Dirty: The Complete Series (Secret Baby Romance Love Story) (105 page)

I had to wonder what her life looked like
outside of the practice dates. She had mentioned being single, so obviously
there was no boyfriend or husband, and it didn’t seem like she was really,
truly looking for one. Was she just one of those people who preferred being
single? I’d been like that until about three months before I’d signed up with
the matchmaking service. I’d never had enough time to really devote to a
relationship in my life before, which was why I hadn’t even tried until I did.
But her whole life revolved around dating; I had to think that a real date with
someone would be like a busman’s holiday for her. So how would she go about
finding someone she could love if she couldn’t go on dates without getting into
professional territory?

My thoughts circled around once more to
the fact that I was actually on my way to a practice date with somebody. It
seemed like the very definition of twenty-first century decadence, that people
like me could hire a matchmaking service not only to find them a woman that
they could possibly grow to love, but also hone the skills and abilities that
it took to make them datable. I wondered what Natalie’s “rougher” clients were
like and how she managed them. She’d certainly done well enough with me on the
one occasion we’d been together so far. I could remember the sound of her voice
and the expression on her face from different points in the evening we’d spent
together. I wondered what kind of system of accountability the matchmaker had.
I wondered if Natalie had found a way to ask people on a date that didn’t make
her look like the idiot that I was as soon as I tried to get a date with
someone.

I glanced at the bouquet of roses in my
passenger seat as I approached Phenomenon. I thought that if that kind of
offering was made, she’d have to be impressed. She would be in raptures, just
like any other young woman I could meet. I was definitely ready to see her eyes
light up and her cheeks go pink with a blush; it would be great. I found a
parking space after a few moments of circling the restaurant. It was a place I
hadn’t been before, but my friends raved about it. I knew that Natalie was
waiting for me, and I was more ready than ever for her.

Chapter
Five

Natalie

After struggling to find parking for about
twenty minutes—and feeling grateful that I’d left the house early on the
possibility that I might run late—I finally found a spot and hurried to get to
the entrance of the restaurant that Zeke had told me to come to for our first
date. I checked myself in the reflection on one of the windows along the
perimeter of the building; I didn’t want to give Zeke the impression that it
was a “real” date in the sense of me wanting to impress him, but I wanted to
look professional and put-together.
We’ll
see what he’s like on an actual practice date, instead of at a regular meeting
with me,
I thought as I turned the corner and approached the entrance of
Phenomenon.

I spotted Zeke standing a few feet away
from the door. He was tall enough that I could see him over the people traveling
the sidewalk or going into the restaurant. I smiled, thinking that at least
he’d been punctual this time—he was here even before I was. As the crowd around
the entrance cleared a little bit, though, I saw that he had a bouquet of
flowers in his hand—and my stomach lurched inside of me. They were roses. Red
roses.
Please, please tell me that he got
them for someone else or just wanted to ask me a question about getting a woman
flowers. Don’t let them be for me.
Alex—before we’d finally split up—had
always bought me red roses whenever he wanted to “apologize” for a fight or for
some problem or another. Even before I’d gotten thoroughly sick of red roses
from Alex’s choice of them as his peace offering, I had never particularly
liked them. I steeled myself, taking a deep breath and closing the distance
between Zeke and me.

“Hi, Zeke; it’s good to see you again,” I
said, keeping my voice as optimistic and positive as possible.

“Natalie! Here, these are for you,” he
said, displaying the big, gaudy bouquet with a flourish in my direction. I
managed to keep the smile on my face, but my appetite began to leave me.

“I appreciate the thought,” I told him
levelly. I made myself take the bouquet. “They’re very lovely roses.” I’d
learned from experience that cutting directly to the criticism—even if I
phrased it as gently as possible—only made my clients defensive.

“I knew you’d love them,” Zeke said. I
glanced at his face and while he didn’t look quite as self-satisfied and
triumphant as he had a moment before, he still looked hopeful.

“If I can make a suggestion,” I said,
keeping my voice carefully pitched so that I wouldn’t sound whiny or bitchy or
any of the other things that men so often accuse women of being whenever they
criticize a gesture. “Flowers are wonderful, but I think that when you do go on
your real dates in the future, it would be a good idea for you to find out
which flowers your date specifically likes. It makes the gesture more
personal.” Zeke’s eyebrows came together in a quick frown.

“Flowers are flowers,” he said with a
shrug. “Besides, the florist said that this was their best bouquet.” I bit back
the comment that threatened to fly out of me—the florist had almost certainly
been lying to him about that; roses weren’t in season.

“Not all women love roses, though,” I
pointed out as gently as possible. “Some women are even allergic. So if you’re
going to bring someone a bouquet, try—and you won’t always be able to succeed
in this—but try to find out if she has a particular type of flower that she just
loves. It’ll really make a much bigger impact.” His frown deepened and I took a
deep breath as surreptitiously as possible.

“Don’t I at least get points for the
thought?”
It’s not worth making the whole
practice date awkward just to make the point to him. Revisit it later when he’s
more receptive.
I smiled up at Zeke.

“There really aren’t points, but I do
appreciate the gesture.” I glanced at the flowers; if I had actually liked red
roses, the bouquet would be impressive. “It’s a very nice bouquet,” I added,
smiling more. “Let’s go ahead and get inside and get this practice session
underway, shall we?
It’s going to take a
lot of work to teach him how to accept criticism from a woman he cares about,
I thought wryly.

Zeke held the door for me and I composed
myself as best as I could. The reminder of Alex had thrown me off a little bit.
It wasn’t Zeke’s fault that I had such a bad association with the bouquet he
had gotten for me. I had to be fair—he was trying to show that he was
interested in learning, and that was the important thing. As long as he
remained interested—and as long as he actually learned what I had to teach
him—he’d do well.

