Fixer: A Bad Boy Romance (28 page)

"No no no," I quickly burst out. "I'm sure that she's a lovely woman. Uh, not that I would presume anything-"

To stop myself from babbling some more, I reached up and clapped a hand over my mouth. I held up one finger, indicating to Carter that he ought to just give me a second. I slowly took in a deep breath and let it out, trying to calm my overheated brain.

"Hi," I finally said, doing my best to put on a smile and pull together the tattered shreds of my professionalism.

"Hi," Carter answered me, smiling back. "I'm Carter James, real estate agent for the area."

"Rebecca Grace, although everyone just calls me Becca," I said. I took Carter's hand and gave it a shake. "I'm the new manager of the art gallery. Feel free to take a look around, and let me know if you have any questions."

"Good job." Carter gave my hand a little squeeze, and I tried to not think about how smooth and dexterous his fingers felt. "That sounded very professional."

"Really?" I reluctantly let go of his hand as my smile slipped away. "I hate to burden you with this, but I'm totally out of my depth here. The only thing that I have any experience selling is tomatoes."

"Tomatoes?" His eyebrows rose questioningly.

I nodded. "When I was a teenager, I helped out at the local farmer's market. The stall that hired me was for a tomato farm, so I spent every Saturday morning during the summer and fall sitting behind a bench and selling tomatoes to little old ladies."

"Ah, I see." It looked like Carter was trying very hard to hold back a laugh. "I bet you were very good at selling those - and I'm sure the skills will transfer."

"You think so?"

He nodded. "Besides, most of the tourists who wander into this gallery are little old ladies, on vacation and looking for something to buy with their retirement savings or Social Security checks to remind them of their visit out to the west coast. If you could charm them into buying tomatoes, you can probably charm them into buying little oil paintings to bring back to their senior centers or hang on the walls of their little retirement communities."

"Sure," I agreed. In the back of my mind, I couldn't help but think that, despite his reassuring words, Carter was definitely not a little old lady. Rather, he was something new and exciting and a little scary, making butterflies flutter in the pit of my stomach.

Surreptitiously, I snuck another glance down at his hand. I hadn't felt anything when he shook my hand, but a look now confirmed that there was no ring present. So he wasn't married, at least. That didn't mean that he wasn't engaged, or dating someone, or otherwise off the market - and drawing my eyes back up to his handsome face, with those lively, sparkling eyes, I felt all but certain that some other woman had snatched up this charming, sexy model of a man already.

Still, I owed it to myself to ask.

Turning over a new leaf, I repeated to myself inside my head, drawing up my courage. Moving away from Barry, leaving the past behind. I'll just ask him out for a drink after work or something, really low-key. Maybe to go see a movie.

Oh god. I don't know any movies that are playing. I can't even remember the last time I saw a commercial for a movie. Becca, what are you doing? Get ahold of yourself!

"Becca?"

I shot back to the present at the sound of Carter's voice. "Yes? Find something interesting?" My voice came out about half a dozen pitches too high, and I cursed my vocal cords for betraying me.

Thankfully, he didn't seem to notice. "Actually, I was wondering if you had any lunch plans for today."

"Lunch?" My voice sounded like it belonged to a chipmunk.

He nodded. "You know, that meal that you typically eat around this time? There's a great little spot just around the corner, if you'd like to join me-"

"Sure, I'd love to!" I answered, beaming up at him. I didn't know whether an angel had decided that I finally deserved some good luck, or if this was just the power of positive thinking, but I wasn't about to let this chance slip through my hands. Me, have lunch with a handsome man like Carter James?

The only thing better would be if Barry happened to wander by and see how much better his replacement looked.

"We could discuss some of the business I do with the gallery," Carter went on, and my hopes faded somewhat. Oh. He wanted to talk business, not tell me about how much he wanted to find a nice woman to sweep off her feet.

Still, I'd take it.

Continuing to smile, I stood up - and then felt the chill of the wooden floor on my bare feet. I glanced down at my feet, frowning, and then back up at Carter.

"Er, do you think anyone will notice if I go barefoot?"

Chapter Five

*

Ten minutes later, I strolled nonchalantly behind Carter into a little open cafe around the corner, hoping that no one dropped their eyes down to take in my bare feet. I had tried slipping back into my ridiculous high heels, but I barely managed to take half a dozen steps in them before my ankle gave an alarming wobble and I retreated back to my desk.

"I'm sure that no one will notice," Carter offered gallantly, although even I could tell that he was lying through his straight, perfectly white teeth.

Eventually, I settled for walking over to the cafe barefoot but carrying my shoes along with me in one hand, so that I could slip them back on while sitting at the table. This way, I figured, no one would notice that anything was off if they happened to glance under our table and catch a glimpse of my feet.

Perhaps to distract me from the curious sensation of the sidewalk under my exposed toes, Carter chatted as we walked, telling me about his business. It turned out to be more interesting than I'd expected; I never thought much about real estate before this.

"I've never really thought much about real estate before this," I confessed, figuring that I ought to contribute to the dialogue. "When I had a house, I mean, I didn't deal with any of the purchase or anything."

