“Oh, I’m right,” the clerk said grimly. “I’ve been with him for a few years now. Bruce Tompoulidis, by the way.”
“Nice to meet you. Good to know someone in there is going to be a friendly face.”
She turned to leave, but he spoke up again.
“Now that we’ve both escaped from hell but know we’re tragically doomed to go back to it in the morning, do you want to commiserate over a drink?”
That was smooth. She had always liked smooth. She had always felt smooth: legs waxed, nails polished, body kept taut and slender, skin kept flawless so she wouldn’t show her age. But now smoothness was exactly what she wanted to get away from. She thought of Martin offering her a brownie sundae in bed. The little crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes when he smiled.
He hadn’t known how to casually book a midday hotel room. He wasn’t smooth. He was smart and powerful and a good leader—he was more serious than smoothness would imply.
Martin looked like the kind of man you could grow old with. He looked like the kind of man who wouldn’t mind you growing old with him, even if you showed every single year of it.
Even without Martin shining out ahead of her like an oasis, Tiffani thought, she had too much baggage for this kid to carry around. What was he, thirty?
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said casually, adjusting her purse strap on her shoulder. “It’s a little late for me.”
Hard-earned experience had taught her that most of the time, outright refusing a date was a bad idea. Nice as he seemed, Bruce Tompoulidis could change on a dime, could slap her polite no away hard by calling her a self-centered spoiled bimbo (a regular phrase in the comments section of articles that mentioned her) and asking why she’d ever thought he was interested in the first place. Besides, if he wasn’t the type to turn mean, she could use a friend.
Bruce said nothing. Tiffani tried again.
“Rain check? No drinks tonight, but disbelieving eye contact tomorrow when McMillan is talking and maybe a cup of bad bailiff-special coffee?”
His smile tightened just a little. “Sure. If you like having the enamel stripped off your teeth, there’s nothing that beats courthouse coffee. But it would be a shame to do that to your smile.”
So it really had been a date invitation, then. And just a date invitation. Tiffani had never had a friendship kick off with comments on a pretty smile.
She gave him the smile, but this time she kept her lips closed. “Well, I’m a sucker for convenience. And it is right here.”
“Close by is always good,” Bruce agreed.
They stood awkwardly facing each other before he cleared his throat and muttered something too low for her to hear before shuffling off down the hall.
Great. She’d alienated him completely.
One time, Gordon had gotten mad at her for talking to one of his friends—a big, hammy-faced investment banker she wasn’t the least bit attracted to, a guy she only liked because he was the rare big money guy who was a family man at heart. There was something sweet about this guy who could have bought a small island waxing poetic about Saturday cookouts in the backyard and his kid’s art projects and his golden retriever’s ongoing efforts to learn how to shake hands.
“I was just being friendly,” she’d said to Gordon that night as he had fumed.
“Men don’t want to be friends with you, Tiffani,” he’d said.
“Some men might.”
“Why?” It had been the way he’d said it that had hurt her. If he had still sounded angry, she could have forgiven him for it, but he had said it so coldly, so... rationally. Why would a man want to be friends with her? That wasn’t what she was for.
She had tried to forget about it, but that was when she’d really understood the truth about her marriage. Once her looks started to fade, once she wasn’t fun anymore, once Gordon decided he was willing to take on the hassle of a second divorce... it would be over for them.
Because Gordon didn’t really like talking to her, and he couldn’t imagine that anyone else did, either.
Even Gordon had realized he’d gone too far that time, though in typical Gordon fashion he hadn’t apologized for it and had only tried to make it right by heaping presents on her. Diamond earrings after diamond necklace. His presents were always things to make her look prettier. But at least he had tried.
“Tiffani?”
She spun around, half-expecting to see Bruce again. But somewhere down deep inside her, she knew it wasn’t him. Somewhere down deep, she had already started to relax.
Martin.
Oh, she was in such trouble. Being this comfortable around him scared her half to death.