BACHELOR NUMBER FOUR Read online

  "Try not to break his heart," she said.

  * * * *

  "So..." Arden trailed off, looking at the menu, while she tried to think of something to say. Greg hadn't stopped staring at her since the moment she'd introduced herself to him. She could still feel his eyes burning a hole in the top of her head. "The pasta looks good."

  "Garlic makes me bloat."

  Startled at such an intimate revelation, Arden looked up. "Oh. Um. Well, maybe you'd better stay away from the pasta then."

  Greg glanced at his own menu. "I'm going to order the low-carb special. I'm trying to watch my carbs."

  "Ah." Arden looked again at the menu, still feeling his intense gaze on her. "I think I'll try the grilled chicken salad."

  With that decided, she put aside the menu and sipped from her iced tea. The lunch crowd at the restaurant was bustling and a bit noisy, but since Greg wasn't saying anything, she didn't have to strain to hear him. Arden tapped another sugar packet into her glass and squeezed a few more drops of lemon, though the tea had been fine before.

  If I look up and he's still staring...

  "Heather says you're a seamstress."

  Relief that he'd finally chosen to have a conversation made Arden answer too brightly. "Yes. Yep. Sure am."

  Great, now I sound like Miss Susie Sunshine. She smiled at Greg, her teeth gritted. His return smile seemed forced.

  "My ex liked to knit."

  Arden sighed inside, but kept up her smile. "Really? I never learned how."

  "She used to make me scarves."

  "Ah."

  Greg drank from his glass. Water dribbled over his chin and he wiped it away with the back of his hand. His gaze still pierced her. "I didn't expect you to be so pretty."

  "What?" Arden tucked her hair behind her ears. "Oh, well. Thanks."

  "Heather told me you were pretty, but I didn't believe her. I mean, I didn't think you'd really be pretty. But you are."

  "I guess you got lucky." Arden's laugh sounded hollow.

  Greg didn't smile at her admittedly poor sense of humor. "She didn't tell you I was cute, did she?"

  He sounded so sure she'd say no that Arden felt compelled to answer, "Of course she did."

  Greg sighed. "She told you what happened to me, didn't she? How Jennifer ran off with her ex the day we were supposed to get married?"

  Ouch. "Yes. She told me. I'm sorry, Greg."

  Another sigh lifted his shoulders. "It's okay. I guess I should be past it by now."

  He might have been going for pity, but Arden didn't have much for him. Being dumped at the altar somehow, in her book, didn't quite compare with losing your spouse to cancer. Still, she had agreed to go on this date and wanted to make the best of things.

  "So, Greg. What do you do in Doug's office?"

  He launched into a complicated but blessedly brief description involving integers and statistics, and the conversation soon trailed off, but the food arrived, so the next few minutes were taken up by eating.

  "My salad is delicious. How's your steak?"

  Greg nodded around a mouthful of red meat. "It's okay. I haven't had much of an appetite...since...you know."

  Arden watched him polish off an entire steak and a side of broccoli smothered in butter without even pausing to breathe. If that was not having an appetite, she didn't want to see him when he was hungry. She was being uncharitable, but Greg's Sad Sam routine had worn thin within five minutes.

  She'd never been so glad to see a check arrive in her life.

  "I'll be right back to get that," said the waiter.

  Arden waited, but Greg didn't reach for the paper. He just sat, staring at her. Arden looked down at the check, a scant inch from Greg's fingers. He didn't move.

  "I'll get this," she said and snatched up the paper, anxious to get out of there.

  "No, you don't have to." But he didn't reach to take it from her, just sat back and bored holes in her boobs with his eyes.

  "Nope. Got it." Arden stood, calculating a tip she knew was too generous, but not wanting to take the time to figure out the right amount. She dug out a twenty and some change from her purse and handed it to the startled waiter. "Keep the change. Greg, it's been nice--"

  "I'll walk you to your car."

  Deep breath, Arden. "Okay."

  Once there, he followed her around to the driver's side and stood so close she couldn't open the door without smacking him in the knees. "Thanks for lunch. I didn't expect you to treat me."

  Sure you didn't, buddy. "No problem."

  He was on her so fast she didn't have time to get away. Trapped between the car and his saggy trying-to-watch-my-carbs gut, Arden had no room to move. Greg's face loomed in front of her like a scene from a very bad B-movie, the leer on his lips as unmistakable as the gleam of lust in his eyes.

  Arden managed to duck the kiss at the last possible second, so his mouth landed on the corner of hers instead of full-on. She'd been trying to catch it with her cheek. As it was, his mouth squirmed on her skin like a worm on a hook, and--oh, mercy, yuck, oh no--she felt the tentative tickle of his tongue before he withdrew in apparent surprise at her ducking maneuver.

  He didn't pull away far enough for her to escape. Despite what he'd said about garlic making him bloat, he must have had some of it sometime recently because she smelled it on his breath. His body pressed against hers as he pinned her with his gaze.

  "I don't have to be back at the office for another half-hour," Greg whispered.

  "Greg?"

  Now he smiled, a dreamy yet lascivious grin that turned her stomach. "Yes?"

  "If you don't get off me in three seconds, I'm going to knee you in the nuts."

  He stepped away from her, hands up, like she'd threatened to shoot him. Which wouldn't have been a bad idea either, Arden thought. She wiped his slime from her face and fixed him with a level glare.

  "I'm not sure exactly what made you think I was willing to hop into bed with you after knowing you for oh, let's see"--she looked at her watch--"one hour and seven minutes. But you're so wrong, if wrong were rain, we'd be building an ark."

  For an instant, anger flashed in his eyes, but maybe the pity-me routine had worked for him too many times before. Greg's brow creased and he frowned.

  "Sure. I get it." He sighed. "I should've known better. I mean, after what happened to me, I should've known. I don't expect you to understand..."

  His sob story persona had been working her nerves from the beginning, but now, with his garlic stench still clinging to her nostrils, Arden's temper exploded.

  "What don't I understand? Why your fiancée left you? If you behaved with her the way you acted with me, that's easy to figure out. But if you're saying I don't understand what it's like to lose somebody you love, then you are riding the bus down Wrong Street again. My husband died, Greg. Died. He didn't run off, didn't cheat on me, didn't find someone he liked better. He died."

  Arden paused to take a breath, realized her hands were clenched, and unclenched them. She calmed herself. "My advice to you would be get over it, move on, and quit trying to play the wounded soldier to get a sympathy fuck. It's not a pretty sight."

  And, leaving him to stand gape-mouthed on the corner, Arden got into her car and drove away.

  * * * *

  "Don't ask," she said later to Lida on the phone while she washed the dinner dishes. "I already talked to Heather about disaster date Two. She's promised to buy me cheesecake to make up for it."

  "That bad, huh? Hold on a minute. Henry, put that screwdriver back where you found it! Sorry, Arden. Anyway, that bad?"

  Arden looked at her two angels, each ensconced in her favorite chair, doing homework. She laughed at the vision of the chaos reigning in Lida's house. "Yes. That bad."

  "You're laughing. It couldn't be that bad. Henry! Cats do not like to wear underpants!"

  "You'd better go."

  Lida sighed. "I'm going to beat that child."

  "You won't, and you know it."