“I’m sorry for the trouble I caused you,” Deke said in all sincerity.
“How do I know this isn’t more of the same? I mean, suddenly I walk in here and I’ve got a job. They say if it seems too good to be true, it usually is. How do I know this is an exception?” Dorian looked visibly upset.
The hostess delivered their tea, which provided a welcome interruption. Dorian had ordered Happy Talk, which Deke hoped would bode well for their discussion.
As Dorian sipped her tea, her features relaxed slightly. “The tea is good,” she said in surprise. “Really good.” She set her cup down. “Actually, I’m a coffee drinker,” she admitted.
“We’ll have to convert you,” he said, trying to make a joke out of it, and she smiled fleetingly. This was encouraging, he thought. It also did wonders for her expression, which had been entirely too hos-tile ever since she’d walked in.
“Deke, I’m serious when I say I don’t know if I want to take this job,” she said.
“I want you to be the Dr. Feelgood’s spokesperson.”
“Because you feel guilty about all the trouble you’ve caused, or because you think I’m the perfect Dr. Feelgood?” she asked with entirely too much irony.
“Both,” he said immediately.
“Can I think it over? Get back to you in the morning?”
“Have your people call my people, and we’ll do lunch. Isn’t that the way it’s done in the entertainment business?” He smiled at her.
Her answering smile was reluctant but genuine. “I don’t know about lunch, but my agent will call Maxie tomorrow. Will that do?”
“If that’s the best you can offer,” he said, managing to conceal his disappointment.
“At the moment, it is,” Dorian said firmly. She drained her cup and stood up. “I have to go. I parked the car—your car—in the parking garage across the street, space 15-A.”
He saw her to the elevator, although he sensed that she wished he wouldn’t.
After the doors slid closed behind him, he watched the floor numbers above it light up one after the other, all the way to the lobby.
Maybe Dorian was beginning to like him.
Maybe she wasn’t.
As he walked back to the boardroom, Deke dug his hands deep into his pockets, where the keys to the Miata jingled between his fingers, a reminder that she had thrown his gesture of goodwill back in his face.
Maybe Dorian never would like him. Maybe he’d never even see her again.
The thought galvanized him into action, and he sprinted back toward the elevator, praying that she wouldn’t get away before he caught up with her.
* * *
DORIAN STOOD OUTSIDE the revolving doors of the new skyscraper that housed the Dr. Feelgood’s Herbal Teas headquarters. First she inhaled a deep sigh of relief. There was no way she wanted to work for Deke Washburn’s company. Still, the offer was intriguing, even though it was a detour from her planned career path. It would, she had decided back there in the tea room, bear thinking about, but later. Now she needed to decide whether to head across the street toward the MARTA station or left toward the department store. She was obligated to buy Jill a new pair of panty hose to replace the ones she’d ruined during the fracas last night at the dinner theater.
“Dorian!”
She heard the shout and instantly knew who it was. How could she not know? Deke Washburn kept turning up everywhere she went, like a bad penny. No, not a penny. Deke Washburn was more like a counterfeit one-thousand dollar bill. Attractive, but sure to get you in trouble if you picked it up.
He appeared before her, smiling and slightly out of breath.
“You again!” she said.
“Can I drive you someplace?”
Exasperated, she shook her head. “You’re always trying to drive me someplace. Mostly, you drive me out of my mind,” she said.
“The car’s right across the street.”
“So is the MARTA station.”
“No need to ride the train when you have me at your disposal,” he said.
“No need for you to be at my disposal when I can ride the train,” she rejoined smoothly. She began to walk in the direction of the station, and Deke kept up with her. His legs were extremely long, making it easy for him to match her short strides, which were even shorter than usual because of the painful blisters on her heels.
They reached the train station, which was crowded with commuters, and Dorian bought a ticket. So did Deke. He followed her to the benches lined up along the track.
“How long has it been since you rode the MARTA?” she asked out of curiosity.
He grinned. “This is the first time ever.”
“No kidding,” she said in surprise, dependent as she was on public transportation whenever her car broke down.
“The MARTA doesn’t go all the way to the town of Mabry, which is where I lived until a few weeks ago,” he said.
“No wonder you don’t seem at home in the city,” she said, eyeing his jeans pointedly.
At that moment, a train arrived and the doors opened. Dorian got up, and Deke followed her into the car. She sat down on a seat beside an immense woman who had her nose buried in a confession magazine. The seat across the aisle from them was occupied, so Deke hung on to the railing overhead. Dorian made no attempt to conceal her annoyance at his presence.
“There are seats farther back,” she said as the train jolted to a start.
“I like standing here. Where I can look at you all I want,” he said.
Dorian felt the blush rising from below her collar, heating her neck and reddening her cheeks. “Go away,” she said.
He seemed emboldened by the presence of other people. He knew she’d temper her angry reactions in public, and it disturbed her that he would take advantage of the situation. Not only that, this tactic on his part proved that he knew her better than she wanted him to.
