Page 28 of Dirty Little Secret, Baby
"No, not a problem. I... I just need someone to zip up my dress completely," she said, about to turn to Veronica.
"I'll take care of it," I said. "Then your employee can look after her son," I said.
"She's not my employee. Just a friend who's helping me and..." the two exchanged long glances as Veronica picked up the sweet boy again.
"It's great that she's watching your shop despite having a baby. Thanks, Veronica," I said to her. She just nodded silently, still looking a little downcast.
Then Beth turned to me, and I breathed in the hint of her perfume mixed with the natural scent of her skin. Simply wonderful. I resisted the urge to kiss and caress her neck right then and there and pulled the zipper up the last four inches of her beautiful back.
"Ready?" I asked as she turned around and I could see her cheeks glowing red too, and offered her my arm to take.
"Ready," she said, linking her arm with mine.
"Then let's go," I said, turning around once more. "And thanks for watching the place, Veronica. You have a great little boy."
Veronica just nodded, and it seemed to me that Beth was in a hurry to get out of the shop, and not just me, because I didn't want to run into Jake.
"Did you happen to get the red dress I sent you...?" I asked as I held the passenger door of my car open for her.
"I did. Too big," she said with a smile.
"Then my assistant must have gotten the size wrong," I quickly invented, offering her my hand and feeling little sparks shoot up my arm as our fingers touched and she got in.
"No problem. It was nice of you. But I have other dresses," she replied, giving me a smile. As I closed the door, I made a mental note to listen more to his recommendations next time, but even more, I thought about the woman in my car who wasn't making a big deal out of it at all. The stereotypical woman I usually took out would have called me screaming and cried into the phone, "Size 6? Do you think I'm a fat slut?"
Beth wasn't one of those women, she was...
Yeah, what exactly was she to me?
This was all supposed to be just a means to an end. For a new store location. But somehow, I knew it was going to get a lot more complicated.
******
"That was really delicious. Thank you," Beth said, giving the waiter a friendly smile as he cleared the empty plates from our main course.
"Dessert?" he asked, to which Beth and I both said yes at the same time, then looked at each other and smiled, which pretty much described the course of the evening: nice company, good conversation, and lots of laughter, and more than once it had felt like harmless flirting. Damn, I thought if I got to know her better, I could focus on business again.
But it was even worse than a year ago. An invisible force seemed to emanate from Beth, pulling me deeper under her spell thelonger we talked. I learned how she had taken over the flower shop and actually felt a little shabby, because I was learning so much and she even talked about the ARS Group, my company, and the takeover offers, and I said nothing, because I didn't want to ruin the moment and destroy the harmony.
"I'll bring you the menu," the waiter said, but neither of us gave him another glance. Instead, we looked at each other for a long time, as if we couldn't get enough of the other's eyes.
Damn, I have to pull myself together, change the subject, and somehow stay on task. We were sitting here in a cozy corner of one of the best Italian restaurants in the city, and the way Beth ate her linguine was poetry in motion. Add to that the gentle scent in the restaurant, which somehow smelled like a mix of sea air and an old town, so you could imagine you were actually sitting in a small alley somewhere in Italy. The soft Italian music in the background only reinforced this impression, and I was more than tempted to take her hand next to her glass right here and now, pull her over to me, and tell her that I want to pick up exactly where we left off last year. But I can't. I have to stay on task.
"Your friend. That Veronica," I began, as a good topic came to mind, at which point Beth's expression changed, and she looked almost a little startled. "Is she raising her son alone? Does she have a husband?"
Beth looked at me for a moment with a blank expression, as if she were carefully weighing her words. But then she gave a crooked grin and tilted her head slightly to the side. "Why do you ask? Do you want to ask her to dinner too and compare?"
"For God's sake," I said and instinctively reached for her hand across the table. Only when I was holding it did I realize what I was doing, but I noticed that Beth didn't pull her hand back and just looked at me. "I just wanted to ask a question about your friend." I paused again and looked directly into her eyes. "I only want to go out with you," I whispered afterward, adding, "And I don't think I'm very good with kids anyway."
I don't know what I'd done, but it looked as though Beth was close to tears, because she pulled her hand back and dabbed her left eye with a clean napkin.
"Did I say something wrong? I didn't mean that I don't want kids, I just don't have any experience with them and..." I said, trying to fix whatever it was I had triggered in her.
"It's okay, it was just a watery eye. Happens to me sometimes. Don't worry," Beth said, forcing a thin smile. "Somehow, I'm not in the mood for dessert anymore. Can we maybe just go?"
"Whatever you want," I said, but my feeling that I'd said something wrong only grew stronger. Beth nodded again to confirm her wish, pushed her chair back, and we stood up.
We walked silently past the bar, where I paid the bill with my credit card. The valet brought our car around and handed me the key.
