Dirty: The Complete Series (Secret Baby Romance Love Story) (128 page)

“Why not?” She didn’t look exactly hurt so
much as perplexed.

“Because I do need to have a good bit in
common with someone I’m seeing to feel like I’m in a good relationship,” I
replied. “I’m an independent person, too—but part of the reason why I’ve
decided to use the matchmaking service is that I feel like I want more than my
independent life.”

“We could find a happy medium,” she
suggested. “Commit to doing a certain number of things together every week.”

“That feels like it’s forcing something,”
I told her. “It feels like we’d be trying so hard to make a relationship happen
that it wouldn’t even be worth it—for either of us.” I gave her a sympathetic
smile. “For both of us,I think we deserve someone who’s exactly what we want
and need—don’t you?” Chelsea thought about that for a moment.

“I can definitely see the benefit in
finding someone who’s a little better suited towards me in terms of things he
likes and dislikes,” she finally admitted. “Thank you for being honest with me.
I appreciate it.”

“Thank you for being honest with me, too,”
I said, rising from the bench and getting my keys out of my pocket. “I’m sure
on your list somewhere, there’s a great guy who loves books and educational TV,
who loves to go hiking and get active. Katie’s great at what she does.” Chelsea
nodded again, and we shook hands once more.

I walked away from the restaurant feeling
more frustrated than ever; it was hard to think that I would eventually find
someone—other than Natalie—who could possibly be perfect for me. I got into my
car and tried my best not to compare the two women; it wasn’t as if I had a
chance with Natalie, and even if things had been okay with Chelsea, I knew it
wouldn’t work out in the long run. I’d have to try again.

Chapter
Thirty Five

Natalie

“You’re much better looking than I would
have expected for a dating coach,” my new client Ethan Johns said as he looked
me up and down from across the table. I smiled, trying to keep the pounding of
my head as under control as possible. Ethan was as far away from Nathan as any
of my clients possibly could have been in terms of how he looked, but the
combination of a similar name and a tone in his voice that told me that Ethan was
unlikely to listen to any of my feedback made me wary—and he was my first new
client after the assault, to boot.

“Katie gave you the speech of not
expecting to be attracted to me because that’s not the point, I take it,” I
said. Ethan nodded.

“From that…I guess I just figured you’d be
a grandmother or something.” Ethan was a thin reed of a guy, with scraggly
facial hair and bottle-green eyes that bugged out slightly. He was dressed in a
dress shirt and khaki pants, which was decent—if not particularly stylish—for
the restaurant we’d agreed to meet at.

“Not a grandmother,” I said, keeping my
smile in place.
He’s awkward. You knew
that going into this. Don’t hold it against him.
“So, what do are you
looking to gain from this coaching arrangement? Other than—obviously—the
ability to be matched with other women.”

“I guess I’m just…” he shrugged. “I’ve
never really been that great at flirting, which doesn’t make it all that easy
to date.”

“Flirting is easier than you think,” I
told him. “It’s mostly a matter of not taking a conversation too seriously.”

“You can teach me how to flirt?” He raised
an eyebrow. “Not a single one of my friends has ever been able to get it across
to me.”

“Trained professional here,” I said,
jokingly gesturing to myself. “If flirting is part of what you feel you need to
be a better date, we’ll work on it.” Almost unbidden, I thought about my last
new client—about Nathan. I pushed the idea of him out of my head, reminding
myself that Ethan was a new client, and that he’d shown no signs of being
aggressive; if anything, Ethan seemed to have the opposite problem: he was too
passive.

I began to relax, bit by bit, as the lunch
meeting wore on. Ethan obviously overthought things, like more than one of my
other clients. Even when he began to open up a bit and wind down, he seemed to
think about and discard at least three different things before opening his
mouth to say something. In spite of the promise I’d made to myself more than
once to never compare one client to another while I was in session, I found
myself thinking about Zeke.
Zeke wasn’t
perfect when we started—and he still isn’t—but he at least had some natural
charm, even if he was kind of oblivious and over-confident…
I stopped that
line of thought. Ethan’s issues with dating were totally different from Zeke’s
problems. Ethan was a different person completely.