He went on talking. “We don’t have public transportation in Mabry. Just cars. My first car was a pickup truck, and my first date was a church picnic with my eighth-grade girlfriend. Now that I live in Atlanta I like to eat at places like the Café Too-too Unique. Ever been there?” he asked.
“No, and I have no desire to,” she replied, looking out the window.
“Too bad. They have excellent lobster Newburg. You’d probably like it a lot.”
The train lurched to a stop, but Deke kept his balance, moving even closer to her as other people pushed past.
“In fact, we could go there now if you’d like,” he said as the train started again.
Dorian was hungry. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast. But she had no intention of encouraging Deke. “I don’t want to go anywhere with you,” she said.
The woman beside her sighed and turned the pages of her magazine, wafting the scent of cheap gardenia perfume in their direction.
“We’re not talking about a date or anything. Consider it a business meeting,” Deke said.
“No.”
He was silent until after the next stop. Then, “How is your friend Charles getting along?” he asked.
“About as well as can be expected after being punched in the nose.”
“I only hit him because I was defending your honor.”
“You’re so helpful,” she said.
“I hate it when you’re sarcastic.”
“Then I’ll try to be as sarcastic as possible. It should help you get over this—this fixation you seem to have on me,” she said.
Deke thought about that. “I don’t think so,” he said finally.
“Why not? What is it about me that you find so fascinating?”
He grinned. “You’re my fantasy woman. The one I’ve always dreamed of meeting.”
“Good grief,” she muttered under her breath.
“Well, you did ask.”
When the train slowed again, the woman beside Dorian stood up abruptly. “My stop,” she said.
Dorian had to turn her knees toward the aisle so that the woman
could pass. The woman clung to the edge of the seat in front of them as the train stopped. She bent over and spoke directly to Dorian in a conspiratorial tone.
“Listen, honey, you and him is a better story than I ever read in Honest Confessions. Go out with him, will you? You can tell me about it next week and I can quit spending my money on magazines.” She winked at Deke and waddled off the train without a backward look.
Deke swung into the now-vacant seat beside Dorian. “Everyone has fantasies. What’s your all-time fantasy man like?”
“Invisible and unable to speak,” she retorted.
“Seriously.”
“I am serious,” she told him.
“You aren’t. You’re being sassy.”
“Why don’t you mind your own business?”
“Because at the moment, you’re my business. Describe your dream man.”
“Short, fat and ugly,” she said, because Deke was none of those.
“Okay, so what would you and this short, fat and ugly guy do together?” he asked.
“Nothing I want to discuss with you.”
“We don’t have to discuss it. You just have to tell me,” he said with maddening persistence.
Suddenly she had had enough. Sure, she had her fantasies. If she revealed them, it might shock him into silence.
“My fantasy man would be ready to make mad, passionate love to me morning, noon and night because we’d be starving for each other every minute we’re apart. And he’d be adventurous, always proposing new things, in bed and out. And—and he’d totally appreciate the woman I am and the woman I’m going to be, and in return I would be putty in his hands,” she said, enjoying Deke’s dumbfounded expression.
After a moment of stunned silence Deke cleared his throat.
“Have you met this short, fat and ugly man yet?” he inquired.
“That’s for me to know and for you—”
“To find out. How can I find out anything about you if you won’t go out with me? I know I’m not short and fat, and I don’t think I’m ugly, but won’t I do for a substitute? No one has ever pursued you harder, I’ll bet.”
“No one has,” she agreed. She frowned at him. “Aren’t you getting tired of it?” she asked.
“No. But if you’d respond more positively, it would be more fun.”
“I’m not looking for fun,” she said in all seriousness. “My career is my life.” She said it dramatically and for effect, although the statement was true.
“Oh, so you’re a workaholic.”
“Sometimes. When I can get work.”
“Well, you’ve got it now if you want it.”
“Such as it is.”
“So, Dorian. I detect a note of dissatisfaction with Maxie’s offer. Let’s have a business meeting right here, since you refuse to meet with me at Café Too-too Unique. Exactly what are your misgivings about becoming the Dr. Feel-good’s Herbal Teas spokesperson?”
“My plan is to work regional theaters until I get my big break. To improve my art. Commercials are not art,” Dorian said.
Deke mulled this over. “Kind of snobbish, aren’t we?” he asked.
“Not snobbish. Centered. I know where I’m going and how to get there,” she said stubbornly.
“I think you’re arguing for the sake of argument,” Deke told her.
“I am not.”
“See? You just did it,” he retorted.
She hated the smug look on his face. “Well, the truth is that I might have to take this Dr. Feelgood’s job. I have to eat.”
“It could turn out better than you think. I don’t think the work would be so hard.”
She rolled her eyes. “Which shows how much you know about the grueling schedule involved in shooting commercials. I’ve done a few, and it’s no picnic. Hot lights, long hours, demanding directors—I’ve seen it all. And you’re working at a fever pitch so that it’s impossible to wind down at the end of the day.”
“So what’s relaxing to you? How do you wind down?”
“Sometimes I don’t. I stay keyed up. Oh, the ideal would be to be whisked away after work to someplace far away where I could be as free as a bird and forget everything and everybody, but that never happens,” she said, unable to keep herself from sounding wistful.
