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“No, I’m not. In fact….” I drained the rest of my martini. As soon as my empty glass hit the table, a fresh one was set in its place. I downed the glass of bravery and looked at Richard. “I’m sorry, Richard, but I came here tonight to end this…this…whatever this is we have. It’s not working for me.”
“But it could,” he insisted. “We’re great together.”
I pulled my hand back when he tried to take it again.
“No. I came here to tell you that tonight. I don’t feel we should continue to see each other. I don’t feel the same way about you. I confess I am more than a little surprised by the marriage proposal. I had no idea you felt that way. We’ve never spoken of love. Nonetheless,” I continued, “this is our last date. I won’t be seeing you again.”
His face, which had been flushed, now flamed an irate, mottled red. “Are you fucking kidding me? You’re breaking up with me?” His voice was loud, easily drowning out the background music. “Me?” He stood so forcefully that his chair tipped backward. “You bitch.”
He threw a hundred-dollar bill on the table. “You’ll be sorry. You’ll come crawling back, but you know what? I’ll be long gone.”
Our waiter and Zack hurried toward the table.
“Sir? Sir? Is everything all right?” Paul asked.
Richard shoved their waiter to the side and stormed through the dining room. I lost sight of him when he stomped into the lobby toward the exit.
I sighed. “Well, that was a little more dramatic than I anticipated.”
“Are you okay, ma’am?” Paul asked.
“Definitely okay.” I handed Paul my black American Express card. “Keep the cash for yourself. Put the drinks on here.”
“Thank you. I’ll be right back.” He took my card and walked away.
“You look snazzy,” I said in a ribbing voice to Zack. When his face remained neutral, I sighed, “Thank you for the second martini tonight.”
“Yes ma’am,” he said. “I could see things weren’t going well, and here at the Marble Mansion, we want our patrons to leave with good memories.”
Such an odd comment, right? Definitely undercover.
“Well, I’m leaving with memories, that’s for sure.”
Paul returned with my card and I signed the slip.
“Good night, gentlemen.”
I gathered my purse and headed for the door. Outside, the cute—and very young valet—had taken me at my word, or maybe it was my fifty-dollar tip, but my car was parked by the curb at the front door.
“Thank you,” I said.
“I’m thinking the man who just left was your bad news to deliver?”
I shook my head. “He was.” I could only imagine how rude Richard had been to the valet. “I’m sorry if he said something rude to you.”
He walked me the few steps to my car and opened my door. “Whatever the gentleman said does not reflect on you, just as I hope tonight’s visit to the Marble Mansion will not reflect on your opinion of us. I hope your next visit goes better.”
I slid behind the wheel. “Thank you.”
Ten
I thought about waiting up for Zack, but his hours were unpredictable. He might be home by midnight, or it might be eight in the morning when he finally pulled into his drive. So, I removed my carefully applied makeup, put on my most comfortable yoga pants—which happened to also be my holiest—and an old University of Texas T-shirt that’d seen better days. My toes rejoiced when they left the toe-pinchers of my high heels in favor of a pair of soft, fluffy slippers.
My stomach let out a loud roar. Either I was hungry, or the dragon inside had awakened. I went with starved. If only I’d placed an order to go at the Marble Mansion, but did they even do takeout? Could I send one of those delivery services over to pick me up a juicy filet with crab? Probably not, and there was a better than fifty-fifty chance my meal would get “lost” on the way to my house. The next option was my kitchen. Sigh. Not the best of possible options.
Baxter and I headed down to my kitchen to check out what dinner possibilities we had. Not Baxter, of course. He had his dinner all ready to go. What scared me the most was that I was so hungry that even his dog chow smelled good. Yeah, I needed to feed the dragon and fast.
I stood at my open refrigerator door and surveyed my supplies. It held all the makings for a large chef salad, so I decided that was better than wrestling Baxter for his chow. After assembling a rather decent salad, if I said so myself, I headed to the sitting room, followed closely by my eight-pound shadow. I set my wine on the table along with my salad and hunted for the television remote. Scrolling through the channels, I stopped on a popular contemporary western and dug into my salad. The channel was streaming last season’s episodes to get the audience excited about the upcoming new season. The storyline was romantic at times, frustrating at times, and violent often—sometimes all three in the same episode. At midnight, my eyes were scratchy and my legs stiff from sitting for four hours watching mindless television without moving.
