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“And, Ali, so nice to finally meet you, Babe. I have to say, your pictures don’t do you justice.” His brown eyes draw a line down my body, and he makes no effort to hide the fact that he’s inspecting every part of me. How much longer do I have to be here? I shift under his gaze and look at my watch, the time moving painfully slow already.

“Nice to meet you, too,” I force out, plastering a professional smile on my face that honestly hurts a little. He flashes me a glimpse of his overly bleached smile and brushes his blond hair back before motioning to my chair and sitting back down in his own. Seriously? He’s not even going to pull my chair out for me?

“Please, have a seat.” He doesn’t even bother to look at me when he says it, his gaze glued to his phone, and I close my eyes and take a deep breath before sitting down in my chair and picking up the menu. Fuck this. If he wants to bring me to this place and flash his money around, I’m going to order the most expensive thing on the damn menu.

A waitress appears and I order wine, knowing damn well that I’m going to need it, and when she turns to leave, I want to grab her by the wrist and beg her to stay. I’ll even cry if I have to. Instead, I watch her walk away and look back at my date, just knowing that this is going to be truly awful. His eyes are still on the waitress’s ass, and I have to wait until she’s completely out of view before he looks back to me, smiling. It feels so fake.

“Sorry, Honey,” he says, not looking the least bit sorry, “I just appreciate beauty.”

I bet you do, pig.

My eyes want to roll so badly that it physically hurts to keep them trained on him but I manage and force a smile to my face as I nod. This guy’s going for the fucking gold in most atrocious date ever, and he’s off to a good start. It’s like someone took date one and two and mashed them together to create one super awful date to end this shitty experience.

“So, what do you do again, Baby?” he asks, and I barely hold back the cringe at all the pet names he’s throwing around.

“I’m a crime reporter.”

“Ah, that sounds terrible. I’m sure the pay sucks, too. I’m in real estate, and I gotta tell ya, Sweetheart, money is good.”

Trying my best to remain polite, I force a tight smile and nod. “Good for you.”

Only fifty more minutes.

Just last for another fifty minutes, Ali.

The waitress arrives with my wine, and I practically snatch it out of her hand, taking a large gulp before setting it back down. She gives me an understanding smile and leaves.

“I just sold this place yesterday for a couple mil. The commission on that is pretty sweet.”

I smile and nod as I take another drink. I wonder if he thinks that I actually give a damn about how much money he makes. I literally couldn’t care less and not just because I get the very strong feeling that he’s a raging douchebag. He leans closer, resting his elbows on the table like he’s going to tell me a secret, and winks.

“You like that? Depending on how well tonight goes, maybe we can go do a little shopping tomorrow and get you something sparkly.”

I would like to say that I’m shocked but in the ten minutes I’ve been here, I’ve gotten a pretty good read on this guy, and I’m not sure that he could say much that would surprise me. I’m also fairly convinced that he thinks he’s getting laid tonight. Yeah, that’s not fucking happening.

“I don’t really wear jewelry,” I say, downing more wine, and wishing I could just get the bottle.

“Some new clothes then,” he adds, looking down my body again. “Something sexy to wear when you’re not at work.”

“No, thank you,” I grit out, losing my patience with all this.

“Don’t be like that, Baby. Just trying to do something nice for you. Then again, I suppose you don’t really care about the money, do you?”

Oh, shit, maybe he does have a brain cell. I’m about to respond to him when he holds his hand up and keeps going.

“I mean, of course you’ll quit once you get married.”

I take another sip of wine, torn between chugging the thing and making it last. “Why would you think that?”

“Because that’s your job. Once you get married, it’s all about taking care of him and giving him babies. You know, carrying on the family name.”

I stare at him for a long moment, in total shock. I think my mouth is hanging open but I couldn’t really tell you for sure because my body is numb. Did he…just call me a breeding machine? Because I’m fairly certain that’s essentially what just came out of his mouth.

“Excuse me?”

“Sweetheart, you can get mad at me all you want but we both know it’s the truth. Your purpose is to have kids. Honestly, with a body like that,” he says, letting his eyes fall to my chest, “I don’t know how you haven’t been scooped up yet.”

Yep, he called me a breeding machine.