“Free as a bird, huh?” He was looking at her strangely.
“Unfettered. No responsibility,” she said for clarification.
“I used to want that feeling, too, when I worked long hours.”
“Well, until I make my first million dollars, I’m more or less resigned to the earthbound demands of stressful modern life. Excuse me, here’s my stop,” Dorian said, standing up.
“I’m getting off, too,” he said, following her off the train. Dorian was dismayed that he would do this, but what had she expected? He was sticking to her like glue. She should never have opened up to him earlier; now she regretted it.
They were briefly separated by a throng of people waiting to get on the train, but, as she knew he would, Deke caught up with her in a few seconds.
She sighed a long-suffering sigh. “The way you get back on the MARTA is, you buy another ticket and wait on the opposite track. Then you board the train heading for downtown,” she explained patiently as if speaking to a child.
“I figured that out. I’m walking you to your apartment.” Deke seemed unfazed by her tone of voice. In fact, Deke Washburn seemed undaunted by anything she did to discourage him.
They stepped out of the station onto the street. “Don’t you have something better to do?” Dorian asked him seriously. “Don’t you have somewhere to go?”
“Nope.”
“So what do you do most of the time?” she asked in exasperation. “Go around hassling women to go out with you?”
“In answer to your first question, since its inception, I’ve virtually run the company by myself, putting in twelve-hour days seven days a week before we moved the corporate offices to the big city. Now I’m supposed to be semire-tired, which means I’m allowed to be creative, come up with brilliant ideas that will make lots of money, and show up for a board meeting now and then. And in answer to your second question, I have never hassled a woman to go out with me before.”
“Why not?” she asked him after they’d crossed the first street.
He shrugged. “I haven’t had to. Women usually clamor to be the objects of my affection. You’re the rare exception.”
“If I clamored, you probably wouldn’t like me, either,” she pointed out.
“Why don’t you try it and find out?” he asked with a sly grin in her direction.
“If I were chasing you, you wouldn’t be chasing me—is that it?”
“Well,” he said, “I kind of enjoy a good chase. It makes life interesting.”
She indulged in a ladylike snort. “I’ll bet your chasing women is like a dog chasing cars—you wouldn’t know what to do with one if you caught it,” she said succinctly, hoping he’d realize an insult when he heard it.
Instead, he laughed. “Oh, I know what to do, all right,” he said, looking supremely confident, which made him seem altogether too cocky.
“Men shouldn’t be so sure of themselves all the time. Not all women want to marry and settle down.”
“Not all men want to get married, either.”
“Those two types should find each other,” she said in all seriousness. “Then they’d both be happy.”
“Which type are you, Dorian?”
She looked at him from under her lashes. “I’m not the marrying kind,” she intoned.
“I’m not, either,” he said. “We should stick together so as not to inflict ourselves on anyone with more serious intentions.”
Dorian began to see that she had backed herself into a corner. But by this time they had reached the gates to her apartment complex, and she decided that there wasn’t time to reply. She stopped walking.
“Well, here we are. Your services will no longer be needed,” she said brightly.
<
br /> “As if they ever were,” he said, and for a moment she saw something bleak and lonely behind his eyes. It was gone in a flash, but it made her feel guilty.
She rolled one foot over on its side to rest it. “Deke, I—”
“Don’t say it, Dorian. I can see we’re not getting anywhere. I had to try, though.”
They were standing beneath a giant sycamore tree, and the leaves rustled overhead. In the distance they could hear the chatter of children, the traffic on the highway one street over, and the slamming of front doors as people came in from work.
There was something about the way Deke stood there, looking down at her with longing in his eyes, that gave Dorian pause. She wanted with all her heart to tell him to go away and never to bother her again, but the words stuck in her throat.
If only his eyes had shifted away in that moment, she might have thought she was mistaken about what she saw in them. But he kept his gaze focused on her, taking in every detail of her face, memorizing every nuance of expression.
“Why?” she managed to whisper, finally. That one word expressed a host of questions that she knew she needn’t bother to articulate: Why do you want me? Why don’t you leave me alone?
He shook his head slowly, his eyes holding hers. “I’m not sure,” he said helplessly, and before she could obey her sudden impulse to ask him into her apartment for a tuna sandwich, he stunned her by turning and walking away, fading into the dusk and leaving her staring after him in dismay.
Chapter Five
No man had ever walked away from her before.
The men Dorian usually dated invariably put up arguments when she tried to back off, and sometimes they pleaded and groveled. And then she blew them a kiss goodbye, anyway.
Not so Deke Washburn. He gave her no chance to kiss him off. He gave her no chance to do anything at all. When he left, he left. Period.
It was what Dorian had thought she wanted. So over the next few days, why did she keep thinking about the way Deke’s hair grew long at the nape of his neck and the way his mouth was so mobile and quick to smile? Why did she keep thinking about that bleak look in his eyes just before he left her on the street outside her apartment complex?
The World's Last Bachelor Page 6
