Twenty-fifth birthday party? For some reason, I keep forgetting that my kitten’s almost a decade younger, with friends to match. I’m not exactly cradle-robbing here, but there is a definite difference between thirty-five and twenty-six. At my age, marriage and family are the norm, even in career-minded New York City, while most of Emma’s peers are too busy finding themselves to entertain such notions.
No wonder it’s so hard to get her to commit. She’s used to boys who don’t know what the fuck they want, not men who recognize a good thing when they see it.
“Well, you did amazing regardless. They all loved you,” I tell her, and it’s the truth. I suspected Ashton and the others would like Emma once they got to know her, but it took less than an hour for her to charm their socks off. Even notoriously stiff Bob Johnson was smiling by the end, and before he left, he gave me a verbal commitment for an additional $150 million—about $100 million more than I hoped to get from him at this stage.
My kitten didn’t just entertain him with small talk; she got him to increase his allocation to my fund.
“Really?” She raises her head and blinks owlishly. “I felt so clueless with all that finance talk around me. I thought for sure—”
A sneeze comes upon me so suddenly I barely have a chance to turn away. It’s immediately followed by another, and I realize what that tickling sensation in my nose means.
“Did you spray on some perfume tonight?” I ask nasally, grabbing a tissue from a box in the back and pressing it to my nose as I move away from Emma. My throat is itching now too, and my eyes are beginning to water; whatever my kitten used is potent stuff.
She looks startled. “Perfume? No, I can’t; my cats go crazy if I use anything with fragrance. I don’t even own perfume, and most of my products are unscented. Why, are you allergic?”
I sneeze again into the tissue. “I must be, at least to certain perfumes. Are you sure you didn’t use anything?” Now that I’m thinking about it, it is the first time I’ve smelled anything on Emma but her natural, delicately sweet scent.
“I’m certain.” Then her eyes go wide. “Oh, but I did hug Janie in the restroom, and she was covered in perfume. Maybe some of it got on me?”
“That must be it,” I say, pressing the button to lower the window. The chilly night air blows in, clearing away the flowery smell and easing the itching in my nose and throat.
“Ugh, I’m so sorry.” Emma scoots as far away from me as the car’s width allows. “Janie never used to wear perfume, claiming she was sensitive to the chemicals, but today, it was like she’d bathed in it.”
“It’s okay. Most women use that stuff. I’m glad you don’t.” In fact, that was one of my wife criteria—one I’d forgotten to tell Victoria about.
Emma smiles ruefully. “I would if I could. My cats don’t allow it. And now also you, I guess.”
“I’m glad your cats and I are on the same page.”
She laughs at my dry response, and I spend the rest of the ride on the other side of the car. Thankfully, the traffic is light at this hour, and it doesn’t take long to get home. Midway, I have to roll up the window to avoid freezing us both to death, and my nose is itching again by the time we roll up to my building.
“I’m going straight into the shower,” Emma says when I sneeze again while helping her out of the car. “Literally, the second we walk through the door. And I won’t wear these clothes again until they’ve been washed.”
“Good idea. I’ll ask Geoffrey to get your coat dry-cleaned too.” I have no idea if the perfume got on it as well, but I’m not about to risk it. Come to think of it, my clothes need to be decontaminated also, since Emma’s flowery-smelling hair was all over my shoulder.
I owe Emma’s cats for teaching her not to use this stuff, I really do.
* * *
All three of the fluffy beasts are waiting by the door when we walk in, and I see what Emma meant by “my cats go crazy.” As soon as we get inside, all three noses go up, sniffing the air, and furry backs start to curve. Cottonball hisses—actually hisses—at us before zooming away, and Mr. Puffs joins him with a furious yowl. Queen Elizabeth is the sole outlier; she stays, though her eyes are wild and her back is in a full arch as she stares at us, as if unsure whether to attack or run for her life.
“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” Emma tells her, taking off her coat and hanging it in the closet. “I’ll be more careful, I promise.”