Page 47

Bianca nodded. “I’m close. In fact, I’m meeting with the last subject in my study this evening. In…” She shot a look at her watch. “In half an hour.”

“Well, I won’t keep you. Have a good weekend, whatever you end up doing with it.”

“You too.”

Lacey held up her hand and turned away. Bianca could hear her heels tapping against the highly polished oak floor in the reception area, then the opening and closing of the door that led into the hall and to the elevators.

“Okay,” she said briskly. It was time she left, too.

She reached under her desk, pulled out the zippered tote she used to carry things to and from her office, and began loading stuff into it.

How could she have forgotten tonight’s meeting?

The answer was simple.

She’d wanted to forget it.

She was in the final stages of her research. That should have been cause for celebration. And, yes, in some ways it was.

In other ways…

Not so much.

The topic of her dissertation, Interpersonal Bonding Among Millennials in the Age of the Internet, hadn’t worked out quite as she’d hoped.

She’d run into difficulties she hadn’t anticipated.

Bianca had run carefully worded ads in the New York Times Personals section, the Village Voice, Craigslist, and in two university alumni quarterlies.

PhD candidate in psychology wishes to meet with users of online dating services for open and honest discussions of expectations and results. Privacy and anonymity assured.

Her adviser, Dr. Marilyn Epstein, had read it and smiled.

“You sure about this, Bianca?”

“What do you mean? Do you think there’s a better way to state the criteria?”

“What I think is that you’re liable to be walking into a problem. You may find yourself dealing with women who’ll take one look at you and hate you. As for the men… I wouldn’t be surprised if they forget all about the science.” Epstein had winked at her. “You might want to hire some big, strong, sexy hunk to go to the interviews with you and just sit nearby, watching you with smoldering eyes, making it crystal clear you’re no competition to the women—and clear to the men exactly whose woman you are.”

The doctor had chuckled. So had Bianca, but she’d immediately thought of Chay. The way he’d looked at her when they’d made love had left no doubt that she belonged to him.

Except, they hadn’t made love. They’d had sex. And she’d only been his for as long as the sex had lasted.

Not that she’d wanted to belong to him. To any man. Surely not now, and surely never to a man like Chay.

Besides, she’d been certain Epstein had things wrong. This was a survey. She was a trained scientist. She’d made the parameters of her study clear, especially for those participants—ten women, ten men—she’d chosen for what she called Closing Interviews.

She’d been correct about all those things. Unfortunately, they were also beside the point.

A few of her meetings with the female subjects had gone well.

Others had not.

One woman had taken a look at her, turned on her heel and walked out of the Cuppa Joe’s on Madison Avenue, where Bianca had decided to hold the interviews.

Another had burst into tears. “Why would I want to talk about the misery of online dating with somebody who looks like you?”

A third had accused her of being a shill for a dating service.