. Those two words echoed through my mind.

Sharon’s earlier request bounced right back. “Tell Aaron to come by as soon as he’s back.”

“Did … did Aaron leave? Did something happen?”

Sharon’s eyes widened, confusion mixing up with shock. “You don’t know?”

I shook my head, feeling my skin pale. “No.”

Her head shook. “Lina, this is not my place—”

“Please,” I begged, now desperate to know what was wrong. Need clawing at my skin. “Please, Sharon. We had a fight, and I just … messed up. It doesn’t matter. But if there’s something wrong, if something happened to him, I need to know. Please.”

She looked at me for a long moment.

“Darling,” she finally said, and that alone made all the alarms in my head go off, “he had to fly home. His dad is … he has cancer. He has been in a critical state for the last few weeks.”