Page 66

Alex, still dressed in the crisp white dress she’d worn to work, was already pulling o her blazer as she walked in.

Even in mid-November, Miami was hot, but at least it was a little less humid.

“Let’s see how excited you are when you’re closer to fifty than to forty,” she replied as she draped her jacket on the back of a counter stool.

Charlotte rolled her eyes. “If I look half as good as you when I’m—”

“Oh, God. Don’t say that,” Alex begged as she opened the wine fridge and made a selection. “That only makes me feel worse.” She laughed.

Charlotte furrowed her brow. She couldn’t comprehend Alex’s weirdness about her age. Not only was she still hot as hell, but she was also so confident about everything it almost didn’t make sense that she’d give a shit about being another year older.

Unsure of how to make her feel better, Charlotte left the topic alone and turned back to the incredible mess she’d created in Alex’s previously gleaming kitchen.

“I thought you said two hours was plenty of time,” Alex said as she handed her a glass of chilled white wine and surveyed the mess.

Charlotte thought of the recipe she’d crumbled and stashed in the garbage. Making a traditional Spanish paella had been a hell of a lot harder than she expected. She didn’t explain that this was her second e ort. The first was inside three garbage bags and stored in the freezer in the garage. A heartbreaking waste of time and ingredients.

“Do you want help?” Alex took a sip of wine before peeking into where the onions and other aromatics were sautéing.

“I thought you didn’t cook,” Charlotte replied with a defensive edge she instantly regretted.

Alex took another sip of wine. “I didn’t ask if you wanted my help.”

Charlotte cocked her head to one side. This was supposed to be the unforgettable birthday spectacular she was gifting her. Why would she want someone else’s help?

Glancing at the time, Alex muttered something about it being close to one in the morning. Whoever she was thinking of calling was in a time zone six hours ahead of them.

Alex went for the phone in her jacket pocket while Charlotte took stock of what she had left. There was still shrimp, mussels, calamari, chicken thighs and all the other herbs and seasoning. She didn’t have enough bomba rice for another batch and she’d already ruined the lobster tails. She couldn’t waste what she had with another failed attempt.

“He’s awake,” Alex announced as she glanced up from her phone. “Do you want a lesson from a paella master?”

Charlotte had no idea who he was, but given her desire to salvage Alex’s birthday dinner, she wasn’t really in a position to be picky. After a defeated sigh, Charlotte nodded.

Retreating out of the kitchen and toward the hall where the master bedroom and o ce were, Alex disappeared. When she returned a moment later, she was speaking in her lispy Spanish to someone on her iPad.

Charlotte swallowed hard to dissipate the rapidly forming knot in her throat, but it was too late. It had come together

from cartilage and bone and wasn’t budging. Was this how she was going to meet someone important in Alex’s life? A parent maybe?

Her Spanish was nowhere near as good as Alex’s. Apart from a much more limited vocabulary, Charlotte’s command of the language was sloppy and imprecise. She’d learned to speak in the informal Cuban way of Miami. She chewed o the end of words, swallowed the letter S frequently, and filled in the gaps with um and you know and it’s kind of like . It was also slow and stilted where she had to search her rusty memory for translations.

None of that would do in front of Alex and her family. In both English and Spanish, words flowed from her lips like a song. Fluid and pleasant. Charlotte’s Spanish had the fluidity of a jagged rock.

When Alex said her name in Spanish, Carlota instead of Charlotte, Charlotte steeled herself. She willed herself to suppress her nerves and put on the charm for whoever was on the screen Alex was propping up on the corner of the long kitchen counter.

In Spanish, Alex introduced her to the gray-haired man on the screen. “This is Maximiliano, and he makes the absolute best Paella on the planet,” she explained before kissing her cheek. “I’m going to see to the birds and take a shower. Let’s see what you two can do in an hour.” She winked before sauntering away.

Maximiliano, Charlotte learned, had been cooking for Alex’s family for fifty years, a staggering amount of time to do anything, Charlotte thought but didn’t say. After getting her to clean the space and organize herself anew so he could

see what she had, he proceeded to spend the next forty minutes using her hands to make a gorgeous dish. If he was annoyed that he had to explain things in di erent ways because Charlotte didn’t understand him, it didn’t show.

After thanking him profusely, Charlotte said goodbye and covered the picture-perfect seafood rice dish. With the few minutes she had left, she bolted to one of the guest bathrooms and washed the smell of the kitchen o her skin.

She didn’t have time to wash her hair, but she picked it up in a tight ponytail and threw on the black dress and wedge heels she’d brought for the occasion. When she walked out to the kitchen to find Alex in a tight pair of black jeans and a flowy, pale pink button down blouse with a cute little knot at the bottom, she ditched the heels and emerged barefoot.

“This smells incredible,” Alex said as she re-covered the pot and turned toward Charlotte.

Charlotte smirked. “I don’t think it counts as me cooking it. I was basically a pair of hands for a genuine chef on the other side of the Atlantic.”