Chapter Fourteen
Though much of Alyssa and Jason’s time was spent with her family, helping to prepare for the big anniversary celebration that was the purpose of their trip, she was pleased that they’d managed to slip away on a few occasions so that she could show her seven-day fiancé some of the local sights.
They’d toured a Southern California winery, visited a local art gallery and even spent a whole day with Nicolas. Alyssa told Jason that she wanted to give Cristina and Steven some time to themselves—which was true, but he quickly figured out that her nephew was her excuse to make a trip to Disneyland.
Today she’d brought Jason to Laguna Beach so they could watch the sunset from the sandy shores. As they walked hand in hand on the beach, she found herself reflecting on the time she’d spent with him over the past several weeks and everything she’d learned about him.
He was thoughtful and kind and surprisingly sweet. Yeah, he had a bit of a sarcastic edge, and an unreasonable aversion to green vegetables, but in so many other ways, he was practically perfect.
So how was it that no woman had snapped him up?
Of course, she knew the answer to that question: he wouldn’t let himself be snapped up.
He was the perfect boyfriend in the moment, because that was all he wanted. Maybe he’d done a good job playing “family man” with Nicolas, but that was only for a day, and she knew better than to let her mind wander too far down that path. Thinking about long-term plans with Jason would be a heartbreak waiting to happen.
Still, she found herself wondering. “Have you ever had a serious girlfriend?”
“That’s a strange question for a woman to ask her fiancé,” he noted.
“Fake fiancé,” she clarified. “And I’d argue that it’s the kind of information a woman should know about the man she’s pretending she wants to marry.”
“Sure, I had a couple of serious girlfriends in the past.” He slid an arm across her shoulders. “But only one fiancée.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m trying to have a real conversation with you.”
“Am I preventing that in some way?”
She ignored his question to ask another one of her own. “Have you ever been in love? And telling a woman you love her for the purpose of getting her naked doesn’t count.”
“I’ve never had to lie to a woman to get her naked.”
She had no doubt that was true. All he had to do was look at her and she got so hot, she was ready to strip down for him. “That doesn’t answer my question.”
“Personally, I think people put too much stock in the word love,” he said.
“And I think you’re avoiding the question,” she countered. “But I’ll rephrase it—have you ever been in a relationship with someone you thought you would spend the rest of your life with?”
“No. Maybe.” He reconsidered, then shook his head. “No.”
“Tell me about the maybe,” she urged.
“Melanie Lindhurst. I met her in college. We were together for a few months, and there was a brief moment when I imagined she was the one.”
“What happened?”
“I realized that being with one person for the rest of my life meant never being with anyone else and decided that wasn’t for me.”
She immediately shook her head. “There’s got to be more to the story.”
“I was twenty years old, and there were more hot women on the Berkeley campus than the entire population of Haven. I wasn’t ready to limit my options.”
“I agree that twenty is young to be thinking about ‘ever after,’” she said. “But I also know that you’re not nearly as shallow as you pretend to be.”
He scoffed at the idea. “Why would I pretend to be shallow?”
“Maybe to ensure that no one expects too much from you,” she suggested.
He was quiet for several minutes before he finally responded. “Melanie liked to talk about the future, weeks or even months and years down the road, as if it was a given that we’d be together. And I didn’t have the same faith that everything would work out the way she wanted it to.”
“Why not?” Alyssa asked gently.
“You’ve met my parents,” he reminded her. “They’re hardly an example of wedded bliss.”
“You don’t think they’re happy together?”
“Their marriage just seems a little...hollow,” he decided. “And definitely not something I want to emulate.”
“Every relationship is different.”
“I get that now, but I had a limited frame of reference back then, and when Melanie told me she loved me—I panicked.”
“Do you ever think back and wish you hadn’t panicked?” she asked him.
“No.”
“Then maybe you didn’t love her,” she suggested.
“Maybe I didn’t, but it felt real at the time.”
His admission made Alyssa feel better about her growing feelings for him. The more time she spent with Jason, the more she liked him. Despite his reputation as a ladies’ man, he was attentive and thoughtful and his kisses...
Just the memory of those kisses was enough to make her knees weak.
But what he said made perfect sense. Since they’d embarked on this trip to California, they’d barely been apart from one another. It was understandable that the physical proximity would intensify her feelings for him. No doubt her emotions only seemed so huge and real right now because of the situation they found themselves in.
