The Dating Game

by Avril Tremayne

  ‘Yes, I recall what you said about getting blown when you came in,’ she said coolly, and her right eyebrow quirked up in that way that had already intrigued him. Like a sideways question mark, complete with a tiny black beauty spot forming a decisive full stop at the end. ‘But there must have been a lot of women out there proposing service on their knees if you can’t distinguish between the ones who were offering and the ones who weren’t.’

  ‘I’d say a few rather than a lot,’ he said, all self-effacement as he battled a smile he knew she wouldn’t appreciate when she was trying so hard to sound disdainful.

  He heard Sarah give a tiny choke, as though a laugh had taken her by surprise.

  Good start.

  He fixed a hopeful look on his face. ‘But are you quite, quite sure you weren’t among the ones offering?’

  ‘Quite, quite sure,’ she said, and rolled her bright blue eyes in a way he guessed she thought was condescending—but somehow was not.

  ‘Then my hopes are dashed,’ he said dramatically. ‘At least tell me who my rival is.’

  ‘Your …? Huh?’

  ‘The man you’re waiting for.’ He watched her closely, saw a tiny start. ‘Ah, you’re not waiting for someone, you’re hiding from someone.’

  Sarah shifted from one foot to the other, like she was preparing to take off. Oh, no! That was not happening. ‘I’m not hiding,’ she said, and David was intrigued to see a blush work its way across her cheekbones.

  David hooded his eyes and held his tongue. It was a tactic he’d found useful in getting people to talk—the stare and wait. And he was going to get her to talk to him if it killed him. He could talk a woman into anything if he set his mind to it. Out of anything, too.

  Sure enough, within thirty seconds, she made an indistinct grumbling noise of surrender. ‘All right, yes, I was hiding. But now my cover’s blown, I guess I’ll … you know …’ Another shift from foot to foot as she looked past him towards the exit.

  Nope. Not happening. ‘If you tell me who you’re hiding from, I’ll check if the coast is clear before you go back out there.’

  ‘It’s not a “who”, it’s an “it”,’ she said. ‘I was hiding in a generic sense. From the whole …’ waving the phone towards the door ‘… thing.’

  ‘You don’t like parties?’ he asked.

  Up went the eyebrow. ‘Who doesn’t like parties?’

  Again, he wanted to smile; again, he battled it back. The dimples had to be kept up his sleeve. So to speak. Emergency reserves. ‘So it’s this particular party that’s the problem?’

  ‘No. That is— I mean— It’s not about the party—at least not per se. It’s …’ She leaned in, as though she was about to get confidential and David waited hopefully … but suddenly she seemed to catch herself, and leaned out.

  David took the lean-out to mean he was still the enemy. But he knew he had to be making headway if she could lean towards him in the first place without realizing she was doing it. ‘It’s …?’ he prompted.

  ‘It’s … a situation. I needed a bit of time alone to sort it out in my head.’

  ‘And have you sorted it out?’

  Silence.

  Which he took to mean ‘no’.

  Sarah looked to the exit again, and then glanced behind her. His eyes followed hers, landing on the glittery little evening bag near the footstool. She tottered over to it on her insanely high heels and started to bend to pick it up—as awkwardly as she’d got to her feet minutes ago. She put out a hand towards the footstool, for support he guessed, but then pulled it back, with an ‘Oops.’

  David moved lightning-fast to retrieve the bag in one low, easy swoop and held it out to her. ‘So your situation isn’t sorted.’

  ‘Yes and no,’ she admitted, taking the bag and slipping its chain strap over her shoulder.

  ‘Then I’ll help you sort it.’

  She snorted. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Try me.’

  Another glance at the exit had David shifting so his body blocked both her line of sight and the path to the door. She’d have to do a full-body-brush past him to get out. She wouldn’t want to do that—but he kind of hoped she’d try it.

  ‘Come on, Sarah, tell me why you’re crying.’

  The look of startled dismay on her face was priceless. ‘I’m not,’ she said, and the blush rushed across her cheekbones again as her fingers went to the clasp of her bag.

  ‘Telling me, or crying?’

