And Max had been right. This was my dream. This was the reason I’d suffered all those years with a face that made people cringe. It was why I’d been given a big beautiful brain and the drive of a pit bull. And it was why I’d met Max.
Did this realization signify easy sailing? Or that things between him and me were settled romantically? I didn’t know. But I knew our relationship was so much more than romance or sexual attraction. And now, after having time to breathe and think, I knew that what we could accomplish together was fucking amazing.
And I loved him for that. I loved him for not giving up.
Just past midnight, as I sat back in Max’s king-sized bed, typing away on my laptop, my cell phone buzzed on the nightstand. I looked, and it was Patricio.
Strange. He’d not called, emailed, texted—nothing—since I’d left him that voice message weeks ago. It still stung to think about how easily he’d left me behind, but it had proved I’d made the right choice.
My hand hesitated before finally tapping the glass to accept the call. “Hello?”
“Lily, I must talk to you.” His voice was frantic and scratchy, like he’d been crying.
“Patricio, what happened?”
“I must talk with you—in person.”
“Why haven’t you called me?” And why so desperate to see me out of the blue like this? Did he not understand that I had cared about him? It was not the same crazy chaotically passionate relationship I had with Max, but I’d genuinely felt something for this guy. Then he’d called me a slut, walked out of my store, and never said another word.
I did call him and leave a message to tell him we were over-over.
“This is why I must see you. I need to explain what has happened, Lily.”
I sighed and wiped my left hand over my face. I supposed, after everything, I owed him that much. “I’m in Chicago right now.”
“Chicago?”
“It’s a long story, but I’m helping Max with his…with our…with a business project. His sister is ill.”
Max called every few days with updates. It had not been going well. His sister had refused to see him for the first week and her husband spoke no English, so Max’s attempts to reason with him did no good.
Of course, Max, being a resourceful guy, got a translator and found out what he could about the situation from the doctors. Apparently, his sister had preeclampsia and kidney failure. They were trying to keep her stable long enough so the baby could be delivered prematurely and survive. Max then started looking into doctors and treatments and finally convinced the husband to talk to Max’s sister on Max’s behalf. That had only been a few days ago, and Max sounded like hell. “I can’t leave, Lily. She’s either going to die or that baby will.” I’d had no choice but to stay on and assure him I was taking care of things. So here I was, three weeks later. Luckily, Max was very organized with his business, so it hadn’t been difficult for me to step in—reviewing data for site locations for the first five stores he planned to open, discussing consumer feedback and tweaking the product lineup, meeting with the contract manufacturer to review volume projections. And then there was the hiring. The headhunter had people swarming her with applications from some of the best and biggest cosmetics companies in the world.
“I see,” said Patricio. “You are back with Maxwell, then?”
“No. I mean…” I whooshed out a breath. “It’s not like that.” I had issues to work out in my own life, which was what I was doing.
“I had wanted to speak in person, but fine. I will put all of di cards on di table,” Patricio said with that accent of his, a bit thicker than usual. He was definitely upset.
“Okay?”
“My mother and father are here in town. So are my sister, brother and their spouses along with my nephews and nieces.”
“Uh. Good for you?”
“Lily, they are all here to see you. And me, too, but mostly you.”
“Why me?”
“Because I haven’t told them that we are not getting married.”
Uh-oh. I saw where this was heading. “Then you’re going to have to tell them.” I had big issues to deal with right now, and his family drama didn’t concern me.
“Lily, my mother is seventy-five years old and has a bad heart.”
Then why the hell was she flying halfway around the world? “So you’re asking me to…?”
“Pretend to be my fiancée—just for a night. Two tops.”
“I’m not going to lie to your family, Patricio.” What a stupid idea.
“It will break her heart to have come all the way here to meet you only to find out that I’ve been lying to her—she wants nothing more in this world than to see me married before she dies. That and to go to Disneyland.”
Ugh. I rubbed my face. I didn’t want anything to happen to his mother, but I couldn’t drop everything, fly to L.A., pretend to be engaged to him, and explain to Max why I was doing this favor for his arch nemesis.
“I can’t, Patricio. I really can’t. And I don’t think it’s fair asking me this when you haven’t even called.”
“What was there to say? You cheated on me. And you’re pregnant with his child.”