Thanks to Alejandro, it was easy getting out of the hotel unnoticed. Outside the suite was a pretty young woman with a cleaning cart. Smiling, he told her in Spanish that Elise was the runaway bride everyone was looking for, and she needed a disguise. He unnecessarily added that the two of them were eloping. The young woman smiled back, her eyes dreamy with romance, and unlocked a closet that held a maid’s uniform.
Alejandro motioned for Elise to put it on, then stood outside the door while she changed. When she came out, he frowned. The uniform was for a much shorter woman so it exposed a lot of her legs.
However, as they rode the elevator down, no one so much as looked at either of them. He had on dirty jeans, an old T-shirt, and a baseball cap, while she was dressed as a maid. They were anonymous to the world.
When they reached the bottom, he led her through the kitchen. A lot of the staff knew she was the missing bride, but they didn’t tell. But then, Alejandro kept saying that they were in love and she was leaving her heartless gringo ex-fiancé to live with him in Mexico.
Elise didn’t speak, pretended she didn’t know what was being said, and stayed close to Alejandro as he led her outside.
They hurried through the parking lot to his truck and when she saw it, she couldn’t help a laugh. She’d forgotten that it was big and black. Was it the source of her black horse fantasy?
Alejandro looked at her in question, silently asking why she was laughing.
Elise waved her hand. It didn’t matter. When she got into the truck the short skirt rode up so high she may as well have been wearing just her underpants. She started to pick up a shirt that was jammed behind the seat and cover herself, but when Alejandro kept glancing at her bare legs, she didn’t.
As he started the engine, she realized that she needed to get him on her side. Carmen had lied about her—or rather, she’d repeated what Kent had said, so Elise wanted to counterbalance that.
First, she needed to see if Alejandro was going to keep up his lie about not speaking English. Turning, she looked at him. He was even more beautiful than she remembered. Cut cheekbones; black, black hair; whiskers that she longed to touch.
“I’m Elise,” she said, then waited for him to introduce himself. But he didn’t. He acted as though he didn’t know what she’d said.
She had to look out the side window for a moment. Maybe their friendship hadn’t happened yet, but damn! To flat-out lie was a low blow.
She took a breath. “I know you don’t know what I’m saying, but I need to talk to someone. Sorry, but you’re it. First of all, I apologize about the Welcome to A-mer-ee-ca. I got that from West Side Story. I was really angry at Carmen and I guess I took it out on you. And I also apologize for running around in my underwear but I wanted to make your sister angry.” She smiled. “I think I succeeded.”
There was no reaction from him. “Okay, where do I begin? I only recently found out that your sister and my—” She hesitated. Not her husband. Not yet. “That my fiancé and your sister are a couple. I knew Kent wasn’t madly, passionately in love with me, but I thought he would be. I’ve been after him—kind of like a boy band groupie—since I was a kid. I really believed I could make him love me.”
As Alejandro turned onto the expressway, he glanced at her. For all that he was pretending not to understand, his eyes were skeptical.
If the circumstances had been different, she would have exclaimed that he’d understood her. But now she just wanted to talk. However, she did glance in the visor mirror. An advantage of going back in time was that she was four years younger than she was yesterday. It wasn’t much in age but there’d been a lifetime of experience in those years.
“Anyway,” she said, “I was shocked when I found out about your sister and Kent. I guess you know that she’s pregnant.” When he kept looking straight ahead, she tapped his shoulder with a single finger. He looked at her and she said, “Carmen,” then pantomimed a big belly.
With an expression of disgust, Alejandro nodded. Yeah, he knew.
For a moment Elise wondered what she would have done if she’d actually known about Carmen before she got married. The way she felt back then, she probably would have married Kent anyway. But she’d always been absolutely sure she could make him love her. “I planned to run away to the airport, but the limo driver betrayed me.”
She told him about giving the driver a check and that he must have gone directly to her father. Alejandro said nothing, but the muscle in his jaw was working furiously, and his neck was turning darker. Elise smiled. Even if he was lying about the language, his rising anger was making her feel good. It was nice to have someone on her side!
“The security men scared me,” she said. “I knew that if I didn’t get out of there I’d end up saying vows to Kent. Then what? He has two lives? Me in one house, Carmen and the baby in another? I knew who’d lose in that tug of war.”
When she looked at him, Alejandro turned just enough that she could see sympathy in his eyes. Good! she thought. At least she was showing a different side to the awful things Carmen had said about her.
But Elise didn’t want to go too far, didn’t want to make Alejandro feel too sorry for her. That could lead to something that she didn’t want right now. She planned to spend just a few days with her almost-husband’s lover’s family, then get out. There was no way Carmen would hold out for more than forty-eight hours before she blabbed to Kent.
As Elise looked at Alejandro, she could feel the heat of him. It hadn’t happened yet, but she remembered the closeness they’d had before. Laughing together, telling each other about what they did during the day. He’d told her about the American woman who’d demanded more than Spanish lessons from him. He said he’d accepted a summer job from his brother on a whim, thinking that he’d last about a week. But he’d liked the physical labor, had liked the US. “But I don’t like your winters!” he’d said, and they laughed together.
Elise reminded herself that none of that had happened—but she had no doubt that if she let it, it would repeat itself. The very last thing she needed now was to attach her life to another man. To in essence say, “I am yours. Do with me what you will.”
No. What she needed was to find a place to put her own feet. In two days—three tops—she’d go to Warbrooke, Maine. She had no connection there, but she needed to con her way into Olivia’s future family. Maybe they could help her with legal matters. Help her find a job.
Alejandro stopped the truck. She hadn’t paid attention to where he was driving, so she was surprised that he’d pulled into a shopping mall parking lot. In front of them was a Nordstrom’s.
He turned off the engine, got out his wallet, pulled out four one-hundred-dollar bills, and held them out to her.
Elise’s heart nearly stopped. She’d gone too far and he was throwing her out. But no, he motioned to her maid’s uniform. He wanted her to buy herself some new clothes.
She took the money from him because she needed it, but she didn’t get out of the truck. “I think you’re a very nice man, but your sister hasn’t exactly been a friend to me.” She gave a bit of a laugh at her joke. “Oh well, if we were held accountable for our relatives, I’d have to take on the sins of my parents. Sorry, but I’m in a bad state right now. And sorry you got stuck with me.” She extended her right hand to him. “Thank you.”
Alejandro took her hand in his. “Amigos.”
“Yes,” she said. “Amigos.” She got out of the truck.
In the store, Elise rushed to buy some jeans and leggings and T-shirts. When she went back outside, he was there, waiting for her, and when she smiled at him, he smiled back. For a moment he was the Alejandro who was her friend.
She got into the truck, and when she handed him a leftover hundred-dollar bill and change, he looked surprised. In the years of her marriage, she’d had to learn to economize. But then, her husband was supporting two families.