CHAPTER 2
Scott Landshire sat in the back of an SUV listening to Monday Musings with Dr. Lux Stone, while his driver drove him to work. Once again, the woman had mentioned him on her show. And once again, she’d done so in a derogatory fashion.
What in the hell had he ever done to her?
On a whim, he turned down the volume, pulled his phone out of his suit pocket, and dialed the number she’d just rattled off. It was time the two of them had a conversation.
“This is Monday Musings with Dr. Stone. Please hold.”
He patiently waited, considering what he should say. He heard a click on his end of the line, and then her voice speaking into his ear.
“This is Dr. Lux Stone, and you’re on the air. Who am I speaking to?”
“Good morning, Doc.” Giving someone a nickname right out of the starting block was a flirting tool he’d often used on women. The implied intimacy tended to soften the response of even the wariest of them. “This is Scott Landshire, the man you love to hate. I’ve been listening this morning, and it dawned on me, what better man to help you out than me? If you’ve got a few minutes, I could help you with your dating profile.”
There was a soft thud, as if the phone had been dropped. He waited. Nothing. “Hello. Are you still there?” Surely, she’d not hung up on him.
“Hello, Mr. Landshire.” She blew out a breath straight into his ear. “What an unpleasant surprise. Is this your first time listening to Monday Musings?”
He ignored the insult. “On the contrary. I never miss an episode.”
“I find that startling.” The four words squeaked across the phone lines sounding like they had travelled through the chew toy of a pet Pitbull. Not at all like her normal self-assured tone.
“How else am I to know what I’ve done wrong if I don’t listen?” His goal, he reminded himself, was to charm her into dropping her continual harassment of his column.
“You say that like you want to change,” Doc said. “Do you want to transform from a rake into a romantic? Or do you just want the thorn in the side of your column to go away?”
He chuckled. “Just between us—and your dozen or so listeners—I’m gutted every time you attack RAKEish.”
“Dozen?” she said, her voice more frozen steel then unaffected blasé.
“Too many?” he teased, glad to know she could be needled out of her calm demeanor.
“Mr. Landshire, my show reaches an audience of 1.6 million people. And in case you’re math-challenged, that’s more than a dozen. In fact, if you want to get down to the nitty gritty—”
“I’m always up for getting down to the nitty gritty—”
“It’s 133,333 plus dozens,” she said, ignoring his attempt at humor.
“I stand corrected. Your numbers are impressive,” he responded.
“Thank you.” Her words said one thing, her tone said bite me.
“Almost as impressive as the column I wrote on the art of pickup lines. May I suggest you start there with your second glance resolution? You’ll find it in Naked Runway’s February issue.”
“I recall that issue. Your suggestions were archaic.”
“And yet they work.” Or at least they had until she’d voiced her opinion on them. An airing that, much to his annoyance, had resulted in Monday Musings bouncing out of its niche lane right into the traffic of mainstream popularity.
“That speaks more toward the type of woman you use them on than it does about my comment.”
“And what type would that be?”
“The type with subpar standards when it comes to how evolved a man must be before she’s willing to entertain the idea of having a drink with him.”
“I must say, your ever-present need to hate on me is gutting.” He liked to think of himself as a cheerleader for women’s rights. Especially the one allowing them the freedom not to be thrust into an arranged marriage. A practice still going strong in Shiretopia where its future kings—like him—were concerned.
“If that gutted you,” Doc said, “I could only imagine your reaction should you learn the content of the nightmare I had last night. A nightmare in which you starred.”
“Why Doc, are you having dirty dreams about me?” Interesting. He’d not seen that coming.
“That is not what I said,” she replied tersely. “And forgive me for even bringing it up. I’m afraid my brain is short-circuiting as a result of so little sleep last night.”
“I’d much prefer to hear the content of your dream than accept your apology.”
“Absolutely not.”
He resisted an urge to push and instead took a different approach. “As you wish, but…I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that this rakish male brain of mine has jumped to the conclusion that if you’re dreaming about me, it means—no matter how hard you bash what I do for a living— you secretly like me.” It was a delightful deduction. Implying her public hate was a cover for her true feelings was sure to put her on edge. “From this moment forward, Doc, I will believe you have a massive crush on a rake.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped.
“I don’t believe that’s what I’m being,” he said, biting back a chuckle. “And I bet your listeners don’t either. In fact, I bet they’d love to hear your response. Do you, or do you not have a crush on me?”
“Trust me when I tell you this is a subject best dropped, for your sake,” she replied.
His curiosity skyrocketed. “I give you permission to destroy my sake and tell your potential 133,333 plus dozens of listeners what it is you think I’m better off not knowing.”
“Did you call for a reason,” she inquired, smoothly changing the subject, “or may I hang up now?”
He laughed, amused she thought he could be easily moved to a new topic. “A change of focus can only mean one thing. Your dream was sexual in nature.”
“Or it means, despite what I do for a living, I believe in the old tale, if a person retells a nightmare before breakfast, it will come true,” she countered.
He’d never heard of that superstition. “It’s quite convenient, this excuse not to spill the details.”
“You should not push me. Once I accidentally tested the superstition, and it came true.” Something in her voice had shifted. Like he’d forced her to recall a memory that pained her to do so, or she’d realized she’d allowed him to get under her skin and was pissed. His money was on pissed.
