Chapter 26 Most Worthy Adversaries
MOST WORTHY ADVERSARIES
I came prepared to convince Bellamy to give Carpe Diem another shot.
Turns out, I also want this chance for me.
I didn’t expect to like Bellamy this much. But I do, and I also admire the hell out of her—her mind, her attitude, her approach.
“I’m not asking you for another podcast report,” I say, explaining my idea. “I don’t want a redo. I want to prove something to you. I don’t want you to just cover my parties. I want you to see that they really can work.”
She leans in, her elbows on the table, her gaze intense. “But I do want to talk about them on my show. Don’t you see? I can talk freely about them now.”
“About how elitist they are?” I goad her.
“Well, they are. But we’ve already dealt with that. What I want is to tell the listeners who are curious about them what they really entail.”
Color me intrigued. “Go on.”
“But I also want to be fair. So, I should come to your parties.”
I point at her, accusing. “If memory serves, you slipped in right under my nose, and I couldn’t stop you.”
“You didn’t want to stop me, Easton.”
“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” I tease.
“Do you really think I’m the enemy?” she asks, no snark, no cat-and-mouse game.
That’s a good question. We ripped up the enemies’ playbook at some point.
Do we have a new one, though? I might like her a lot, but there’s still an underlying tension between us that isn’t going away.
She believes online dating can help to find the one prince among a million frogs.
I want people to avoid as many frogs as possible.
“We are what we’ve always been at the core,” I tell her. “We’re on opposite sides of the story. Lawyers in a courtroom, both making our case.”
“Opponents. Competitors. But not Darth and Luke, or Lex and Superman,” she adds.
“Some might even call us most worthy adversaries.”
She laughs lightly, and it’s so good to hear her laugh today, knowing she fought a gutsy battle this week. “So, let’s be that now. Let’s be opponents, and we’ll fight fairly.”
I park my chin in my hand like I’m waiting ever so patiently for her. “Why does it sound like you have a proposal for me?”
“Because I do,” she says with a grin.
I wiggle my fingers. “Tell me more.”
“If memory serves, this whole thing between us started with a bet. Your friends bet you couldn’t get me to kiss you.”
“I have a vague recollection of that.”
“So, how about another bet? Between you and me this time.”
Oh, I like this. “I’m listening.”
“I’ll try things your way. You try it mine,” she says.
I lift one brow. “Go on.”
“I test out your parties. Give them a shot, talk about that on my show.”
Wait.
“You want to come to my parties as a guest?”
“If you’ll have me.”
The innuendo, so help me God. “You know I love having you, sweetheart,” I say in a low voice.
She dips her face, licking the corner of her lips. “I know you do, Easton.”
I have no choice. I can’t just sit on that. “And you love when I have you.”
With a tilt of her head, she simply shrugs. “Do I?”
I scoot my chair closer to the table, leaning into her. “You do—so fucking much that I bet you were hot and wet and bothered when you went home the other night.”
She pouts in an over-the-top way. “You think I went home to rub a couple out because I wasn’t satisfied? Oh, Easton, I’m sorry you don’t know how to tell when a woman comes. It was that thing at the end when I shouted to the heavens and shuddered. Remember?”
“Ah, so that’s what that was.” Then I stare at her. “My point is, I bet you were so wound up with pleasure that you wanted more.”
“Hmm. I do recall being rather thirsty when I got home,” she says.
I’ll take that as a victory. “Good. Now, you were saying you want to come to my parties.”
“I do. Try them out. See if they work,” she says, earnest and straightforward.
I scrub a hand along my jaw, picturing her circulating at a Carpe Diem event.
Seeing other men eyeing her. Worse, watching her chat them up.
The thought cuts through me like a sharp blade.
I both love and hate the idea of her at my parties.
Love that she’ll see the magic of what I do.
Hate that other men might have a shot with her.
I detest that more than traffic, the Boston Red Sox, and littering.
Yet it’s not my role to tell her what to do. She just got out from a situation where a man she worked with exerted improper influence. I’m not her boss, but I am a guy she’s working with. Ergo, I say, “Okay. And what do I do?”
Her grin is way too satisfied. “I’ll make you an online dating profile.”
I cringe.
“C’mon,” she says. “All you have to do is try it. Just go on one date, okay?”
I growl.
She cracks up. “Do you only communicate in grunts and facial expressions now?”
“Seems I do,” I say. “But I’m not interested in dating. Serious dating, that is.”
She rolls her eyes. “I gathered as much.”
“You did? How?”
“Let’s just say I don’t need to be a genius to read the open book of you,” she says, flapping her hand in my direction.
“And what does the book of me tell you?”
“That you’re quite content as the swinging single man about the city.”
That’s true. That’s been true since Anna died. I don’t want the kind of dates that could lead to a serious romance. That kind of love carries too many risks. Too much potential for hurt. I’m not interested in going through that pain again.
