Bachelor Number Four (5 page)

He might have been going for pity, but Arden didn’t have much for him. Being dumped at the altar somehow, in her book, didn’t quite compare with losing your spouse to cancer. Still, she had agreed to go on this date and making the best of things was better than focusing on the negative, or so she’d always tried to tell her kids. Funny how much harder that could be than expected.

“So, Greg. What do you do in Doug’s office?”

He launched into a complicated but blessedly brief description involving integers and statistics and the conversation soon trailed off, but the food arrived, so the next few minutes were taken up by eating.

“My salad is delicious. How’s your steak?”

Greg nodded around a mouthful of red meat. “It’s okay. I haven’t had much of an appetite…since…you know.”

Arden watched him polish off an entire steak and a side of broccoli smothered in butter without even pausing to breathe. If that was not having an appetite, she didn’t want to see him when he was hungry. She was being uncharitable, but Greg’s sad-sack routine had worn thin within five minutes.

She’d never been so glad to see a check arrive in her life.

“I’ll be right back to get that,” said the waiter.

Arden waited, but Greg didn’t reach for the paper. He just sat, staring at her. Arden looked down at the check, a scant inch from Greg’s fingers. He didn’t move.

“I’ll get this,” she said and snatched up the paper, anxious to get out of there.

“No, you don’t have to.” But he didn’t reach to take it from her, just sat back and bored holes in her boobs with his eyes.

“Nope. Got it.” Arden stood, calculating a tip she knew was too generous, but not wanting to take the time to figure out the right amount. She dug out a twenty and some change from her purse and handed it to the startled waiter. “Keep the change. Greg, it’s been nice—”

“I’ll walk you to your car.”

Deep breath, Arden.
“Okay.”

Once there, he followed her around to the driver’s side and stood so close she couldn’t open the door without smacking him in the knees. “Thanks for lunch. I didn’t expect you to treat me.”

Sure you didn’t, buddy.
“No problem.”

He was on her so fast she didn’t have time to get away. Trapped between the car and his saggy trying-to-watch-my-carbs gut, Arden had no room to move. Greg’s face loomed in front of her like a scene from a very bad B-movie, the leer on his lips as unmistakable as the gleam of lust in his eyes.

Arden managed to duck the kiss at the last possible second, so his mouth landed on the corner of hers instead of full-on. She’d been trying to catch it with her cheek. As it was, his mouth squirmed on her skin like a worm on a hook, and—oh, mercy, yuck, oh no—she felt the tentative tickle of his tongue before he withdrew in apparent surprise at her ducking maneuver.

He didn’t pull away far enough for her to escape. Despite what he’d said about garlic making him bloat, he must have had some of it sometime recently because she smelled it on his breath. His body pressed against hers as he pinned her with his gaze.

“I don’t have to be back at the office for another half-hour,” Greg whispered.

“Greg?”

Now he smiled, a dreamy yet lascivious grin that turned her stomach. “Yes?”

“If you don’t get off me in three seconds, I’m going to knee you in the nuts.”

He stepped away from her, hands up, like she’d threatened to shoot him. Which wouldn’t have been a bad idea either, Arden thought. She wiped his slime from her face and fixed him with a level glare.

“I’m not sure exactly what made you think I was willing to hop into bed with you after knowing you for oh, let’s see—” she looked at her watch, “—one hour and seven minutes. But you’re so wrong, if wrong were rain, we’d be building an ark.”

For an instant, anger flashed in his eyes, but maybe the pity-me routine had worked for him too many times before. Greg’s brow creased and he frowned.

“Sure. I get it.” He sighed. “I should’ve known better. I mean, after what happened to me, I should’ve known. I don’t expect you to understand…”

His sob-story persona had been working her nerves from the beginning, but now, with his garlic stench still clinging to her nostrils, Arden’s temper exploded.