“Once, you say?” She was a doctor of psychology. Surely, she did not believe she caused something bad to happen to a person.
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I repeated another before breakfast to test the results, and it also came true.”
“That was quite brave of you.” The doc had a fanciful side. He would have bet his bejeweled crown she did not. What other surprises did she hold?
“Not really. I was just curious.”
“I see. Well, I’ll tell you what, Doc. If your dream was what I think it was, I can guarantee you it will not come true.”
“Nightmare,” she said firmly. “And it would serve you right if I did tell you so you could discover for yourself that all superstitions, crazy as they might sound, originated in someone’s truth.”
His curiosity grew. “Please, by all means, punish me with the truth.”
“I’m not joking,” she snapped. “Like I said, twice in my life, my nightmares have materialized after I relayed them before having ate breakfast.”
“So, the scary quantity of two has turned an otherwise intelligent woman into one plagued with superstition?” he pushed.
“This coming from a man who believes he’s the victim of a wicked witch’s curse.”
Touché. “Our family has five generations’ worth of proof for our belief in the mystical. You have only two experiments for yours.”
“While two is not much, it would have been criminal of me to continue the experiment all in the name of gathering further empirical evidence to back my hypothesis.”
The woman was a glitchy scientific nerd. “I rather love being used by women in the name of a naughty experiment, so go ahead, lay this dream on me.”
“Nightmare,” she insisted.
How bad could it be? “Doc, I have a fabulous idea. I once dated a therapist who specialized in dreams. Why don’t you reveal the content of the sex dream you had about me, and I will ask her to interpret it? In fact, I will write about it in next month’s RAKEish.” It would make for a great column.
“I’m more than capable of interpreting my nightmare that your penis fell off and you showed up at my door asking if I knew how to repair it.” Her words were immediately followed by a loud gasp on her part. As if she’d shocked herself by speaking aloud the revelation.
He echoed the gasp. “Good God, woman.” He reached for a bottle of water. This whole conversation had just taken a turn toward disaster.
“Pardon my vocabulary,” Doc said, her voice full of dismay.
“It’s not your vocabulary I’m worried about. It’s your prediction. Take it back,” he demanded, anticipating the endless ribbing from his colleagues if she refused. “Or better yet, admit you’re messing with me because you don’t like me.”
“I don’t have that kind of sense of humor,” Doc said. “The demise of your penis is imminent.”
“I insist you stop saying that. You’re making it worse.”
“I did warn you.”
“Not hard enough.”
“That’s what she said,” Doc replied.
“That is not very doctorly of you.” Her unexpected humor softened his tone.
A huffed-out sigh, with undercurrents of dismay and distress, tickled his ear. “You’re right. I’m tired and my mouth is taking advantage of my brain’s inability to block it,” she admitted. “Listeners, please forgive me for this morning’s lapse in good judgment on my part.”
“And do I get an apology?” he pressed.
“You do. Mr. Landshire, I sincerely apologize for telling you your penis is about to punch its last ticket.”
“Please, stop saying penis followed by gloom and doom predictions.”
She snorted, as if she wanted to laugh, but couldn’t quite gather enough energy to pull one off. “On the bright side—for me, not you—I suddenly don’t feel nearly as devastated about my situation.”
And the sleep-deprived zingers just keep coming.
“And to think, I called in because I thought to apologize for being one of the men who’d swiped past your profile.” He hadn’t done so because of her image. Hell, he’d been on his phone and had barely been able to see it. He’d skimmed past her name in his quest to pair a newly single man with the ideal woman. A man he’d agreed to help because a fake fairy godmother, Ms. Birdie Faraway, had requested his help.
Ms. Birdie, the president of the Fairy Godmother Project, was quite the piece of work. She never took no for an answer. He’d tried. Not only that, but he was now being pestered by the dear to start up an offshoot of her program. The Fairy Godfather Project. Magic not required.
Doc cleared her throat. “Tell me, Your Majesty—”
“Your Majesty would be my father. You may call me Scott or Your Royal Highness.” The reply was automatic. Most Americans, he’d discovered, did not know royal protocol.
“Tell me, Oh Great Rake of Manhattan, do you stand behind your dating advice? Or is it offered tongue-in-cheek?” She spoke distinctly as if she’d just gotten her second wind and was ready to once again slip into the role of professional psychologist, albeit a snarky one.
Or the wounded animal is coming in for the kill.
“I’m not familiar with that saying,” he mused. “Is it equivalent to dick in hand?”
“I’m glad you have a sense of humor about your upcoming penile predicament.”
He’d walked right into that one. “Not funny.” It was damn funny.
“Too soon for dick jokes?”
There was that humor again. What other things would she surprise him with should he keep Doc off her stuffy game? “The way I see it, as long as your mouth is occupied with my dick, life is good.”
“Touché,” she said, after a beat of dead air. “And on that note, I do believe our time is up. Goodbye, Your Royal Rakeness.”
Scott put his phone away, turned the volume up on her show, and settled back in his seat. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d not been able to dazzle a woman with his charm.
A damn woman who’d predicted he’d soon lose his penis.