Which means I shouldn’t be too bothered that Bellamy will be looking for love at one of my parties.
And yet I am.
But I need to let that go since I’m not ever going to be the man for her.
She wants love. I don’t.
“Yes, I am quite content with life as I know it,” I say.
“Like I said, you’re easy to read, Easton. So, do you want me to make you a Tinder profile then? Just get you on a hookup app?”
I’ve no choice but to scoff.
“Right. Of course. A smart, sexy, charming, rich guy like you doesn’t need any help getting online,” she says.
I lean back in the chair, soaking up the compliments. “You think I’m charming.”
“That’s the trait you keyed in on? Not sexy? You are not like most men, Easton.”
“Got that right. And yes, charm matters more than those other things. Charm wins hearts,” I say, before I think better of it.
Why did I mention winning hearts when that implies I’d want someone’s?
Nothing gets past Bellamy. “But I thought hearts weren’t on the table? At least, not yours.”
“It’s not,” I say. I’ve got to remember that, especially around her. Because Bellamy’s too easy to like.
“So, we’ll set up this online dating profile—just for one little date,” she says, holding up a thumb and forefinger to show a sliver of space.
I’d rather set my shorts on fire. But a bet’s a bet. “What are the stakes?”
Her lips twitch in a grin. The most satisfied one she’s fired my way. “A public reckoning,” she says, then details what she envisions.
This woman’s mind is deliciously dastardly.
“And how do we determine the winner or loser?”
She’s quiet for a moment. “Whoever’s happiest with their romantic situation at the end,” she says.
That seems fair but hard to measure. “How do you determine happiness?”
“I guess we’ll just have to share with each other how we feel. I’ll let you know if I am, and you do the same. We’ll have to trust each other to be honest,” she says.
“Fair enough,” I say, then we shake hands.
Most worthy adversaries indeed.
She picks up her pen and writes something in her notebook.
“Why do you use a pen?” I ask.
“It comes in handy when I want to write.”
“Cheek is your native language.”
“It is.”
“What I mean is, you’re such a digital woman. Why a pen rather than an iPad or computer?”
She smiles like she has a secret. “I kind of have a thing for handwriting.”
I sit up straighter, eager to gobble up this detail about her. “I need to know more about this thing of yours.”
“Why do you need to know more about it?” she asks with a laugh.
“Because it’s interesting.” Like you. Everything about you is interesting to me.
“I like the way it looks. I like the way it feels. But it also helps me think in different ways. So, I like to take notes by hand. It makes me use a different section of my brain.”
“It would make me use the Da Vinci code section of my brain to decipher my own handwriting.”
“Meanwhile, mine is at a Dear Diary level.”
I tip my forehead to her notebook. “Show me.”
“Do you want me to write you a love note, Easton?” she asks, all over-the-top flirty.
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
She rips out a piece of paper, nibbles on the corner of her lips. The whole look is just so fucking intoxicating. Lowering the pen, she writes a few words, then folds up the paper and hands it to me.
A part of me is hopeful it’s a very dirty note.
After I unfold it, I laugh out loud both at the overly sweet and girly style, and also at the message.
“Really? I have frosting on my chin and you’re just telling me now?”
She shrugs a shoulder. “It was kind of adorable and I wanted to see how long it would take before you noticed it.”
I wag a finger at her. “Mark my words. I’m going to take you out for dinner some night. And you’ll have a piece of spinach stuck in your teeth. And I’m going to let it be there all night long.”
She leans across the table, swipes her thumb over the frosting on my chin and whispers, “And you know you’d still be turned on by the green leaf in my choppers.”
Then she licks the frosting off her thumb.
“You’re right. I would be turned on. Like I am now,” I say, my eyes locked with hers.
“Join the club,” she says.
My mind flickers to gift bangs, to large bathrooms, to anything and everything with her.
I’m about to ask if she wants to do anything about that when the door opens, and a half-dozen fit, trim guys and gals in wheelchairs roll into the shop. A running group, from the looks of the Lycra and athletic tops.
Immediately, Bellamy stands. “Want our table?” she asks a toned blonde with a high ponytail.
“You sure you don’t mind?”
“Not at all,” she says. “We’re taking off anyway.”
“Enjoy your cake,” I say as I rise, moving the chairs to make room.
A minute later, I’m on the street with my erstwhile adversary.
“Are we done then?” I ask Bellamy, hoping her answer is a big, fat no.
“Don’t think you can get rid of me that quickly,” she says, bumping my shoulder.
It must be my lucky day. “In the mood for a coffee?”
She shakes her head.
“Me neither. But if you want a water, I live around the corner,” I suggest. “That is, if you’re still thirsty.”
I expect her to draw a line in the sand.
She licks her lips. “I’m so very thirsty.”
So am I.