Chapter 19
“I’ve decided that you have to convince your brother-in-law to adopt me. How long does it take to get Spanish citizenship?”
“What are you going on about?” Fallon mumbles, his eyes closed behind his sunglasses as he floats beside me.
“Tatiana has a lazy river, Fallon,” I emphasize like it’s the most important thing in the world.
We’ve been enjoying the pool while waiting for Tatiana and Eduardo to come out.
Once I saw there was a lazy river, I was done for.
I mean, who actually has one of these as part of their backyard pool?
Filthy rich people, apparently. And it’s heated, otherwise it would have been too chilly for me to go swimming this morning.
“Yeah?” He still sounds perplexed.
I’m lying on my stomach on top of a float. Not the round ones that you usually see at water parks, but a proper one that I can stretch out on. Fallon is drifting along beside me on his back, his toes poking up out of the water.
“She has a lazy river. That’s a good enough reason for me to move to another country and beg her to let me live in her house.”
Fallon chuckles and sinks below the surface of the water. I don’t have time to ask where he’s going before I’m flipped over from below and I tumble into the water. When I resurface, Fallon is swimming away from me at a fast clip, laughing his head off.
“Coward!” I yell.
“Elizabeth!” I notice Tatiana waving at me from the patio.
A dark-haired man is at her side. He looks every bit the distinguished older businessman, except he’s not wearing a suit.
Eduardo is tall and lean, dressed casually in a crisp, blue dress shirt and fitted black dress pants.
His hair is ebony black, and it almost looks deep purple when the sun hits it at just the right angle.
He leans over and places a kiss to Tatiana’s temple, and she melts against him like ice cream on a hot summer’s day.
I wave back to acknowledge that I see them and swim over to where some steps lead out of the pool.
Just when my foot hits the bottom step to climb out, Fallon grabs me from behind and lifts me up high.
A tiny squeal escapes and I have to brace my hands on his forearms, so I don’t slide right out of his hold.
I hear Tatiana tell Eduardo, “See what I mean,” and his deep, masculine chuckle follows in answer.
“Still just friends!” I squeak out as Fallon hauls me out of the pool.
I give up my futile attempts to wriggle out of his grasp and just go with it.
It he wants to carry me around like a sack of feed grain, so be it.
As we get closer to his sister and brother-in-law, I can see the age difference between Tatiana and Eduardo that Fallon was talking about yesterday.
Fallon had told me that Eduardo was about two decades older than she was, which puts him in his mid- to late-forties.
I regard the sprinkling of silver gracing his temples and the crinkles around the corners of his eyes.
But I also notice the warmth of his smile when he looks down at Tatiana, the love shining in his deep, brown chocolate eyes, and the way his hand possessively wraps around the curve of her waist. This is a man completely in love with his wife and it shows.
Eduardo is first to greet Fallon when we stop in front of the happy couple. Of course, Fallon doesn’t put me down, and my cheeks are scorched red with embarrassment.
“Fallon, so good to see you again. Tati has been most happy that you are here. And you as well, my dear,” he says to me with a genteel bow of his head.
I swoon a little at his accent and the timbre of his voice.
“My Tati has had nothing but wonderful things to say about you, Elizabeth. It’s a pleasure to meet you.
I regret that I wasn’t here to welcome the both of you when you arrived as I had some business to attend to.
But let me offer you a formal welcome to our home. ”
“Fallon,” I hiss out between gritted teeth, still trying to get him to put me down. He finally gets the message after I pull his arm hair.
“So sorry about him,” I apologize and hold my hand out to Eduardo. He takes it and brings it up to his lips in greeting. “It’s nice to meet you. You have such a lovely home,” I tell him.
Fallon kisses Tatiana’s cheek, then mine, and excuses himself. “Sorry, I need to make a phone call. I’ll be right back.”
Other than talking with his dad, Fallon hasn’t called anyone or received any calls that I know of the entire time we’ve been on our trip.
He promised to call or text the guys every day to let them know I was okay.
I hope he’s kept that promise. I’ll have to ask him about it later.
