Page 81 of Along Came Amor
Chapter 24
Inside the room, Ava set her things down. After counting to five, she tiptoed back to the door and peeked out. No sign of Roman. Or Oscar, or the chef, or the driver, or whomever else might be lurking. She was alone.
Shutting the door again, she strode over to the bed and flopped backward with her arms outstretched. She landed in the center of the mattress with a soft bounce. As the padding settled, she closed her eyes and let out a contented sigh.
Bliss.
Now that all was quiet and still, Ava became aware of a dull pounding in her temples. It had started a couple hours earlier, but sparring with Roman and the novelty of her surroundings had made it easier to ignore. She’d hardly slept the night before, second- and third-guessing everything she packed in her suitcase, and she was probably dehydrated from being on the plane. The luxurious bed tempted her to take a nap then and there, but she and Roman were meeting the wedding planner in an hour. If she drank enough water, the budding headache would go away. Still, she gave herself a few minutes to mull over everything they’d discussed on the plane.
The negotiation of rules had veered dangerously into flirting territory, but the whole point of them was to maintain the boundaries of their relationship.
She’d been surprised when he told her about his father, and even more surprised that she’d talked to him about her own family. Roman was just too damned easy to talk to, and she always ended up revealing more than she’d intended.
He’s just the best man in my cousin’s wedding, she told herself. They were only here to help. No more wondering about his past, and no more opening up about her own.
And her, acting like she’d never seenRecuerdos Peligrosos.Of courseshe’d watched it. Not when it had aired—she hadn’t been lying about that—but as soon as she’d gotten home from that ill-fated engagement party, she’d subscribed to the streaming service that had the show and tormented herself by watching all the episodes in one weekend, when she should have been grading.
No one knew about that, not even Damaris.
And no one knew that she’d also done a search for decades-old celebrity gossip to see if Roman had ever been romantically linked with the actress who played the love interest. There wasn’t even a whiff of a rumor, which hadn’t come as a total surprise. The lead actress had been married at the time, and Roman and Ashton had more on-screen chemistry as brothers than either of them had with her. It made sense that the guys were still close friends after all these years.
Roman had been good in the role, but not amazing. Knowing him as she did, Ava could see that he was too sweet, too earnest to relish playing a resentful and hot-tempered rancher. Ashton, on the other hand, had been entirely believable as the poetic older brother plagued by the demons of their TV father’scruelty. Even then, it had been clear that Ashton had the kind of star power that couldn’t be taught.
Watching Roman on screen had made Ava feel close to him, although it had also made her miserable to think of never being with him again.
After giving herself another thirty seconds to enjoy the sensation of being weightless, she hauled herself up. Her fling with Roman might be over, but while she was here, she was determined to enjoy herself.
Her usual vacation MO was to live out of her suitcase as much as possible in an effort not to “mess things up,” but Michelle had made her promise to unpack more than just her toiletry bag.
“You’re not at your dad’s house,” Michelle had said with her typical bluntness. “You’re allowed to take up space.”
While Ava still struggled to internalize that concept, this gorgeous room absolutely begged her to make herself at home. She unzipped her suitcase and got to it.
By the time they had to leave, Ava had hung some of her clothing in the closet and put the rest in the dresser. She’d also lined up her makeup and hair products neatly on the bathroom counter and set a book—a young adult fantasy novel her students had raved about—on the nightstand. There. That looked lived in, right?
She took a photo of the unpacked toiletry bag and sent it to Michelle with the caption,Happy now?
While checking her planner one last time, she stifled a laugh. Under “To Do,” Roman had written his own name in loose, quick cursive.
“We’ll see about that,” she murmured, smiling.
Tucking the planner under her arm, she grabbed her purse and left the room. Time to get this show on the road.
But despite all her planning, Ava was entirely unprepared for “Belinda de Bellísima,” as the wedding planner introduced herself. Belinda Barrios was a petite woman, probably around Ava’s mother’s age, with creamy skin, wavy brown hair, and pink lipstick. She wore a bright pink pencil skirt and a white sleeveless blouse with three-inch yellow espadrilles. Belinda looked every bit her role, right down to the tiny wedding cake earrings and the diamond ring appliqué on her fourth fingernails.
She was also an absolute whirlwind, hustling them through the resort at breakneck speed to provide details about the ballroom, the cocktail lounge, and the beach where the ceremony would take place, all the while speaking Spanish a mile a minute and peppering her descriptions with trivia about the island and anecdotes about other weddings she’d managed.
They stood on the beach in the glaring sun, in the exact spot where Jasmine and Ashton would say their vows. Ava’s head throbbed as she tried to take notes and visualize the verbal pictures Belinda had painted so she could give Jasmine a full accounting.
“Do we have a time for the ceremony?” Belinda asked, having just rattled off the pros and cons for every hour of the day. She carried a pink umbrella to protect herself from the sun.
Ava scribbled furiously in her planner, but she’d missed a few things, and while she was verbally fluent, listening in Spanish and writing in English was taxing, especially with a headache brewing. Plus she’d forgotten her water bottle. She paused her note-taking to ask for clarification.
“Can you please repeat—”
“Early evening,” Roman cut in, tapping on his tablet. “Looking at sunset times and angle of descent in August...” He rattled off a time.
Belinda nodded as she typed something on her phone. “And where do you want the arch?”