But she was optimistic that, when they went back to Haven and their normal routines, those feelings would fade. And in the future, after she’d fallen truly and deeply in love, she would no doubt look back on this moment and acknowledge that “it felt real at the time” but was, by then, just a pleasant memory.
* * *
The day of the anniversary celebration, Jason was recruited by the men to help set up the tent and chairs in the backyard, so he went over to Renata and Miguel’s house with Steven, while Alyssa and Cristina stayed back with Nicolas to get ready for the party.
Alyssa had packed her favorite little black dress for the occasion. It was a sleeveless halter style chiffon with a cascading panel that made her feel feminine and sexy. She paired it with high-heeled black sandals that added three inches to her height and finished the look with crystal teardrop earrings.
When she’d finished pinning up her hair and had added a light touch of makeup, she decided to see if her nephew wanted to play Go Fish before they had to leave for the party. She found him in the kitchen snacking on one of the cupcakes his mom had made for the dessert table. He jumped down from his booster seat when he saw “Tia Lyssa” and ran to hug her.
“Nicolas, no!” his mother said.
But she was too late.
The little boy had already pressed his face—smeared with white icing—against the front of Alyssa’s black dress.
“Oh, no,” Cristina said when she saw the unmistakable evidence of her son’s affection on her sister’s skirt.
Nicolas wasn’t quite sure what he’d done wrong, but his big brown eyes grew even bigger as they filled with tears.
“It’s okay,” Alyssa said, wanting to reassure both of them. “I’m sure it’ll wipe off.”
But it didn’t. In fact, dabbing at the white streaks only made more of a mess.
“I’ll pay to have it cleaned,” Cristina immediately offered.
“That’s not necessary,” Alyssa said.
Because they both knew the cost of cleaning the dress wasn’t the issue—it was that there was no way it could be cleaned before the party.
“Okay, let me get Nicolas washed up, then I’ll see what I can find in my closet for you to wear.”
A few minutes later, Cristina entered the guest room with an armload of dresses.
“I only need one,” Alyssa couldn’t resist teasing.
“But we need to figure out which one is the best one,” her sister said.
“Anything that fits is fine.”
Cristina shook her head. “You never did like to play dress-up, did you?”
“And you always loved to put on fancy clothes and shoes and paint your face with Mama’s makeup,” she remembered.
“Good times,” her sister agreed with a smile. “Having you here reminds me of those times.”
“It has been fun.”
“Aside from my son destroying your dress, you mean?”
“Nicolas didn’t destroy anything,” Alyssa assured her.
“Can you tell how much he’s missed you?”
“Not half as much as I’ve missed him. And you.”
“I’ve missed you, too,” Cristina said. “But I can see that living in Nevada has been good for you. Or maybe it’s Jason Channing who’s been good for you.”
Alyssa managed a smile, ignoring the twinge of guilt that jabbed in her belly because she was lying to her sister.
Cristina had always been the one person she could be completely honest with. When she’d been frustrated by endless medical appointments and the limitations her parents put on her activities, her sister was the one she’d talked to. Cristina had listened with understanding and without judgment, and she’d offered encouragement when Alyssa started running. In fact, Cristina seemed to understand—maybe even better than Alyssa did herself—that running was a way of proving that she was in charge of not just her body but her life.
But if Alyssa told her the truth about her relationship with Jason now, Cristina would be appalled to realize that she’d made her little sister share a bed with a man who not only wasn’t her fiancé but not even a real boyfriend.
“What about this one?” Cristina asked, holding up a sheath-style dress.
“It’s red.”
“And?”
“I don’t wear red.”
“Why not? This would look fabulous on you.”
Alyssa eyed the slim jersey knit. “I doubt I could even squeeze into it.”
“Give it a try,” Cristina implored.
So Alyssa took off her icing-smeared garment and tugged her sister’s dress over her head.
“Well,” Cristina said, “I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to wear that again.”
“Am I stretching it out?” Alyssa reached for the hem to pull it off again.
“No.” Her sister touched her arm, halting her actions. “Because it looks a lot better on you than it does on me.”
Alyssa chewed on her lower lip as she looked at her reflection in the mirror. “I think I should try the gray one.”