  Fumbling with the clasp. ‘Either or, smarty-pants.’

  ‘Smarty-pants?’ He slapped a hand over his heart. ‘Ouch, that hurts.’

  And there was the little choke in her throat as she caught another unexpected laugh. It reminded him of how much she’d been laughing out in the gallery as she crisscrossed the room like a hyperactive Miss Congeniality—right up until the moment Lane had introduced them, which was when things had gone south. But still, he’d bet she spent more time laughing than not, which meant it was time to switch tactics. Seduction was off the table; he’d try laughing her into accepting him.

  ‘But that’s not the best you can do, is it?’ he teased. ‘Smarty-pants?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I can do a lot better than “smarty-pants”.’ She was leaning in again, the gaping bag seemingly forgotten. ‘I happen to have a thesaurus for a brain.’

  ‘So come on, I’m game. Lay some words on me,’ he invited. ‘I can take it.’

  Her mouth started to open. He waited, intrigued …

  But nope. She leaned back out and gave her head a firm shake. ‘The crying thing. I really don’t cry. Generally, I mean. But in this instance, there are extenuating circumstances.’

  ‘Which are?’

  ‘Not interesting.’

  ‘But they must be interesting if you don’t generally cry and yet you were crying.’ He looked at the phone in her hand. ‘Even more interesting is why you threw the phone.’

  Eyebrow up. ‘This is a new Samsung Galaxy! I didn’t throw it.’

  ‘Does that mean an old Samsung Galaxy would have been fair game?’

  ‘I don’t know. Yes. Maybe. No!’

  ‘I see, multiple choice. So … what? Am I supposed to pick one?’

  Another tiny choke. ‘If you must know—’

  ‘Yes, I do believe I must.’

  ‘—I was trying to sneak out without you knowing I was in here. Throwing a phone across a concrete floor kind of defeats that purpose.’

  ‘But if it were an old phone and I wasn’t here, you might have thrown it?’ he mused. ‘Interesting.’

  ‘Not interesting. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid! And I didn’t throw it, because I just don’t care enough to do that. I don’t care, I don’t—’

  Another choke, but different this time. Not laughter. Tears. Sudden, gleaming tears. Well, tears didn’t scare him and wouldn’t deter him. He calmly slid a hand into the inside pocket of his jacket, extracted his handkerchief and held it out with exemplary sangfroid.

  ‘Why are you even carrying a handkerchief?’ she asked, blinking ferociously as she took it. ‘I mean, a real one—not one of those pretty pocket squares.’ She nodded at the red and grey scrap of silk peeking out of his left breast pocket.

  ‘I always carry a real handkerchief because you never know when you’re going to need a good cry,’ David said, straight-faced. ‘A pocket square is the equivalent of a new Samsung Galaxy in such situations. No snot allowed.’

  And there was the choked-off laugh again, the tears gone like magic. ‘From the look of you, I’d say you haven’t got snot on anything since you popped out of the womb.’

  ‘Well, not often,’ he conceded, and watched her as she took a deep breath, resetting her equilibrium, and—damn!—looking towards the exit again before he could manoeuvre himself back into blocking position. ‘Are you going to tell me what happened, Sarah?’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’ she countered.
r />   ‘It’s what my ex-wife calls my White Knight Syndrome.’

  ‘That’s not a real condition!’

  ‘Sure it is. My ex-wife is a psychologist—she knows these things.’

  ‘What is it exactly?’

  ‘An inability to see a damsel in distress without wanting to throw her across the saddle of my trusty steed and gallop her out of trouble. Metaphorically speaking, since I don’t have a steed currently at my disposal.’ He gave her a small smile—enough for the dimples to twitch, because time was a-marching and he figured he’d better intensify his assault. ‘What can I say? I’m a nice guy.’

  ‘What’s that old adage about nice guys finishing last?’

  ‘Oh we do, we do,’ David agreed fervently.

  She slanted a narrow-eyed look at him. ‘You see, I have a feeling you don’t finish last. Ever. I’d go so far as to say you finish first. Always. And people who finish first all the time are generally not very nice. They’re generally cold, ruthless, uncompromising—’

  ‘Argh, not the thesaurus!’ he interrupted, throwing up surrender hands. ‘Stop, stop, I beg you!’

