If he noticed, he didn’t let on.
“You look very handsome yourself,” I sat after he pulled out my chair for me.
And he did. He wore a very stylish suit. Expensive but not flashy. Well-tailored. No tie. He was clean shaven, his dark hair gelled to the side, not one strand out of place. There was a very large and pricey looking watch on his wrist. Nice hands. I knew if I looked at his palms that there wouldn’t be calluses from working on cars, no oil stains. He most likely got manicures.
“I took the liberty of ordering a bottle of wine for us.” He nodded to the bottle in the middle of the table. “So it has time to breathe.”
I bit the inside of my lip. It was a nice gesture. A romantic gesture. But what if I didn’t like wine? I didn’t want some pretentious bottle of wine that needed to breathe. I liked beer, I’d told him that, hadn’t I? Sure, wine was great too. But I liked the pink, chilled stuff. A red was great, too, but I usually kept it under fifteen dollars. Ranger and I had always kept a nice selection of faithful bottles in our rotation.
Admittedly, I wasn’t really worried about how the alcohol tasted lately, just how well it numbed.
But none of these things were appropriate to say on a first date. Nor was thinking about what Kace would’ve done for a first date. He’d probably take me on a picnic or stop by a food truck on a ride down the coast. That was definitely more my speed.
“That’s perfect,” I lied with a painted-on smile.
I tried to push away my irritation, focusing on putting my napkin on my lap, grabbing the menu and studying it.
I wondered if I could hide behind it the entire night.“I had a great time,” I voiced through gritted teeth.
It wasn’t a lie, exactly.
Okay, it was a total fucking lie. I didn’t have a great time. But that had nothing to do with him.
Okay, another lie.
It had a lot to do with him.
Not because he was a bad guy.
Or maybe because he wasn’t a bad guy. He was too ironed, perfumed, polite. With the wine, with him recommending what I should order that would pair well with the wine. Yuck.
He had asked me questions about myself, about my kids. I might’ve imagined the slightly snide look on his face when I’d told him I had been a stay-at-home mother all these years.
I’d asked him questions too. Mostly because I wanted to stop talking about myself, not because I really cared about his history.
He grew up in New York state, to what I could gather was a wealthy family. Had what seemed like a trouble-free upbringing. One brother, one sister. Went to college, law school. Worked in the city for years. Divorced. No kids. Always wanted them, apparently.
He came to Amber after his divorce because he needed to slow down. He was adjusting to Amber well, at least that’s what he said. Though I got the impression small town life didn’t exactly suit him.
There were no awkward silences throughout the date. He seemed genuinely interested in me. Seemed to like me.
“It was an enchanting evening,” he responded as he walked me to my car.
Ugh. Enchanting? Who said that unsarcastically?
I dug through my purse for my keys, cursing myself for not doing it sooner because now he’d have an excuse to linger by my car. It wasn’t exactly late, but there’d been three courses. Then after dinner coffee. So the parking lot was emptying, and there weren’t many cars around where I’d parked.
“I’d love to do it again sometime soon, maybe next week?” Edmond asked, hand on the small of my back as it had been since we’d left the restaurant.
I moved so my back faced the car, getting away from his touch, my hands thankfully finding the keys.
“Yeah, I’ll have to check the kids’ schedule,” I hedged, smiling. “The joys of motherhood, my time is not my own.”
He smiled back. His teeth were too white. “I’d love to meet them sometime.”
No way. “Um, yeah. I’m kind of... protective over them. With everything that happened. It’s not personal.”
He nodded. “Of course. I’m getting ahead of myself.” His eyes flickered over my body before he met my eyes again. “I really do hope that I’ll meet them. That we continue this. You’re a beautiful woman, Elizabeth.”
That was another thing. I’d told him at least three times over all of our interactions to call me Lizzie. He was like my mother who had a strong distaste for Lizzie. For any casual nicknames, really. She’d named me after a regal woman, and regal women were not called Lizzie, apparently.
I swallowed roughly. Crap. He was going in for a kiss. My entire body recoiled from just the thought. Which was insane. He was an attractive, polite and cultured man. So much safer and more responsible than what I was used to. Unlikely to be killed by multiple gunshot wounds.