“What don’t I understand? Why your fiancée left you? If you behaved with her the way you acted with me, that’s easy to figure out. But if you’re saying I don’t understand what it’s like to lose somebody you love, then you are riding the bus down Wrong Street again. My husband died, Greg. Died. He didn’t run off, didn’t cheat on me, didn’t find someone he liked better. He died.”

Arden paused to take a breath, realized her hands were clenched, and unclenched them. She calmed herself. “My advice to you would be get over it, move on, and quit trying to play the wounded soldier to get a sympathy fuck. It’s not a pretty sight.”

And, leaving him to stand gape-mouthed on the corner, Arden got into her car and drove away.

Chapter Four

“Don’t ask,” she said later to Lida on the phone while she washed the dinner dishes. “I already talked to Heather about disaster date two. She’s promised to buy me cheesecake to make up for it.”

“That bad, huh? Hold on a minute. Henry, put that screwdriver back where you found it! Sorry, Arden. Anyway, that bad?”

Arden looked at her two angels, each ensconced in her favorite chair, doing homework. She laughed at the vision of the chaos reigning in Lida’s house. “Yes. That bad.”

“You’re laughing. It couldn’t be that bad. Henry! Cats do not like to wear underpants!”

“You’d better go.”

Lida sighed. “I’m going to beat that child.”

“You won’t, and you know it.”

“He’s a terror.”

“And you love him.”

Lida laughed. “Yes. I do. But I’d better go before he destroys something. Tell me about your date later, okay?”

“Sure.”

Arden hung up and helped Aislin and Maeve finish their assignments. They played a quick game of Clue before bed, she read a chapter of
Mary Poppins
, and then the lights went out, her children slept, and she went downstairs to grab a few minutes of work time before going to sleep herself.

Before a few weeks ago, she hadn’t logged in to Connex in over a year and yet here she was, once again opening her browser window and staring at status updates from a bunch of people she didn’t really care about. She even had a bunch of unanswered connection requests and some invitations to events long over…but though it had been two weeks since her last correspondence with Shane, there were no new messages. She’d been half expecting him to message her, even though she hadn’t replied to his last one. Now her fingers itched to type a reply, but she resisted.

“No game playing,” she told herself. Of course she’d told herself that about him many times in the past and had let herself get swept up with the sort of mindfuck he’d favored…but that was a long time ago. Things had changed.

She
had changed.

Her computer chirped. At the bottom right corner of the Connex page, a small button blinked.

User erectorset1241 has sent you an instant message. Do you wish to accept it?

Arden hardly ever used her instant messaging program and hadn’t even known anyone could ping her through Connex. But it was him, Shane Donner, the man she didn’t want to remember and had never been able to forget. Her fingers moved the mouse to hover over the Deny button, to delete the message. Ignore it. With a twist of her wrist, she changed her answer to Accept.

erectorset1241: I hear the Come Inn has great midday rates.

She stared at the screen, pulse quickening. The words twisted her stomach, and not totally in dismay. He’d remembered, but why shouldn’t he? They’d been his words, way back when.

“We’ll end up sneaking around in hotel rooms when we’re in our thirties,” he’d told her when she said she was going to marry Jason.

“I hope not,” had been her reply. “Because that means everything I’m hoping to have in my life will have been a lie.”

She’d just turned thirty-four. He’d have turned the same age this past July. She wasn’t angry that he was trying to see if she remembered the last words they’d shared. She was furious he’d assume she’d be willing to cheat on her husband.

He didn’t know about Jason, of course. Couldn’t. Shane was being his typical self, cocky and arrogant, teasing her into a conversation she knew she shouldn’t have. If he thought she was married, he’d be testing her to see how far he could get her to go.

A full minute had passed while she processed his words and thought about deleting them. And yet, when she moved the mouse to the small red “x” at the top of the message window, she couldn’t quite do it.

The pure and dirty fact was that she
wasn’t
married any longer. And even now, years later, with a good marriage and a hundred thousand wonderful memories filling her brain, she still had room to remember the brief time she’d spent with Shane. Good sex—really, really good sex—was hard to forget. Almost as hard to forget as first love. She wouldn’t have said she loved him, knew he hadn’t loved her, but they’d been tied together for that time and forged a tenuous but powerful link that had never quite broken.

