CHAPTER 21 #2
“Fine.” I ticked off my points on my fingers.
“You hate yes men, so you want someone who’ll support you, but who’ll also call you out on your bullshit when it inevitably arises.
You need someone who’s not afraid of your ambition and who won’t be intimidated by your success.
Their intellectual curiosity should match yours, and they need to hold their own in a conversation because you fucking love to argue, but you can’t respect anyone who doesn’t give as good as they get.
You’re not just looking for a partner, you’re looking for an equal, but the reason your search has failed so far is because you have no equals.
The best you can hope for is someone who can keep up with you, but I regret to inform you that Zack the Bleached Blond is not it—no matter how much you try to convince yourself he is. ”
Maya stared at me, her breaths heavy in the ensuing silence.
“There you have it,” I said, my tone deceptively casual. “I could go into more detail, but then I’d have to charge you. I don’t work for free.”
Her grip on her pen tightened further.
“Sometimes,” she said, her voice quiet. “I really hate you.”
I turned back to my computer, my chest cold. “I know.”
After our meeting, I went straight to the Valhalla Club. I steered clear of the bar and chose to brood in the club’s members-only restaurant instead.
However, I only got a few minutes to myself before someone slid into the chair opposite mine.
“You look like shit,” Dante said.
I snorted, my hand toying absently with my glass.
I wished it were filled with wine instead of water, but I’d learned the hard way that drinking alcohol when I was this keyed up hurt more than it helped.
“Is there a reason you’re choosing to sit with me when there are half a dozen empty tables around us, or is my company that scintillating? ” I asked.
“‘Scintillating’ isn’t the word I’d use,” he said, his tone dry.
“I came to grab a quick bite when I saw you here—looking like shit. Figured you could use a distraction.” He paused when the server came by to take his order.
After the man left, he asked, “What has you moping around the club on a Tuesday afternoon?”
“Nothing important.”
“If it wasn’t important, you wouldn’t be moping.”
“I’m not moping.”
“Yes, you are.”
This time, I was the one shooting him an irritated glare. “It’s rude to invite yourself to someone’s table and then badger them about their troubles.”
“So you do have troubles.”
I could’ve sworn he’d been less insufferable before he got married. Pre-Vivian Dante would not have given a shit about other people’s “troubles” unless they intersected with his in some way.
However, since he was here and clearly didn’t have plans to leave anytime soon, I might as well take advantage. “You didn’t like Vivian when you first got engaged, right?”
Wariness spread across his face. “It was a complicated situation. But no, I didn’t.”
“And she didn’t like you.”
“No,” he said, more grumpily.
“So how did you go from hating each other to falling in love and having a kid?”
Dante frowned, his expression pensive. He appeared to give my question actual thought before he answered.
“It didn’t happen overnight. It wasn’t like a switch flipped one day, and we were suddenly in love.
It took months before I admitted to myself that I might not hate her, and it took even more time for me to tell her that. ”
“Did you know how she was going to react before you told her?”
“No one ever knows when it comes to this stuff, and if they say they do, they’re lying.”
“What would you have done if she didn’t feel the same?”
I was turning our meal into an interrogation, but I couldn’t ask anyone else these questions. Xavier would see right through me, and my other friends had different dynamics with their partners. Dante’s situation wasn’t the same as mine, but his came the closest.
“Why would you ask me that?” His scowl returned. “That’s fucked up.”
“It’s a hypothetical. Indulge me.”
He looked like he was seriously regretting his decision to sit with me, but after a long pause, he said, “If I sensed that she had even a bit of affection toward me—which she did—I would’ve tried to change her mind.
That was basically what I had to do after we ran into some, ah, obstacles during our engagement. ”
“You mean when she found out you used her as a pawn to take down her father?”
Dante glared at me. “For someone who’s grilling me like this is a fucking job interview, you’re being a real pain in my ass.” He released a long, controlled breath and said, more calmly, “The point is, I put aside my pride and did what I needed to do to win her back. Because I loved her that much.”
I drank silently and turned his words over in my head. They made sense, but they weren’t applicable to me.
All that time, only for me to hit another dead end.
Dante eyed me. “Why do you ask? Did you fall in love, Laurent?”
“No.” My laugh rang a little hollow for my liking. “I was curious, that’s all. Love isn’t for me.”
“Hmm.” He picked up his wine, his expression knowing. “That’s what I told myself at first too.”