  And yes! There it was. He’d made her laugh without choking it off. And the relaxed sparkle of it confirmed that laughter was indeed her default setting. It was strangely appealing.

  ‘I can see you’re going to need a character reference,’ he said with an exaggerated sigh. ‘Let me get Margaret on the phone.’

  ‘Margaret?’

  ‘My ex-wife.’ He reached into his pants pocket. ‘Do you want to call her or shall I?’

  ‘Hey, no!’ Sarah cried, and then she sucked in a breath that was half-outrage, half-laugh. ‘Oh, you … you villain! I believed you!’

  ‘Smarty-pants. Villain. What next, thesaurus girl? Meanie-beanie?’

  ‘How about knave?’

  ‘Not bad.’

  ‘Dastard.’

  ‘Better.’

  ‘Rapscallion.’

  ‘Now you’re talking.’

  ‘You weren’t really going to call her.’

  ‘No, but I promise Margaret really does think I’m nice. So come on, cheer me up: take advantage of me.’

  She blinked at him. ‘Take what?’

  ‘Take advantage of me. Of my niceness. Indulge my White Knight Syndrome.’ He gave her his most innocent look. ‘Why, what did you think I meant? Do you want to take advantage of me in some other way?’ He flexed his dimple-power again. ‘I’m game if you have designs on my virtue.’

  ‘You’re being deliberately disingenuous.’

  ‘Disingenuous!’ he said admiringly. ‘Can you give me a really hard word, and use it in a sentence? Like, really, really hard?’

  Another of those chokes, but she straightened her shoulders and picked up the gauntlet. ‘“Absquatulate”. Sarah Quinn had been trying to “absquatulate” from the storage room for quite some time!’

  ‘I’m such a sucker for a girl with words. Sorry, but you can consider your fate sealed. You’re not absquatulating from the storage room, Sarah Quinn—not without giving me my White Knight fix. I’m saving you whether you want me to or not.’

  ‘You’ve ably discharged your White Knight duty by offering me your handkerchief.’ She smiled, proffering his handkerchief on one upturned palm. ‘Which I hereby return to thee with gratitude, Sir David, unused and snot-free.’

  Damn! He was losing her. ‘Yeah, you might want to use it before you face the crowd,’ he said, thinking fast.

  She started to wave that suggestion away—but he twisted his face into a theatrical wince, and that stopped her.

  ‘Oh, how could I forget?’ She dropped the phone into her open evening bag and pulled out a compact. ‘It’s why I was trying to sneak out in the first place. Instead, here I am, standing around, talking to you. All I can say is thank God you’re not him.’

  ‘Er … not who?’

  ‘Him. The man of my dr— Oh, never mind!’ She started to open the compact. ‘It’s bad enough that even you should see me looking like— Oh. My. God!’ She stared in horror into the little round mirror for one frozen moment. And then she started manically dabbing at her cheeks with his handkerchief. ‘I need to invest in some waterproof mascara.’

  ‘Even though you don’t generally cry?’

  ‘Oh, you!’

  ‘Here,’ he said, taking the compact off her. ‘I’ll hold it while you do the repair work.’

  ‘I can manage.’

  ‘Hey, I’m a nice guy, remember?’

  ‘Sorry but I’m not sold on the whole “nice guy” thing,’ she said, but she let him hold the compact while she recommenced dabbing at the black-streaked tear tracks on her cheeks. ‘Don’t think I’m not grateful, but shouldn’t you be out there mingling with the bank’s clients?’

  ‘I’ve done my quota of mingling.’

  ‘Then shouldn’t you be out there looking at the paintings?’

  ‘I looked at the paintings out there. Now I’m looking at the paintings in here.’

  ‘And you got a bonus—Edvard Munch’s The Scream come to life.’

  ‘Except you didn’t scream.’

  ‘I was speaking figuratively. I generally don’t scream.’

  ‘Generally don’t scream. Generally don’t cry. Don’t throw phones—new ones, anyway. And you know big words. I might be falling in like with you.’