I had to make myself focus. I took a quick
breath and a sip from my glass of water. “What are some date ideas that you can
see yourself enjoying? Obviously, we want to create situations where you can
shine, and go from there,” I told Ethan. He shrugged.

“I guess…I like going to poetry readings,”
he said tentatively. “But everyone I know outside of the readings thinks
they’re boring.”

“The idea would be for us to connect you
with someone who shares your interests—so if you like poetry readings, we’ll
work on finding you a woman who also does,” I explained. “What else sounds
good?”

“I don’t want you to be bored, or think
that going somewhere with me is annoying,” he told me. I resisted the urge to
roll my eyes, or to sigh. Ethan would need careful handling, especially since I
was fairly certain that he’d had to deal with being laughed at pretty
frequently by women he had been interested in before. It was easy to figure out
why he’d gone about using the matchmaking service: he wanted an easy way to
find someone to be with, without risking rejection.

“I have a lot of interests, Ethan,” I said
simply. “I really doubt that I’m going to be bored or think that something you
want to do is annoying.”
But the habit of
constantly excusing yourself and making disclaimers might do that,
I
thought grimly. I would have to help him break himself of the constant
almost-apologies he made; no matter how patient, no woman he dated would be able
to handle that tendency for very long, even if she herself did it.

“We could go to the science museum,” he
suggested.

“That sounds great!” I caught sight of
movement in the corner of my vision but ignored it. The restaurant was starting
to get busier. I reminded myself to pay attention to Ethan, to block everything
else out. “How do you feel about art museums?”

“I like them,” he said, making the reply
almost a question.

“We could also try one of those studios
that lets you paint your own crafts, or somewhere that lets you work with
clay,” I pointed out. “That would be something that isn’t too socially
demanding, but where you can enjoy yourself.”

“Maybe we could go to the planetarium?” I
considered that; I wouldn’t have really thought about it as a potential date,
but Ethan obviously leaned towards academic interests, so it would be a decent
thing for him to do to spend time with someone he wanted to be with, and a good
litmus test for a woman he would date.

“Absolutely,” I said. I heard something
and in spite of having told myself to pay attention to Ethan to the exclusion
of everything else going on around me, I turned my head.

Someone was advancing towards the table I
sat at, dressed in jeans and a tee shirt, practically running through the
dining room. One of the waiters tried to intercept the man, but got shoved into
another table for his troubles. I looked up at the face of the person coming at
me and immediately recognized Nathan. “Shit.”

“What? What’s wrong?” Ethan turned to look
over his shoulder and blanched. “Who’s that?”

“It’s an asshole ex-client,” I told Ethan
quickly. “Do me a favor and call the police, okay?”

“I—I—okay,” Ethan said, reaching into his
pocket for his cell phone. I stood up from the table, throwing my napkin down
and stepping away from my seat.

“You bitch!” I put my arms up in front of
me slightly, remembering some of the self-defense lessons I’d taken in the
weeks since I’d had my first altercation with Nathan during our first meeting.
“I just got lawsuit papers from your agency! You drop that fucking suit or I
swear…”

Nathan closed the distance between us,
lunging at me, and I heard Ethan saying something on his phone. “Nathan, if you
don’t want to make everything worse for yourself, I’d recommend you leave right
the fuck now,” I said, sidestepping his grab for me.

