Page 20 of One Time in Paris
Isla had never been soglad to seeLa Hacienda Tropical.If the palm trees could hug her, she might actually cry.
As her mother pulled into the parking spot and turned off the engine to the car, Isla’s heart lurched.
Home.
God, it is good to be home.
Even though she hadn’t been looking forward to Vegas, shehadbeen excited to see Davy and Megan ...even to catch up with the other girls a bit.
But the past four days had been nothing short of awful.
She’d come back with even more problems than she’d left with, and now she needed to find a way to break it to her mum and Sergio that she’d be taking an even longer trip starting in a month...in addition to the one she’d already scheduled for London.
Seven cities.
Would she even have time to come home while she was working on this project?
Three days of filming at each of the Paris locations meant she’d be back and forth from Costa Rica nonstop. And the trip she’d already scheduled to London was for nearly a week. She would have to figure this out better, or it would be completely exhausting.
“Qué pasó?” Mum asked, glancing at Isla, who hadn’t stirred from her seat to get out of the car.
Isla sighed, letting her gaze travel to the overgrown row of pink hibiscus by the car. “Nothing. Just . ..don’t worry about it.”
“Of course I’ll worry about it. I’m your mother.” Mum opened the car door. “Didn’t you have fun?”
“Yeah,” she answered quietly, then opened the car door. She and Mum were close—they talked about most things.
Except waking up in bed with Aiden after possibly getting drugged.
This didn’t feel like the sort of conversation she could have with her mum. She’d have to tell her about the job hosting the Paris show, of course, but everything else? Mum didn’t need to know. She couldn’t know. She just might tell Callum.
Latina mothers weren’t the best secret keepers to begin with. Mum would mean well, but she’d call Callum, swear him to secrecy, tell him, and then Callum would feel compelled to keep Mum’s secret—leaving them all in a place where they knew the other one probably knew but they couldn’t talk about it.
“All I want is to crawl into my own bed, between my own sheets, and maybe get un bolillo de pan and stuff myself with bread and natilla.” Bread and sour cream had been her favorite comfort food since childhood.
“I’m sure we can arrange that. Anything for myIslita.” Mum smiled and helped her get her bags out of the trunk.
They dropped her bags off at the house behind the inn, then went into the front office. Since the renovation, they’d expanded the front office to be much, much larger, with a full-size kitchen, a large and roomy waiting area for guests checking in to the inn, a display area to provide guests with champagne, wine, fruit juices, and water, and a selection of fruit, crackers, cheese, and pastries.
Isla swiped a guava pastry from the display and settled into a comfy chair. Fortunately, no guests were waiting right now.
“You’re back,” Sergio said, coming out from the back room. “Cómo lo pasaste?”How did it go?
“Perfecto.” She leaned her head back against the seat, closing her eyes as she bit into the pastry. “Is Kyle here, by the way? I thought I saw his car.”
“Yes, he came a few days ago.”
Isla gave him a wan smile.Thank goodness.It was one less obstacle to deal with. She didn’t know how Kyle would react to the idea of pretending to be her boyfriend on a show—or, for that matter, how Liddy and Callum would react—but she’d already decided she would make the boundaries truly clear. No kissing. Maybe some hand holding. And they’d explain to their families it was all pretense in advance.
As far as she knew, Kyle didn’t currently have a girlfriend. Asking him was pathetic and ridiculous, but she didn’t have a lot of options. And if Liddy and Callum gave her crap, she’d remind them that not so long ago, their wholerelationshiphad started with them fake dating.
Of course, in this case, fake dating Kyle wasnotgoing to lead to anything. She loved Liddy’s brother, but he was younger than her by three years—just twenty-five. And she wasn’t even remotely attracted to him, or going to cross a line like that.
Sucking in a deep breath, she sat straighter. She may as well get the hard part out of the way while Mum and Sergio were both here. “So, I have some ...news.”
They looked at her expectantly. “Do not tell me you did one of those Vegasbodas,” Sergio said with a handsome grin.
Damn.
