“I’ll try not to be smug.” He handed her one of the cups. “Earl Grey. With a slice of lemon.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“I never joke about beverages, especially after the week I’ve had. Caffeine is my drug of choice, during the daytime at least.”
She watched as Brutus and Valentine played together. “We can let the dogs off the lead here.”
“Brutus isn’t good at coming back when he’s called.”
“He’ll come back if Valentine is here.”
He evaluated the risk and then unclipped the lead. “You’d better be right about this or I have a feeling that the next time I see him I’m going to be picking him up from New Jersey.”
“He’ll come. Watch. Valentine!”
Valentine skidded to a halt and turned to look at her. Then he shot toward her and Brutus followed.
“Good boy.” She made a fuss and sent him off again.
“Do you have that effect on all guys?”
“Always.” She peeled the top off her cup to cool the tea. “I can’t believe we’re sitting on a bench in Central Park and I’m drinking Earl Grey tea with lemon.” She sat next to him on the bench, leaving enough space between them to be sure her leg wouldn’t accidentally brush against his. If talking to him had this effect on her, she didn’t want to risk touching. “D
o you ever take no for an answer?”
“Only when no is the answer I want. And in this case it wasn’t.”
Laughter drifted across to them and she glanced up and saw a woman in a long white bridal dress embracing a man in a suit while a photographer snapped away. The couple staged a few intimate embraces and Molly wished they’d picked a different place for their photos. The scene made her feel awkward. It didn’t feel as if it was something she should be witnessing, especially not with a stranger.
“Never understood the point of that.” Daniel stretched out his legs, as relaxed as she was tense. “Staged photos. As if they need to make a public statement about how happy they are.”
“Maybe they are happy.”
“Maybe.” He turned his head to look at her. “You believe in Happy Ever After?”
There was something about the intensity of that gaze that made it hard to remember what she believed about anything.
“Of course.” She believed in it for other people, just not for herself. Happy Ever After Together was her goal for other people. Her own goal was Happy By Herself. And she was doing well with that. “I guess it’s a good time of year for wedding photos. The blossom is pretty.”
“Let’s hope they don’t look back on those photos in five years’ time and think, ‘what the hell were we thinking?’”
It was exactly the sort of remark she might have made herself, except in her case she would have also been wondering how they met and what they had in common. Would it last?
“I gather you’re not married.” She took a sip of her tea, thinking that a man like him, who probably had the pick of women, was unlikely to tie himself to just one.
“I’m not married. How about you? Have you left some guy sated and exhausted in the bedroom?”
“Ten guys. There’s a chance they may never recover. If they’re still there when I get home, I’m calling an ambulance.”
He laughed. “The moment I laid eyes on you, I knew that about you. If you’re ever looking for one guy to replace the ten, you know where I am.”
“You have the stamina of ten?”
“Want to test it out?”
“Not right now.” This was the type of exchange she was comfortable with. The type that went nowhere and was all superficial. And he was good at it. Good at that breathless, heady flirtation that was as light as a butterfly and just as unlikely to linger in one spot. “How about you? Do you have ten women waiting at home?”
“I hope not. I’m pretty sure I locked the door.”