“I’m not leaving until I hear you say
you’re going to make that dumb bitch boss of yours drop the suit!” Nathan’s
hand grabbed at my wrist, and I clenched my teeth as he squeezed.
Remember what the trainer said: use his own
momentum against him. Remember: SING.
I struggled to keep out of the range
of Nathan’s other hand, but to get in where I could hit at one of his
vulnerable spots. I twisted around and brought the heel of my foot down on what
I hoped was his instep—and Nathan shouted in pain, snatching at my hair with
his other hand even as he brought his aching foot up. I let him grab my hair
and moved in closer, pulling my elbow up to slam it into his solar plexus—at
least, I hoped I could hit that particular bundle of nerves.

We struggled like that for what felt like
an eternity, with Nathan trying to slam me onto the ground, trying to hurt me,
and me scuffling and twisting to stay out of his ability to disable me, even
while I tried to disable him. Someone other than Ethan must have called the
cops at the same time—or they must have called when they first spotted Nathan
storming into the restaurant—because I could hear sirens, cutting through the
din of startled conversations all around me and the heavy breathing and curses
that came from Nathan.

I managed to hit his nose hard enough to
make him let go of me and kneed him in the groin, and Nathan went down,
knocking me onto the floor with his heavier weight. I somehow managed to
scramble free and lurch back into my chair as one of the waiters pinned Nathan
where he was on the ground. “Sorry about that, Ma’am,” the waiter said, looking
up at me with a rueful smile on his face. “He got past me too quick.”

“Thanks for helping, anyway,” I told him. I
ached—my knee, my ankle, where I’d injured myself before, throbbed, and I was
pretty sure that Nathan had managed to yank some of the hair out of my head in
our struggle. The police came and I looked at Ethan, just moments away from
shaking to pieces, and told them I’d answer their questions outside.

Just like before, I answered their
questions and told them moment-by-moment what had happened and how it had gone
down. The police apparently had cross-referenced Nathan’s ID with a database
somewhere, so they knew that he had been involved in a previous altercation
with me. “If you want to file for a protective order…” I shook my head.

“He doesn’t have the sense to stay away
from me when he’s got criminal charges and a civil suit against him. I doubt
he’d obey a restraining order,” I pointed out.

“You’re probably right,” the officer
admitted. “But all the same, it’s good documentation to have. Consider
requesting one—I’ll back you in court.”

“Thanks,” I said, feeling exhausted. “Is
there anything else you need from me?”

“If you develop any bruises, take some
pictures of them and send them to us,” the police officer told me. “We can add
them to the file.” I told him I’d do just that and said goodbye to Ethan, who
looked more shaken up even than I was—and I was plenty shaken.

I didn’t know what to do with myself. My
hands felt numb and tingly at the same time, my heart was still pumping in my
chest, and I wasn’t sure if my brain was up to the task of navigating the
traffic. I couldn’t call my parents, all of my friends would be at work, and
there was so much to do—even with the police up to speed on the situation—that
for a moment after they left I just stood in front of the restaurant,
bewildered.

Somehow, my phone was in my hand before I
even knew what I was doing. I scrolled through my contact list until I fell on
Zeke’s name. I hesitated for a fraction of an instant before tapping call, and
closed my eyes as I waited for my phone to connect, leaning against the
exterior wall of the restaurant. The management had—predictably—comped the
meal, and the police had said that they would call Katie for me. I wanted to go
home, to rest, and to get over the intense adrenaline surging through my veins,
but I didn’t trust myself to drive home just yet. The only person I could think
of to talk to was Zeke.

“Natalie? What’s up?” My eyes stung and
tingled, and I heard myself sob.

“I got attacked again,” I said. “Nathan—he
came to where I was having my date with a new client.”

“Fuck—are you hurt? Are you okay?” His
voice cracked with concern, and I found myself crying harder.

“I’m okay. I’m okay,” I confirmed. “The
police have taken him back to county.” I smiled even through my tears. “I
managed to get him on the ground and a waiter kept him pinned there.”

“Good job! Where are you now?”

“Still at the restaurant,” I said,
laughing bitterly. “My hands… I’m shaking. I guess I’ll have to call a cab or
something.”