CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“That’s what you’re wearing?” Luciana asks, eyeing my dress from her perch on my bed and scrunching her nose in distaste.
“What’s wrong with this?” I ask, spinning in a circle to take myself in from all angles in the small full-length mirror mounted on the back of my door. I’m wearing a simple white sundress. I’ve worn it a hundred times before, and she’s never said anything about it.
“It’s fine for any other night but…Alejandro is coming to dinner tonight!”
I nod. “And?”
“So maybe you should put something else on,” she says with a pointed glare. When I don’t make a move to change, she hops up off my bed and starts rifling through my closet until she comes back out with a slinky black dress I packed on a whim and have not worn, or even entertained the idea of wearing, even once.
“This!” she says, her eyes wide with wonder. “It looks like something a lady of the night would wear!”
I laugh and yank it out of her hand, hanging it back up where it belongs. “That dress isn’t appropriate. Also, that phrase doesn’t mean what you think it does.”
She frowns. “Fine, but the dress you have on makes you look frumpy.”
“What? No way.” I reach down to lovingly smooth out the faithful cotton fabric. “This dress is a classic.”
“Exactly,” she stresses with every ounce of preteen attitude roiling inside her tiny frame. “And it shows. There are…one…two…three gelato stains down the front.”
Oh, well, yeah. I try in vain to clear the most noticeable stain with the pad of my thumb. It’s there to stay, but it’s tiny, hardly visible at all really. I ignore her remaining reasons for why I should change and instead reach for the hair tie around my wrist and twist my hair into a low ponytail at the nape of my neck.
“Yeah, of course! Why wear your hair down, how it looks the prettiest, when you can just throw it up in a ponytail!” She throws her hands up in defeat. “You know where a pony’s tail is, right? On its butt!”
“Audrey Hepburn wore a ponytail,” I remind her.
“Yeah, but Audrey Hepburn also probably went on tons of dates! You haven’t had a single date since we’ve been here!”
It’s true, not a one. I’ve been a lone wolf since arriving in Spain and that’s the way I’d like to keep it, hence the dress and the ponytail.
I pat her on the head (which she hates) and then pass her up to start down the stairs toward the kitchen. I can hear Olive down there helping her dads prep for dinner. Luciana begrudgingly follows behind me, grumbling under her breath about my “undateable” hair.
When we step into the kitchen, Olive looks up and smiles timidly at me. “I like your dress, Ms. Brooke.”
I thank her while aiming an I-told-you-so grin at Luciana. She sticks her tongue out at me and winds around the back of the kitchen island to steal a piece of bread Diego just took out of the oven. He shoos her away, lest she ruin her appetite before dinner even starts.
My eyes widen as I scan the kitchen. Diego and Nicolás have gone all out for the occasion. The large, antique dining table is already covered in appetizers and wine. Nicolás hurries over, asking me if I’m excited to meet Alejandro.
“I’m sure if he’s a friend of yours he can’t be too bad,” I say with a casual shrug.
He steps closer and drops his voice to a whisper. “Diego tells me half the women at the university have eyes for him.”
I hum in mock interest. “Sounds like he must be one hell of a professor.”
He throws up his hands, exasperated by my lack of enthusiasm. “Forgive me for the intrusion, but you aren’t still interested in that man back home, are you?” He turns to Diego. “What was his name?”
“James, I think,” Diego supplies.
My heart leaps at the mention of his name. “Nope. Thanks for asking though,” I add with a quick, easy smile.
He narrows his eyes in disbelief then quickly changes tactics. “Right. Good.” Then his gaze drops slightly. “Hey, it’s the gelato dress!”
Luciana claps across the room. “Ha! SEE?!”
Jesus! What is it with this family and my clothes?!
“All right, if you guys want me to change, I’ll—”
There’s a knock on the front door, and all four of them freeze in panic then turn to me.
Diego drops his salad tongs and wipes his hands on the front of his apron. “No, no. The dress is fine—endearing even. Anyway, it’s too late to change.” Without warning, he rounds the island and beelines for me. Then he reaches up and tugs the ponytail out of my hair. My long, thick black hair tumbles down my back, and he smiles in appreciation. “Much better. Now, could you please answer the door?”
I get it. This dinner is a setup. They feel bad for my lonely heart, and they want to set me up with a nice, handsome man. I don’t even have the energy to be angry with them. A part of me is curious to see if this mythic Alejandro can stir something within me that other men in Spain have yet to evoke. I’ve seen enough men to write a Dr. Suess book about it: tall men, short men, rich men, poor men…clergymen, firemen, postmen, doormen. None of them have made me feel even a sliver of what I still feel for James.
I curse, angry that I’m still playing this game with myself. James isn’t in Spain. He’s in Austin, and likely married now. My stomach twists at the thought of Lacy. It’d be easy to figure out if they were together. Ellie asks periodically if I want an update about him, and I always, always turn her down. It’s a slippery slope, and we both agreed early on that it was best if she stopped telling me what she knows about him.
So far, it’s proven successful, because if I don’t know whether or not he’s married, I don’t have to come to grips with the fact that I’m just as hopelessly lovesick over him as I was when I first left.
I take a deep breath and open the door.
Alejandro stands on the doorstep with a bottle of cava in one hand and flowers in the other. They’re sunflowers wrapped in butcher paper with a thin ribbon tied around the middle. When he sees me standing on the doorway, his brows rise in shock. Apparently, I’m not the only one who’s being set up.