  ‘I have more than enough people in like with me already, thank you.’ She dipped into her bag again and pulled out a lipstick. She smeared on a layer of what looked like glossy rust, then rubbed her lips together. ‘It’s the other part I’m missing.’

  ‘Other part?’

  ‘Never mind.’ She turned her head to one side, then the other, assessing her face in the mirror. ‘I’m going to have to put on more mascara.’

  ‘You look fine without it.’

  ‘I’m blonde, in case you haven’t noticed. Which means my eyelashes are almost invisible.’ She narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. ‘Mind you, you’re blond, too. How did you manage to score such dark eyelashes? Are they tinted?’

  ‘No they bloody well are not.’

  ‘Hey, there’s no shame in an eyelash tint.’ She examined his face. ‘Or a facial.’

  ‘My eyelashes are the result of genetics. And so is my skin, so do not mention the word “facial” to me again if you value your life.’

  ‘Oooh, touchy,’ she said, and her eyes were doing what he’d never thought possible and dancing. ‘Seriously, though, do you know how much it hurts when a guy gets that combination? Blond, with dark eyelashes?’

  ‘Yes. Margaret, who is also blonde, used to tell me all the time. Which is how I know I’m not going to win the mascara fight. So go right ahead and slap it on.’

  Sarah dug in her bag again and pulled out a tube of mascara. David was starting to think that tiny bag of hers had mystical qualities, given how many objects went in and came out of it. She brushed on the mascara with the speed and accuracy of an expert cosmetician. ‘There,’ she said, putting the tube in her bag along with his handkerchief. She batted her eyelashes at David as she retrieved the compact he’d been holding for her, popped it in with everything else and snapped the bag closed.

  ‘Hang on, there’s a clump at the corner,’ he said, and reached out to pinch one of her outer eyelashes between his thumb and forefinger. Did she jump a little? He wasn’t sure, but he thought—hoped?—she had. He stood back to examine her. ‘Better.’

  ‘Your ex-wife teach you that?’

  ‘Let’s just say I know my way around a tube of mascara.’

  ‘Oh you do, do you?’

  ‘Not from personal use, brat!’

  ‘If you say so,’ she sing-songed, and tried to move past him.

  ‘Hey—what about my handkerchief?’

  She stopped. ‘You want it back?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Even though it’s not a Galaxy-esque pocket square?’


  ‘Even so.’

  ‘Fine. I’ll wash it and … and … Oh.’ Her eyes widened. Surprise? Fear? No—guilt! ‘I’ll wash it and give it to Lane for you.’

  Ah. Lane. The fly in his ointment. ‘I’d prefer you to wash it and bring it back to me yourself.’

  Sarah eyed him warily. ‘Why?’

  Out of options. ‘Because I want you to pose for me.’

  And at last he had her full attention. Which had him questioning why he hadn’t led with that straight off the bat. But he knew why: the possibility of being turned down flat. Her initial animosity had been almost palpable, whereas now, he had something to work with. He’d work with anything she gave him to get her to agree.

  ‘Can you repeat that?’ she asked.

  ‘I want you to pose for me.’

  ‘What does that mean? “Pose”?’

  ‘Pose as in for a painting. As in I’m entering the Langman Portrait Prize and I want you to be my model.’

  ‘But you’re a banker.’

  ‘Who also paints.’

  A moment of staring, and then she sucked in a breath and … and bristled? Yes, bristled. ‘Oh, I see!’

  ‘Oh, you see what?’

  ‘You want to paint me naked, don’t you?’

  ‘Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of—’

  ‘Lane mentioned your interest in paintings when she introduced us, remember?’

  What the hell? ‘Lane doesn’t know I paint.’

  ‘Or should I say your “etchings”? I’ve heard nudes are your favourite kind.’

  David could actually feel a blush start to heat his face. And he never blushed. Talk about old pick-up lines coming back to haunt a guy! ‘That’s different.’

  ‘Are you telling me you don’t want to get Lane naked?’

  ‘Yes, I’m telling you that.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Let me put it in context,’ he said. ‘I did want to get Lane naked, but now I don’t. It’s what you might call a past-tense situation.’