C H A P T E R O N E

I'LL be your date to the wedding."

Words I had never — not even in my most out of this world fantasies, and

trust me, I had a distinctive creative mind — considered hearing

from that profound and rich tone arrived at my ears.

Peering down at my espresso, I squinted my eyes, attempting to look for any

indications of poisonous substances drifting around. That would basically make sense of

what was occurring. In any case, probably not.

Nothing. Exactly what was left of my Americano.

"I'll do it assuming you really want somebody that gravely," the profound voice came back once more.

Eyes developing wide, I lifted my head. I opened my mouth and afterward

Once more, snapped it shut.

"Rosie … " I followed off, the word leaving me softly. "Is he, as a matter of fact

there? Might you at any point see him? Or then again did somebody spike my espresso without me

taking note?"

Rosie — my dearest companion and partner in InTech, the New York City-

based designing counseling organization, where we had met and worked —

gradually gestured her head. I watched her dull twists bob with the movement,

a declaration of skepticism damaging her generally delicate elements. She brought down

her voice. "Probably not. He's not too far off." Her head looked around me very

rapidly. "Howdy. Good day!" she expressed brilliantly before her consideration

gotten back to my face. "Right behind you."

Lips separated, I gazed at my companion briefly. We were standing

at the furthest finish of the passage of the 11th floor of the InTech

base camp. Both our workplaces were generally near one another, so the second I had entered the structure situated in the core of Manhattan, nearby

of Central Park, I had gone directly to her office.

My arrangement had been to snatch Rosie and thud down on the upholstered

wooden rockers that filled in as a hanging tight sitting region for visiting clients,

which were generally vacant this promptly in the first part of the day. Be that as it may, we never

made it. I some way or another dropped the bomb before we at any point plunked down. That was

how much my problem required Rosie's quick consideration. And afterward

… then he had appeared out of the blue.

"Would it be a good idea for me I rehash that a third time?" His inquiry sent another flood of

mistrust hurrying down my body, freezing the blood in my veins.

He wouldn't. Not on the grounds that he proved unable, but since what he was talking about

didn't check out. Not in our reality. One where we —

"Okay, fine," he moaned. "You can take me." He stopped, sending

a greater amount of that super cold watchfulness through me. "To your sister's wedding."

My spine secured.

My shoulders solidified.

I even felt the silk shirt I had gotten into my camel slacks stretch

with the unexpected movement.

I can take him.

To my sister's wedding.

As my … date?

I flickered, his words reverberating inside my head.

Then, at that point, something unfastened within me. The idiocy of whatever this

was — anything that unreasonable joke this man I knew not to trust was attempting to pull

off — made a grunt bubble its direction up my throat and arrive at my lips, leaving

me rapidly and boisterously. As though it had been eager to get out.

A snort dug out from a deficit me. "What's so entertaining?" His voice dropped,

turning colder. "I'm totally serious."

I bit back one more explosion of giggling. I didn't trust that. Not for a

second. "The possibilities of him," I told Rosie, "being really troublesome are the

same possibilities I have of having Chris Evans jump all of a sudden and admit

his undying adoration for me." I made a demonstration of looking both ways.

"Nonexistent. Thus, Rosie, you were expressing something about … Mr. Frenkel,

right?"

There was no Mr. Frenkel.

"Lina," Rosie said with that phony, excited grin I realized she wore when

she would have rather not been inconsiderate. "He appears as though he's not kidding around," she talked through her freaky grin. Her look reviewed the man remaining behind me. "That's right. I

figure he may be serious."

"Probably not. He can't be." I shook my head, actually declining to pivot and

recognize that there was plausible my companion was correct.

There couldn't be. It was basically impossible that Aaron Blackford, partner and

deeply grounded burden of mine, would try and endeavor to offer something

like that. No. Way.

An eager moan dug out from a deficit me. "This is getting dull,

Catalina." A long delay. Then, another uproarious breathe out left his lips, this one

significantly longer. However, I didn't pivot. I held my ground. "Disregarding me

won't make me vanish. That's what you know."

Indeed I did. "Yet, that doesn't mean I won't continue on," I mumbled under my

breath.

Rosie evened out me with a look. Then, she looked around me once more,

keeping that excited smile set up. "Sorry about that, Aaron. We are not

overlooking you." Her smile stressed. "We are … discussing something."

"However, we are overlooking him. You don't have to save his sentiments. He

doesn't have any."

"Much obliged, Rosie," Aaron told my companion, a portion of the typical briskness

leaving his voice. Not that he'd be good to anyone. Decent wasn't something

Aaron did indeed. I didn't actually think he had the option to pull off well disposed. Be that as it may, he had

continuously been less … troubling when it came to Rosie. A treatment that had never

been for me. "How about you advise Catalina to pivot? I'd

value conversing with her face and not to the rear of her head." His tone

dropped back to short zero degrees. "That is, obviously, on the off chance that this isn't one of

her jokes that I never appear to figure out, significantly less view as entertaining."

Heat surged up my body, arriving at my face.

"Sure," Rosie went along. "I think … I want to do that." My companion's

look bobbed starting there behind me to my face, her eyebrows raised.

"Lina, thus, erm, Aaron would like you to pivot in the event that this isn't one of

those jokes that — "

"Much obliged, Rosie. That's what I got," I gritted out between my teeth. Feeling my

cheeks consume, I wouldn't confront him. That would mean allowing him to win

anything that game he was playing. Also, he had recently called me unfunny. Him.

"On the off chance that you would be able, let Aaron know that I don't figure one can snicker at, or significantly less

comprehend, jokes when one misses the mark on comical inclination, please. That would be

amazing. Much appreciated."