Page 97 of Between Desire and Denial

I looked around the bar for a tall man who would make it clear he was here to see me. I didn’t see him at first, so I sat down in a booth and ordered a drink.

One minute passed.

Then another.

I stared at my phone until a text came through. Not from Mr. Perfect though.

Jameson: Lunch sometime next week at Paradise Grove Golf Club? Preferably before the board meeting and before you turn your article in.

Me: Just let me know the day and time.

It was only five more minutes into me sitting there sipping on a drink that I saw him. Tall, probably six six with green eyes, perfect navy suit, and a devilish smile on his face. When he got to my table he leaned in and whispered, “Hey, Flower Girl.”

Dimitri Hardy. Not Mr. Perfect.

My breath caught on the way he said the nickname, how he smelled, how my body ached immediately to touch him and pull him in for a kiss. I bit my lip to try to restrain myself from all of it. I’d missed him but he didn’t get to know that. “What did you just call me?”

“You heard me.” He pulled at one of my curls and then he sat down across from me.

“Dimitri, what the hell are you doing here?”

“Meeting my girlfriend for a date.” He tilted his head and then looked me up and down. “Or ruining the date she thought she’d be on. One or the other.”

“No.” I shook my head. “That’s not possible. Where’s Mr. Perfect?”

“Mr. Perfect was a douche.” He sucked on his perfect teeth as he looked toward the ceiling for a second before he said, “I’m having a hard time seeing you in that stunning dress. Red, Honeybee? For a guy other than me?”

I glanced down at my dress and smoothed the fabric on my hips. “I wanted to look good for someone.”

“You always look good. In a sweater. In your glasses. Without them. With red lipstick. Without it, even though your lips look hot as hell now that I’m imagining them wrapped around me, which means some other guy would have been imagining it too. With red flowers in your hair. And a gold necklace around your neck.” He reached out to play with the chain and studied it. “This new?”

He recognized it so quickly, something that was different in my appearance that it made my center hot with need. I took a deep breath before I answered, “It was my mom’s. It meant a lot to her. She used to wear it before…”

“It looks stunning on you.” Then his eyes swept up and down my body. I chewed the side of my cheek, trying to wait for the heat in my body to cool off but it just spread further through me. “Fuck, I missed seeing you.”

I felt the blush heat my cheeks and hated that my thighs clenched at his assessment. “Should I ask again? Where is Mr. Perfect?” I whispered.

“Mr. Perfect wasn’t perfect. Not for you.” He looked a tad remorseful, and I grabbed my drink to take a big gulp of it. I figured I was going to need it, and I was right when he admitted,“I bought the dating app you were on, Olive. I needed to make sure you wouldn’t date anyone but me.”

I choked on the drink. It literally spewed out of my mouth before I grabbed a napkin to wipe it away. “You what?”

“In my defense, you said it was a great dating app.”

“It’s a terrible dating app. It just started!” I slammed down my drink and it sloshed over.

“True. The start-up only launched about a year ago, and I’m pretty sure they were happy with my offer of a couple million, which means they weren’t making much.”

“You dropped millions on a start-up app? For what? Because I said it was good?! That’s the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard.”

“I dropped a couple mil on an app because you were on it trying to find a match when you’re myonlymatch.” He said it so casually as he leaned back in his seat and stretched his arms across the booth.

And that’s when the anger bubbled inside me. “I’m… not… yours,” I stuttered out, trying to piece together everything that had just happened. “Did you—? What happened to Mr. Perfect? How did you get his information?”

“I got access to all the profiles, obviously.” He shrugged. “And when I looked him up to learn more about him, I foundyou weren’t a good match.”

“You helped match me with him! How could you possibly know that?”

“He wasn’t me, Honeybee. I’m the only match for you.”