The hostess led us to the reserved table
and got some water for my bouquet, and Zeke and I settled into our seats. I was
determined to make the most out of the first practice date; it would take a
while to get through to Zeke, and I knew that, but if I could get some momentum
going and establish a rapport and a level of trust, then I thought—I hoped—that
I would be able to help him.

“I thought it might be easier if we both
went for the tasting menu here,” he told me. “That way we don’t have to spend
any time thinking about what to order; it’ll all just come out in courses.”

“That sounds good to me,” I agreed. When
the waiter arrived, Zeke told him that we were going to have the tasting menu,
with the suggested wine pairings, and in a matter of only a few moments, we
were once more alone with aperitifs in front of us. “So,” I said, taking a sip
of mine and setting it down. “I don’t believe we’ve talked about what you do
for work.”

“We haven’t,” Zeke agreed, looking almost
a little startled. “Well, as I’m sure you’ve probably already figured out, I
love my job.”

“Considering that you’ve been working so
hard at it that you haven’t had time for dating in all these years, I would
hope you love it,” I pointed out with a grin.

“I’m an executive, obviously,” he
explained. “The company I work for is basically a charity middleman. We get
funding and resources to charities around the world.”

“That must be very fulfilling work.”

“It really is. I like knowing that I’m not
just making money for shareholders, you know? I like the idea that I’m creating
some kind of positive impact in the world, even in my own way.” As he continued
to talk, I revised my opinion about Zeke Baxter a little bit; I had known he
was a businessman, and I’d known that he had all those traits that came along
with it—the intelligence, the drive, the ambition—but I hadn’t thought of him
having a desire to benefit the greater good.

The first course arrived as Zeke and I
continued to talk. It was the same kind of conversation that he could expect to
have with someone on a first date, which was exactly the way it was supposed to
be. I started to steer the conversation towards my feedback, starting as gently
as possible. “I think probably the biggest challenge you’re going to have to
deal with is the fact that you’ve been so professional for so long,” I told him
as someone switched out our plates.

“Is being professional bad?”

I shook my head. “Not in general,” I told
him, grinning. “But would you want a woman you’re actually dating to be
professional in her bearing towards you?”

Zeke considered that. “Probably not,” he
admitted, smiling slightly.

“You’d want her to be friendly, engaging,
and open, right?” He nodded.

“So you’re saying I’m going into this with
a transactional mindset,” he suggested.

“A little bit,” I agreed, holding up my
thumb and forefinger with maybe a quarter inch of space between them. “And, I
get why that’s your comfort zone, but if you really want to connect with
someone, you do need to learn how to interact with them as just…” I shrugged.
“Normal people. Like a friend, or eventually—hopefully—a girlfriend. A wife.”

“And, you think you can teach me that?”
Zeke’s lips twitched with amusement.

“I hope I can!” I laughed. “It’s not that
I want to change everything about you—there’d be no point in that. You can’t
change your entire personality in any permanent way; the real you will shine
through. But learning how to get out of that business mindset will help.”

“So how do I do that?”

I took a bite of the food on my plate and
gave myself a moment to actually savor it. If nothing else, I couldn’t deny
that Zeke had picked a great restaurant for our date.

“Start thinking about the personal,” I
suggested. “Talk about stuff that doesn’t actually matter.” I grinned. “The
weather. Music. How good the food is here, or what you did on the weekend.”

“Small talk?” Zeke looked slightly
doubtful.

“Oh come on—you have to have made small
talk before,” I said, shaking my head.

“I have, but it’s annoying.”

“Only if it’s bad small talk.” I thought
about how to prove my point and glanced around the room until my gaze fell on
one of the couples seated at another table. “What do you think their story is?”
I pointed carefully so I wouldn’t alert the couple to my notice. Zeke glanced
quickly in their direction and then turned his attention back onto his plate
for a moment to cover his look.

“No idea,” he said, shaking his head.

“You have to play along,” I told him
teasingly, keeping my voice low enough that it would travel beyond the table we
sat at. “Let’s see…hmmm.” I glanced at the couple again. “My guess is that
they’re European royalty, slumming it at a private restaurant like this,
fitting in with the upper-middle class. They’re trying to see ‘how the other
half lives.’” Zeke snorted.

“Or maybe they’re an old couple who saved
money all last year, and now they’re doing a tour around the US, hitting all of
the restaurants on the list of the best restaurants within their price range,”
he suggested.

“Good one!” We kept going, picking out
different patrons at the restaurant and making up stories for how they’d ended
up there, and I found myself relaxing more and more as Zeke got the hang of how
to actually have a conversation with someone that wasn’t business-oriented.

By the time Zeke paid the bill for the
tasting menu meal and we started towards the door to part ways, I thought to
myself that maybe it wouldn’t be so difficult to get through to him. Obviously
he could learn, and he could listen. Plus, he didn’t seem to be taking himself
as seriously as I originally thought. “I’m looking forward to our next
session,” I told him outside the entrance into Phenomenon.

“Me, too,” he said, reaching out and
giving my hand a quick squeeze. I still had the bouquet of roses—I’d almost
wanted to “forget” them at the table, but he had made a point of handing the
bouquet to me as we got up. “I’ll get in touch to confirm the next date,” he
said.

“Absolutely,” I agreed. “Get home safely.”
I watched him turn and walk away and went off in the opposite direction,
heading towards my car. I waited until I turned the corner—I didn’t even want
to risk Zeke seeing me—before I tossed the roses into a trash bin. He didn’t
need to know about it, I figured, and there was no way I was going to keep the
roses in my apartment.