Cristina shook her head. “No,” she said again. “I’m not letting you hide in the background.”
“Mom’s eyes will pop out of her head when she sees me in this dress.”
“Probably,” her sister acknowledged, a slow smile curving her lips. “But so will Jason’s.”
Alyssa picked up her necklace, fastened it around her throat.
“I can’t believe you still wear that,” Cristina said.
“Why not?”
“It was kind of a tongue-in-cheek gift,” her sister said.
“It’s a beautiful necklace.”
“I wouldn’t have bought it if I didn’t think so, but I didn’t intend for you to use it as a shield.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Honey, the necklace does absolutely nothing for that dress. The only purpose it serves is to cover up the part of your barely visible scar that peeks over the top of the dress.”
“You know how Mama is about my scars,” Alyssa said.
“I do know,” Cristina agreed. “But that’s her problem, not yours.”
“Jason once said almost the exact same words.”
“Obviously your fiancé is a very wise man.”
He was wise, but he wasn’t really her fiancé.
But, of course, she didn’t say that to her sister.
* * *
Jay could understand why it was so hard for Alyssa to deceive her family about their relationship. The Cabreras were genuinely warm and welcoming people, and the more time he spent with Renata and Miguel—and especially Valentina—the more uneasy he felt about the lies.
If and when he got married and had a family, he hoped—
Whoa! He severed that thought as soon as it began to form.
Marriage?
Family?
Neither of those ideas should be anywhere on his radar. Not right now, anyway. He was only twenty-nine years old and the CEO of a young start-up company. He had no business—and no desire—to be thinking about long-term plans.
So why couldn’t he stop thinking about Alyssa?
It was a question that nagged at him throughout the day. And when he returned to Cristina and Steven’s house with Alyssa’s brother-in-law, he wasn’t any closer to an answer.
He stripped down for a quick shower and thought about the fact that they’d been together almost constantly since they’d embarked on this road trip. That was undoubtedly the reason she’d been on his mind so constantly. As soon as they got back to Haven and got some distance, he was confident that everything would go back to normal. Alyssa would be his date for Matt’s wedding, but nothing more.
His conviction lasted only until she walked into the room.
“You look...wow.”
Her smile was a little uncertain. “Is it too much?” She glanced down. “Or too little?”
“I’d say it’s just right.”
“It’s not the dress I’d planned to wear,” she told him. “But there was a little mishap in the kitchen, so I had to raid Cristina’s closet.”
“It’s lucky you wear the same size.”
“We don’t really,” she said. “I would have bought this dress one size bigger—or probably not at all.”
“It’s perfect,” he insisted. “Although I would like to make one suggestion.”
“What’s that?”
“Lose the necklace.”
Her hand immediately went to the misshapen heart dangling at the end of the chunky chain around her neck. “What? Why?”
“Because it takes away from the neckline of the dress.”
“Now you’re a stylist?” she challenged.
“I’m gonna say no to that, because I’m not sure I even know what a stylist is,” he said. “But I am a man who appreciates the attributes of a woman.”
“I like the necklace,” she insisted.
“You like hiding your scars,” he said.
“So?”
“So you’re a strong, brave, beautiful woman and your scars don’t in any way take away from that.”
“Yeah, I heard that surgical incisions are surpassing tattoos and piercings as the new body art,” she said sardonically.
“Maybe they’re not art,” he acknowledged. “But they’re not flaws or imperfections, either. Why can’t you see them as badges of courage?”
“Because I didn’t do anything courageous. I just happened to be born with a defective heart that the doctors fixed for me.”
“You survived,” he reminded her. “And the world is a much better place with you in it.”
“That was kind of cheesy,” she told him.
“But kind of sweet, too?” he prompted.
She managed a smile. “Yeah.”
She slowly turned to face the mirror, then took a deep breath and reached for the heart. Her fingers trembled as she worked the toggle through the hole, then pulled the necklace away and set it on top of the dresser.
He put his hands on her shoulders and let his eyes skim over her reflection in the mirror. “Wow,” he said again, softly, reverently.
She lifted a hand, subconsciously rubbing the top of the scar, visible above the square neckline of her borrowed dress.
He caught her wrist and pulled her hand away.
“Look at yourself,” he said. “You’re beautiful, Alyssa. Absolutely breathtakingly beautiful.”