It hadn’t been love, but it had been something strong enough to make her wonder…what if?

There was no reason for her not to flirt with him now. No reason to pretend she wasn’t curious about him. Her time with Shane had been a roller-coaster ride, all high peaks and deep valleys, screaming with the wind whipping her hair. The question she needed to ask herself was clear: was she ready to get back on the roller coaster?

Arden paused, trying to think of what to type, how to respond. What to give him…and what to keep for herself.

shesewsbuttons: Shane?

erectorset1241: I’m flattered you didn’t forget me.

shesewsbuttons: Don’t fish for compliments.

erectorset1241: Would I do that?

She laughed despite herself.
Yes. You haven’t changed.

erectorset1241: Everyone changes, Arden.

Yes,
she typed.
They do.

erectorset1241: Have you?

That was a loaded question. She couldn’t automatically presume to know the answer he wanted, so she went with truth. More games, annoying but so familiar. Her heart raced, just a little. That was familiar too.

shesewsbuttons: Of course. I’m older now. Got married. Had kids. You know, living the American Dream. You?

erectorset1241: I’m not the angst-ridden, melancholy playboy you remember.

She smiled as the words appeared on the screen.
No?

erectorset1241: Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not that bad boy anymore.

shesewsbuttons: I’m not disappointed. Bad boys get into trouble.

erectorset1241: Trouble like trying to convince you to sneak away with me for some afternoon delight?

What a bold bastard. It was the perfect time to tell him the truth about Jason, to see how quickly his flirting ended when he learned she was, indeed available for afternoon, morning or evening delight. He’d only ever wanted her when he couldn’t have her, and Arden all at once didn’t want him to stop wanting her. Not yet. It felt too good to flirt. She thought of her dream, and how his eyes had locked with hers while they made love.

shesewsbuttons: Trouble exactly like that. But you don’t even know me anymore.

erectorset1241: Saw your profile picture. You haven’t changed.

Oh, but she had, right? She was a different woman now, wasn’t she? So why then did she feel like everything with him was still the same and always would be?

shesewsbuttons: I doubt your wife would approve.

erectorset1241: You should know better than that. I’m not married.

shesewsbuttons: Girlfriend?

erectorset1241: Ha, ha. Hell no.

shesewsbuttons: Why hell no?

erectorset1241: I don’t have time for a girlfriend.

shesewsbuttons: But you have time to sneak off to motel rooms with married women?

erectorset1241: I could make time for that.

Arden drew in a breath, frowning, and stared at the screen.
Well, I can’t.
I’ve never cheated on my husband, I would never do something like that. With anyone. Ever.

The cursor blinked at her for a long moment before his reply showed up.

erectorset1241: Understood. What makes you think I’m asking you to?

Had she missed something? She scrolled upward to reread the previous text. It was easy to misinterpret words unaccompanied by expression and inflection, but she was pretty sure she hadn’t mistaken his flirting.

shesewsbuttons: I figured that was a pretty clear invitation.

erectorset1241: You need a better sense of humor then.

She went from amusement to anger as fast as it took her to read those eight words, and that, too, was a familiar memory of her time with him.

shesewsbuttons: My sense of humor is fine.

erectorset1241: Then maybe a reality check. We were over more than twelve years ago. I’ve moved on.

Now that out-and-out pissed her off, and her fingers flew across the keyboard, uncensored.

I didn’t know you could get over something that never existed.
Ouch, cold. But she didn’t care. Let him flirt with her, then turn surly when he thought she was turning him down. What an arrogant prick, she thought, fuming, waiting for him to reply.

He didn’t. Instead, her computer notified her
That user is no longer online.

“Coward!” She spoke too loudly in the quiet nighttime house. “Stupid jerk!”

And she was stupid for letting him get to her. Arden scowled. She ought to have told him the truth, instead of letting him think she was married. It would have completely cleared up the whole misunderstanding.