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Far be it from him to disrupt the status quo. The status quo was surprisingly pleasant. He’d agreed not to come on to her, and he’d stick to it, no matter how many more times she gave him a hard-on just by looking at him.
Promises meant something to him and he wanted Elise to understand that.
And oddly enough, when he knew there wasn’t a snowball’s chance for anything above pizza and a movie, it was liberating in a way he’d never expected.
It was new. And interesting. Instead of practicing his exit strategy, he relaxed and enjoyed the company of a beautiful woman who made him laugh. He couldn’t wait to find out what happened next.
The pizza arrived, and he let her hand slip from his without protest, but his palm cooled far too quickly.
Elise set the box on the coffee table and handed Dax a bright red ceramic plate. The savory, meaty smell of pepperoni and cheese melded with the fresh-baked crust and his stomach rumbled. Neither of them hesitated to dig in.
Dax couldn’t remember ever eating with a woman in front of the TV. It was something couples did. And he’d never been part of one. Never wanted to be, and furthermore, never wanted to give someone the impression there’d be more couple-like things to come.
But this wasn’t a date and Elise wasn’t going to get the wrong idea. It was nice.
“Thanks for the pizza,” she said around a mouthful, which she couldn’t seem to get down her throat fast enough. “I never eat it and I forgot how good it is. You do amazing things with a credit card.”
She’d meant it as a joke but it hit him strangely and he had a hard time swallowing the suddenly tasteless bite in his own mouth.
Yes, his bank account could finance a small country, and he made sure the women he dated benefited from his hard work, usually in the form of jewelry or the occasional surprise overnight trip to New York or San Francisco. He’d never given it much thought.
Until now. What did he have to offer a woman in a relationship? A coat and a credit card. Thanks to his friendly neighborhood matchmaker, it seemed shallow and not...enough. What if Elise did the impossible and introduced him to his soul mate? She was smart and had a good track record. She could actually pull it off.
By definition, his soul mate would be that woman worth making lifelong promises to.
Did he really want to meet her and be so inadequately prepared?
“You’re supposed to be asking me questions.” Dax gave up on the pizza and opted to drown his sudden bout of relationship scruples with more wine.
Eyebrows raised, Elise chewed faster.
“I suppose I am,” she said and washed down the last of her pizza with a healthy swallow of cabernet, then shot him a sideways glance. “Say, you’re pretty good. I did forget about work, just like you predicted.”
He crossed his arms so he didn’t reach for her hand again. It bothered him that he wanted to in the same breath as bringing up the profile questions designed to match him with another woman. “Yeah, yeah, I’m a genius. Ask me a question.”
After pausing the movie, Elise sat back against the sofa cushion, peering at him over the rim of her glass. “What does contentment look like?”
This. His brain spit out the answer unchecked. Thankfully, he kept it from spilling out of his mouth. “I spend my day chasing success. I’ve never strived for contentment.”
Which didn’t necessarily mean he hadn’t found it.
“What if Wakefield Media collapsed tomorrow but you had that woman next to you, the one who doesn’t care about what’s behind your curtain? Would you still be able to find a way to be content as long as you had her?”
No surprise that Elise remembered what he’d said at lunch the other day. How long would it take her to figure out he actually wanted someone to care?
Nothing was going to happen to Wakefield Media. It was hypothetical, just like the soul mate. So if this was all theoretical, why not have both?
“What if having the woman and success makes me content? Is that allowed?”
Somehow, the idea buried itself in his chest and he imagined that woman snuggled into his bed at the end of a long day, not because he’d brought her home, but because she lived there. And they were together but it wasn’t strictly for sex—it was about emotional support and understanding—and making love heightened all of that.
Dax could trust she’d stick around. Forever.
“If that’s what contentment looks like to you, then of course.”
Her catlike smile drove the point home. She’d gotten a response out of him even though he’d have sworn he’d never so much as thought about how to define contentment.