“When you look at me like that, I feel beautiful,” she admitted.
“Then I will spend the whole night looking at you,” he promised.
“I like the sound of that,” she agreed. “But maybe you could focus on the road while you’re driving?”
“All right,” he agreed. “But only while I’m driving.”
* * *
When they got to Renata and Miguel’s house, Nicolas led the way, as comfortable at his grandparents’ home as he was at his own. Cristina and Steven followed their son, with Alyssa and Jason trailing behind them.
As usual, most of the activity was happening in the kitchen, where the food was going to be laid out, buffet style, for the guests to help themselves. Alyssa set the black bean salad on the table, where her mother was fussing over an arrangement of flowers.
Renata greeted each of the new arrivals, then said to Alyssa, “Is that Cristina’s dress?”
Valentina, who was sprinkling grated cheese on top of a tray of enchiladas that were ready to go in the oven, glanced over.
“It is,” Alyssa confirmed.
“But it looks better on Lys than it ever did on me,” Cristina said as she put the tray of cupcakes on top of the fridge, safely out of reach of eager little hands.
“I have a silk scarf that I picked up in Florence last summer with touches of that same color,” her mother said.
“It’s too warm for a scarf,” Abuela interjected, dismissing the suggestion.
“It’s a decorative accessory that would look great with the dress,” Renata insisted. “Why don’t we go take a look?”
“Actually—” Jason surprised everyone by speaking up “—I think Alyssa looks perfect just as she is.”
Her mother’s cheeks flushed. “She does, of course,” she agreed. “I just thought the dress could use a little...pop.”
“I’d say her curves add enough pop,” Valentina said, winking at Alyssa.
“Thanks, Abuela,” she said. “Because I wasn’t already feeling self-conscious enough.”
“A woman should never be self-conscious about her attributes,” her grandmother said, looking pointedly at Renata.
Steven clapped a hand on Jason’s shoulder. “I think this would be a good time for us to make sure the bar’s stocked.”
“An important task,” Jason agreed, although he looked to Alyssa as if to ensure that she didn’t mind him sneaking away from the increasingly awkward conversation.
She gave a quick nod, and the two men made their escape.
“I don’t like seeing your scars,” Renata admitted. “Because they’re a reminder of the scariest time in my life, when I thought I might lose my precious baby girl.”
Alyssa took her hands. “The last surgery was more than twenty years ago, Mama.”
Her mother sniffled, nodded. “I know. But that doesn’t always seem like so very long ago.”
“Why don’t you show me the scarf?” she suggested.
But Renata shook her head. “Your Jason is right—you look wonderful just as you are.”
Alyssa didn’t feel wonderful—she felt like a fraud. Because Jason wasn’t “hers” and nothing about their relationship was real. But as much as she wished she could dispense with the deception, she’d taken it too far to turn back now.
“You’re so much stronger than I ever gave you credit for being,” Renata said to her now. “I’m glad you’ve finally found a man who recognizes and appreciates not just your strengths but many other wonderful qualities.”
“Well, he appreciates my cooking, anyway,” Alyssa said lightly.
“I guess I’m going to have to tell Lucia that our hopes of a romance blossoming between my youngest daughter and her favorite nephew were for naught.”
“I didn’t realize she was complicit in your plan.”
“All we did was put the two of you together, hoping you would connect,” Renata said. “And I didn’t do it because I didn’t think you could find a wonderful man on your own, but because I hoped falling in love with someone here would give you incentive to move back home.”
“I miss you, too,” Alyssa told her mother. “But I have a good job and good friends in Haven—a good life.”
“And Jason.”
“Of course,” she said quickly, because any woman would surely put her fiancé at the top of her list.
“But you’ll get married here, won’t you?”
The question reinforced the necessity of telling her mother the truth sooner rather than later—she couldn’t let Renata continue to dream about a wedding that wasn’t going to happen. But for now she only said, “Yes, Mama. When I’m—we’re—ready to get married, it will be here, and I’ll wear Abuela’s wedding gown, like I always planned.”
Her mother’s eyes misted as she pictured the scene Alyssa described.
“But today is about celebrating your wedding,” she reminded Renata, guiding her outside so the celebrations could begin.
And so her lies could stop—at least for a little while.