Page 35 of Meet Your Match
He went back to molding the clay, and with his eyes on his hands, he said, “All jokes aside, he’s an idiot. And I’m sorry his family made you feel that way.”
“It’s fine.”
“You should meet mine,” he added, and I was thankful he wasn’t looking at me when my eyes bulged out of my skull. “I think we could change your mind.”
I offered a pathetic smile, but didn’t respond. I didn’t want to tell him I was pretty sure that was impossible. Part of my job was researching who Vince Tanev was, and I knew he came from a family maybe even more affluent than the one that had dismissed me. His parents had amansion in East Grand Rapids, a cabin in the Rockies, a beach house here in Tampa,anda yacht on Lake Michigan that they were known for hosting private parties on. They both came from wealthy parents who had wealthy parents, too.
Maybe they weren’t exactly like the Long Island and Hamptons crew James was a part of, but they were one in the same.
“What about you,” I asked, eager to change the subject. “You ever have anyone break your heart?”
He blew out a breath. “Oh, boy. Did I just walk into an interrogation?”
“You don’t have to answer, if you don’t want to.”
Vince smirked, shaking his head a bit as he worked the clay. “I guess you can’t really have your heart broken if you’ve never dated anyone seriously.”
I snorted internally.
I was not the least bit surprised.
“It’s not because I don’t want to,” he said, glancing at me like he knew the assumptions I was making about him. “I just haven’t found the right person yet.”
“Interesting, because from the many photos I’ve seen posted of you online, you seem to find multipleright onespretty frequently.”
“To warm my bed,” he clipped, his eyes finding mine. I shrank a bit under his gaze. “That’s different.”
“Meaning you couldn’t take those women home to Mom?”
His eyebrows jumped up a bit, as if to say, “Your words, not mine… but yes.”
I held in my unsurprised laugh. That alone told me his mom was just like the one who had told me I didn’t belong with her son, that I didn’t measure up. Moms like that,who had money and an athletic son with prospects, had high expectations for who their daughter-in-law would be.
Glancing down at my unpolished nails, I swallowed past the knot in my throat when I said, “It’s good to have standards.”
“I guess,” he said. “I just want someone who challenges me, who fires me up and makes me want more. Someone who makes my life better.” He swallowed then. “Not someone who just wants me because of what I do, of who I am, of what they think they can get from me.”
That response surprised me a little. It seemed the theme of the day. “I’m sorry you have to deal with people like that.”
The corner of his mouth crooked up. “Careful. You said that almost like you care about me.”
We both fell silent after that.
My head was spinning from the one-eighty from the day before. I’d gone from having him seething in my face with my chin clutched in his hand to being front row and center to the softest parts of him.
I didn’t know what to think anymore.
And I damn sure didn’t have a box to put him in.
But one thing Ididhave was the climbing numbers on our social media channels to remind me that this was all a job. There was only one reason why a man like him and a woman like me were in the same place — because it was an assignment. For both of us.
I could think about my subject all I wanted, and I’d even give myself the pleasure of appreciating how unfairly good looking the man was. But that was where it ended.
There wasn’t a time that existed where the two of us mixed past this one we’d found ourselves in by happenstance.
The night crawled on, and Vince put on that music I’d heard the first morning I’d walked into his condo. It was a cross between French and Arabic, and it set a vibe unlike any other, especially paired with the views of him creating.
I had expected it to be beautiful, watching Vince mold that clay into a vase.