At least, Fallon lets me use his phone to call Daniel and check in.
I know if I really wanted to, there are plenty of phones around the house I could use to call the boys.
But after our argument at the hotel in New York City, I made a promise to Fallon that I wouldn’t.
He was right. I needed time away from them to heal and to make some important decisions
Daniel is a different matter. I’ve made sure to call him almost every day.
If I don’t call, I text him. He’s calmed down since the first week I was gone and has been acting pretty chill for the past ten days or so.
I hope it’s not my uncle biding his time until he gets the opportunity to strangle me as soon as I come back home and walk through the front door.
“You make him happy, Elizabeth,” Tatiana says, bringing my attention back to them.
“Just friends,” I remind her for the umpteenth time.
Eduardo suggests I get changed as an early lunch will be ready soon.
I go to my room and take a quick five-minute shower to wash the chemical smell of the pool from my skin.
For clothes, I choose a long-sleeved floral day dress I picked up in Paris that falls just below my knees.
As I’m walking out of my room, I hear Fallon’s voice coming from the bedroom across from mine.
I know I shouldn’t eavesdrop, but I quietly tiptoe over to the closed door anyway.
I can’t make out much, but I do hear snippets of phrases like, “It’s time” and “See you soon.” When I don’t hear anything more, I slip down the hallway and make it to the stairs right before the sounds of footsteps come up from behind me.
“You look nice,” Fallon comments and takes my arm as we descend the stairs.
He must have changed before I came in because he’s wearing jeans and a fresh shirt.
The urge to ask who he was talking with is dancing on the tip of my tongue, but I let it go and instead say, “Eduardo is nice. He clearly is head over heels for your sister.”
“They met at some function when she was nineteen and got married soon after.”
I stutter with surprise. “Nineteen?”
I couldn’t imagine getting married that young, but then I remember that Jayson began talking about getting married and having children not too long after we started dating.
I also remember how nervous it made me that he had planned out our entire lives without giving me much of a say about it.
So much has changed since then and life did not unravel the way he had planned, or the way I thought it would.
“Where’d you go?” Fallon’s voice intrudes into my heavy thoughts.
“Pardon?”
“You spaced out.”
“Just thinking about something.”
We walk back out to the pool area. Somehow within the short amount of time of me going inside to change, a dining table and chairs have appeared.
They’ve been set out on the terracotta paver stone patio and placed underneath a very large portable patio gazebo with tied back curtains.
Baskets of fresh flowers in a varied array of oranges and yellows adorn the table and surround the gazebo.
“Looks like we’re right on time.” Fallon places his hand on my lower back and guides me over to where we will be eating lunch. Like a gentleman, he pulls a chair out for me. There must be a shocked look plastered across my face because Tatiana starts laughing.
“Oh, Fallon, you must not be that romantic if the simple courtesy of helping a lady into her chair makes her look flabbergasted.
I tip my head back to look at him.
“I make up for my lack of chivalry in other ways,” he answers, sending a wink her way.
Now it’s my turn to give a snort of derisive laughter as Fallon takes his seat beside me.
“What? You don’t agree?” Fallon leans forward, grabs a crystal pitcher, filling my glass and then his own. “New York City, Nordurljosavegur, London, and Paris? I think I’ve done a good job keeping Elizabeth entertained.”
I concede the truth to Tatiana, “He’s right. Fallon has filled every day of our adventure with more fun and excitement than I could possibly hope for. I’m having a great trip.”
Servers appear bringing tray after tray of platters filled with food that smells delicious and makes my mouth water.
I thank my server as he places a plate of herbed crusted chicken and julienned vegetables before me.
Nibbling on one of the edible flowers Tatiana said she likes to use in the food, I decide it’s not bad.
“How long have you and Fallon known each other?” Tatiana inquires. She and I have talked a little since Fallon and I arrived, but we haven’t had a chance yet to sit down and girl-gab.
“We’ve known each other for quite a while actually, but we never really talked much until recently. Fallon and I went to different schools. He actually kind of scared me for a long time,” I admonish, remembering how uneasy I used to be around him.