15
“So, who’s this Adam bloke?”
Four hours after I had been blindsided by my mother, I was blindsided again by the first question out of Xavier Parker’s mouth once we were seated at Doro, the restaurant Xavi had wanted to try the first night we ran into each other.
Honestly, I sort of felt blindsided every time I saw Xavier. He just seemed to have that effect on me.
Texts from Kate assured me that our mother left soon after I did, but I couldn’t shake the icky feeling in my stomach when I thought of her insistence on hugging Sofia. Everything about it felt wrong.
Maybe that was why I had spent close to three hours at home getting ready for this little dinner of ours after teaching a particularly vicious dance class. Whatever good that did me. A long soak in the bathtub didn’t do a whole lot for my anxiety either. Neither did taking the extra time to shave every inch of my body, giving myself a full manicure and pedicure, nor setting my wayward hair into hot curlers so they would tumble over my shoulders in silky spirals.
Still, I was determined to face Xavier with my best foot forward, and that meant not looking like a mop. And so, when I reached the restaurant in my favorite Ralph Lauren cigarette pants that I’d snagged at Century 21, a green blouse that made my eyes pop, and the black stilettos I saved for special occasions, I thought I looked pretty good. Not like a date, but something stronger. Something that would make me look and feel like I was supposed to be at a table with a restaurant tycoon bargaining for my child’s wellbeing.
It made me feel like I couldn’t fail. Or at least that I might have a chance.
That was before I saw him, dressed as impeccably as always in black pants and a burnt-orange V-neck sweater that, even under his wool coat, emphasized the flat muscles of his chest in ways that should have been illegal. He was pacing outside the restaurant like a tiger instead of sitting at a table like I had expected. He didn’t see me—probably because he was intently shouting into his phone.
“I told him to stop calling me, Jag,” he snapped. “Again and again. What in the bloody hell doesn’t he understand about ‘I don’t want anything the fuck to do with you,’ eh? Tell me that!”
Another pace or two led him away from the restaurant, where he stopped at the curb, looking like he wanted to throw his phone directly into oncoming traffic.
“No, I don’t. I said I don’t…well, tell Henry Parker again if he wanted that so badly, maybe he should have sniffed around more than my dad’s money during the past thirty-two fucking years. I’ve got my own life to worry about. And it doesn’t involve him!”
He appeared to end the call, then shoved his phone into his jacket pocket before staring up at the awning over the restaurant and yelling “FUCK!” loud enough to startle several passersby.
Nervously, I inched closer. “Xavier? Are—are you all right?”
He swung around as if startled and stared at me like I was a ghost. “How long have you been standing there?”
I looked around, as if the street corner might help answer that question. “I, um. A few moments. Not long.”
He frowned, then closed his eyes and expelled a long sigh through his nose. When he opened his eyes again, they managed to glimmer blue even through the night air.
“I’m all right,” he said, more to himself than to me, and then strode abruptly to the restaurant door and opened it without another word, waiting impatiently for me to walk through.
Was I supposed to be grateful he had even opened the door for me at all?
Honestly, I would have taken a basic “hello” instead.
We were escorted to a small table in the center of the bustling restaurant and handed two menus containing a short list of a la carte items and a few other things in Japanese I didn’t understand.
That was when Xavier asked the question.
I looked up from the menu. It didn’t matter. I didn’t know what to order anyway. “Adam—oh, you mean my coworker?”
“Humph,” he grunted.
“He’s just a friend. Actually, he thinks he knows you. You didn’t go to Eton, did you?”
Xavier frowned and stiffened. But before he could answer, a waiter appeared carrying a small clipboard. “Hi, all. Welcome to Doro. Have you been in before?”
“No, we haven’t,” I started with a kind smile. I tried to be nice to service workers.
Xavier clearly did not.
“We’ll start with the tofu foie gras,” he said without even looking at the server. “And then the kaiseki menu. For two.”
I glanced back at the menu and immediately balked. “Um, Xavi, the kaiseki menu is six courses.”