In the two seconds I stand there before I greet him, I come to the conclusion that he is indeed the most handsome man I’ve seen since arriving in this country. He’s everything you’d want in a Latin lover: thick hair; dark, smoldering eyes; olive skin; a strong, muscular frame; and a smile that widens as he watches me assess him. He’s wearing a black leather jacket and nice-fitting jeans with boots that look entirely too stylish for most men to pull off. He’s a danger to all womankind.
I reach out my hand in a friendly greeting. “Hi, I’m Brooke,” I say in Spanish.
He accepts my handshake with a firm grip and I wait for the butterflies to kick in. “I’m Alejandro, but my friends call me Alex.”
“Ah, you speak English?”
He nods and releases my hand. “I do, but my accent could use some work.”
It’s true. He speaks well, but it’s clear it’s not his native tongue. As I lead him through the entry and toward the kitchen, he explains that he’s spoken the language for a few years, but he doesn’t have many people he can practice with here in Spain. Once we join the others, Diego rushes forward to accept the flowers and wine, promising him I am the perfect person for the job.
“She’s been helping our girls keep up with their English and has even started to teach them French!”
As proof, Luciana, who is sitting at the table, groaning in protest at having to wait before starting appetizers, says, “J’ai tellement faim. Ils m’affament ici.”
Translation: I’m so hungry. They starve me here.
I smile innocently and turn to the adults. “She means to say she’s pleased to meet you.”
Alejandro smiles appreciatively at Luciana, and then Nicolás ushers us all to the table. A large glass of wine is placed in my hand just before I’m pushed into the chair beside Alejandro. I feel like a marionette.
I shoot him a death stare over my shoulder, but he’s oblivious, too focused on his crusade to make Alejandro fall in love with me. As they start doling out appetizers, I’m forced to sit as Nicolás performs the role of a mother in the 1800s trying to marry off her eldest daughter.
“Did you know, Alejandro, that our Brooke is an excellent chef? She just recently took a class with the girls.”
I smile sheepishly. “Chef is a strong word.”
Diego leans forward. “And she’s very accomplished in languages. She speaks English, Spanish, and French fluently.”
Alejandro nods at me, impressed.
“Not to mention,” Nicolás adds impatiently, “she’s an angel with our girls. I mean, they’re impossible to handle on a good day—”
“HEY!” Luciana cuts in.
“But Brooke quells their worst tantrums with great aplomb.”
Alejandro’s smile fades gently. “Aplomb?”
Nicolás waves away the language barrier. “Oh, it just means she’s calm in tough situations.”
“Oh.” Alejandro’s gaze cuts to me as he nods and smiles tightly. “Okay.”
They take his lackluster response to mean they haven’t played up my attributes enough, so for another 10 minutes, I sit in silence as they continue to regale Alejandro with all of my talents and skills. Apparently I am “an avid reader”, “a world traveler”, and “a laundry expert”, and when that’s still not enough to convince him, they turn to a cheap tactic: outright talking about my looks.
“I mean, she’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Diego says.
“Not many women like her,” Nicolás adds. “Look at those sapphire eyes!”
Luciana crosses her arms and furrows her brows, announcing, “You guys are being really weird.”
Olive agrees. “It’s like you’re trying to sell Ms. Brooke off or something.”
A laugh bursts out of me before I can stop it, and then I slap my hand over my mouth, trying to salvage the moment. Diego aims a hard stare at me, probably annoyed that I’m not doing more to sell myself. I shrug and sip my wine, glad Alejandro isn’t making the situation any worse. He’s staring down at the table, probably too embarrassed to meet my eye at this point. I’m not sure what they told him to convince him to come to dinner, but I doubt it involved anything close to the truth.
Before we’re done with appetizers, I’ve drained my wine and am in desperate need of a refill.
I push my chair back and ask if I can get anyone else anything while I’m up. Alejandro stands and accompanies me over to the kitchen, insisting that he’d like to help me. I can feel Diego and Nicolás staring us down as we walk away. They probably think we’re going to sneak off and make out, but the moment we’re out of earshot of the table, I turn to Alejandro.
“I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”
“A misunderstanding?”
His Spanish accent is so damn adorable that for a moment, I try very hard to feel something for him…anything. God, it would be fun to love a man like Alejandro, but then I’m reminded of another pair of dark eyes back home in Austin and I turn away.
“Yes.” I smile tightly and point between us. “I think Diego and Nicolás want us to date.”
He looks down at his shoes and sighs before addressing me. “Brooke, I’m not really…er, well, you’re beautiful, of course…but this isn’t a good time for me.”
Though he’s struggling to come up with the right words, it’s clear what he’s trying to say.
“No. Don’t worry,” I tell him, meeting his eyes with a bright, honest smile. “They’re just convinced I need to be set up with a nice guy and you fit the bill. Consider it a compliment.”
His brown eyes light up with amusement. “But you don’t want that? To be set up?”
I refill our wine glasses before I work up the nerve to answer honestly. “No. I don’t want that.”
He smiles, visibly relieved. “Then here.” He holds his glass up for a toast. “To new friends.”
His emphasis on the word ensures that we’re both on the same page. When we return to the table, shoulder to shoulder, the family’s faces light up expectantly. I let the illusion linger for a moment before proudly announcing that Alejandro and I are not going on a date.
“Okay,” Luciana says, sitting up straight and pointing her fork at Alejandro. “So does that mean he’s up for grabs?”