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“See, that’s about fifty percent of the problem,” she said as I handled the bill with the waiter. “The food is too good, and I find myself unable and unwilling to refuse it.”
“I’d like to say my willpower was mighty enough to withstand the temptation of most things,” I said, “but I’m powerless against the call of gnocchi.” I dragged my fingers along her delicate wrist, looking into her lovely face. “What’s the last forty?”
“What do you mean?”
“Between me and the food, that’s sixty percent,” I said. “So, I’m waiting for the last forty percent of the problem, per your estimation.”
“Oh,” she said. “I’d say about fifteen percent is that I like myself at my current size. I like the clothes I’ve got. I like my body the way it is, even if it’s not perfect.”
“Fair enough,” I said, dragging my hand up the underside of her leg, trying to maintain a modicum of subtlety. “Although I could always finance a new wardrobe for you.”
“Sure. Whatever. Leaving aside that I can finance my own wardrobe,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“So, the last twenty-five percent is?”
“That you’re not the only guy I’m planning to impress with all of this.”
I was surprised that I managed to maintain the smile on my face when my blood felt like it’d frozen over at once, turning my veins into one massive icicle. I let my hand, which suddenly felt like it weighed a good twenty pounds, fall away from the leg I’d been caressing.
“Understandable,” I said. I felt like I had the flu. It was like the words came to me through a massive wad of cotton whenever I spoke. “Come on. We should let someone else have this table.”
We stood up, and this time, I didn’t take her hand as we walked down the stairs that led down to the lake’s edge.
Idiot, I thought to myself repeatedly as I replayed her words in my head. How could I have let myself fall into this trap? But, then again, I couldn’t have predicted we’d play the game so well that even I would fall for it. The fucking view, her intoxicating fragrance, soft skin, and whatever the fuck else that’d placed me under this ridiculous spell made me feel like a fool. And if there was one way I was unaccustomed to feeling, it was foolish.
Jim warned me this was possible when I told him what I’d planned. After all, he’d seen me after the weekend Nat and I spent together and how my head wasn’t entirely geared right then.
His words replayed in my head as if they were being whispered in my ear by him right now:
‘The way I see it, you’re going to have one of two outcomes,’ he said as we stood face to face in my office at Mitchell and Associates, ‘and they both come from the fact that you’re completely smitten with Nat and doing this to spend more time with her, regardless of whether you’ll admit it. Either you two will fuck like animals and wind up destroying each other, or you’ll fall head over heels in love with her and end up being chewed up and spit out. You’re playing with fire, and you know it.’
‘You really think she’d chew me up and spit me out?’ The thought of any woman running over the top of me was laughable…back then. Right now, not so much.
‘No fucking clue, man. But she’s been saying for as long as any of us have known her that she has no intentions of marrying or committing. None. You’ve always known exactly who she is.’
He’d been right, of course. Nat hadn’t changed, either in temperament or opinion, since she and I started to spend time together, and it wasn’t her fault that my own feelings had somehow changed.
And I mean, they fucking changed. I didn’t even know they had, let alone when this happened. But my reaction to her words at dinner was a stark realization that I was not in control of the situation or my feelings.
I, of all people in the world, was not the kind of man who was taken off-guard. I held the reins, steered the ship, ran the show, and called the shots…I was always in control. Until now, apparently. The realization that I was halfway down a path I didn’t realize I’d started taking was disorienting, and it made me angry at myself.
I walked along the shore of the remarkable lake, looking out across the expanse of the water and watching the moonlight shimmer on the gentle waves.
“Spencer.” I didn’t turn around at the sound of her voice. Instead, I stood still and stared out over the water toward the Grottoes of Catullus, where the arches seemed to glow in the light of the moon. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing,” I said, shaking my head as I turned back to look at her. “You just gave me the reminder I needed to bring me back down.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” she said.
Looking into her face was harder than looking directly into the sun with those shining eyes as bright as blue flames. I was bewitched, cursed, and so very fucked. Time to fight fire with fire and put these fucking flames out.
“What you said about keeping fit for those other guys?”
“I—” she started, then stopped herself.
My eyebrow raised as I looked down at her face. I hadn’t expected her to hesitate when I confronted her about it. After all, she’d spoken so casually when she’d mentioned it before.
“What?” I said, wondering what she was thinking. Like the little bitch I was.