Too late, I wondered if this could end up leading the conversation down the wrong path. After all, that house had been owned not by me, but by my ex-husband. Nothing kills a flirty conversation with a new man like bring up the hated ex.

"Most people don't really think about real estate, I'd say," Carter answered me, shrugging. "And I agree that it's definitely not a sexy profession. No woman dreams of falling for a hot, bare-chested real estate agent."

I looked at Carter, imagining him with his chest bare as he swept me off my feet, and nearly walked straight into a lamp post as my brain short-circuited.

"But at the same time," he continued, "it's definitely a place to make a living. There's a lot of money in real estate, after all, and lots of people who are more than happy to pay someone to not have to deal with the whole thing."

"And that's what you do?"

He nodded. "I manage most of the downtown commercial properties around here. All the storefronts and restaurant buildings and such. If someone wants to rent one of those places for their business, they come to me, and I find out what they can get for their money. On the other side, if someone owns one of those buildings but they want to be more hands-off and not have to deal with collecting rent and checking in on their tenants, they can hire me to manage the building for them."

"So you fill both roles."

"And sometimes, I have a building owner come to me with an empty building just after a business owner has stopped by and requested a space!" Carter grinned as he spread his hands wide, and then brought them together. "All I need to do is connect the two of them, take my commission, and sit back and relax."

"So where does the art come in?" I asked.

Carter paused for a moment as we sat down at the cafe and picked up the menus that the waitress had deposited on the table in front of us. "Well, leasing out these buildings often requires some staging; I need to make the building look attractive. If it's a communal building with a bunch of different offices in it, for example, there needs to be some nice artwork hanging in the lobby so that clients have something to look at while they wait. It's also harder to convince tenants to move into some place that's bare-bones, with zero decoration."

I nodded. It made sense. My eyes traveled back to the menu, and I realized, as my stomach let out a little gurgle, that I actually felt quite hungry.

But then again, with Carter sitting across from me, maybe I should order a salad or something small, just enough to tide me over so that I wouldn't look like a total glutton as I stuffed myself. Making matters worse, Carter looked up at me over the menu. "What looks good?"

I shrugged. "I'm not sure yet," I lied, as my mind conjured up an image of a big hearty sandwich.

"Well, get whatever you want. My treat," he said, which didn't make my anxiety lessen at all. Now I needed to make sure not to pick out something expensive, either, or else it would seem like I was taking advantage of his generosity!

Eventually, arguing fiercely against my stomach, I picked out a salad with grilled chicken and some avocado. I conveyed my order to the waitress, trying to not sound grumpy. Meanwhile, Carter had no problem in ordering a nice big sandwich and fries for himself. I wondered if he'd mind if I stole a few of them off of his plate.

"So, you own a house?" Carter asked after taking a sip of his water, and my spirits plummeted.

"Uh, no, not exactly." How could I phrase this without adding in all sorts of ugly details about my past? "I used to, but I'm now in an apartment, actually not far from here." There. Hopefully that would change the topic without leading to more questions.

But Carter didn't appear quite ready to let it go. "What changed?"

"I got divorced," I said shortly, seeing no way around it.

Great. There it was, out there on its own like a fat, pregnant frog. I waited for Carter's whole attitude to change, for him to regard me as used and potentially already damaged goods.

Instead, he just nodded, as if he'd been half expecting this. "How long ago?"

"Six months," I said, feeling a little less distraught at the calmness of his tone. "Still picking myself up, if you know what I mean."

He nodded again. "It's hard. I haven't been through it myself, but I've helped friends with it. Why'd it happen?"

"Because the bastard cheated on me." What was I doing? Why was I spilling out all my secrets to this man that I barely knew, a man that I was supposed to maintain a professional working relationship with?

"And now?"

"And now, I think I'm going to take a break from men," I said, thinking about the plan that my best friend and I had discussed and decided upon after the divorce papers were signed. "Try and get my own life back first."

Carter smiled. "Sounds like a good idea."

Thankfully, our food arrived before I could reveal any more intimate and embarrassing details about my life, like how I got my first period in school. I dug into the salad, trying to keep my eyes off of the pastrami sandwich that the waitress set in front of Carter.

After we'd both taken our few bites, Carter, perhaps sensing that I didn't want to spend any more time discussing my failed marriage than I had to, wisely changed the subject. Instead, he chatted about some of the local businesses in the area, many of which existed in buildings that he'd managed or helped to buy or sell. To someone else, this might have come off as bragging, but I saw Carter's eyes light up when he talked about these businesses, and I realized that he really cared about them. For many of the smaller businesses, he named the owners as if he still kept up his personal connection with them.

"You really like our little city of Davis, don't you?" I asked, when he finally paused for breath.

With a slightly abashed grin, Carter reached up and ran a hand through his short hair, mussing it slightly. "It's obvious, isn't it?" he let on. "Yeah. I might not have grown up here, but I've been living in Davis for nearly a decade, now. It really is the kind of place that you just fall in love with, sometimes without even realizing it."

I tried not to wince a little at his mention of love, but he must have seen the pained expression flash across my face. "Sorry. Not that kind of love."

"No, it's okay," I defended myself. "So, um..."

I stalled, not sure how to ask if Carter was currently seeing anyone. How could I possibly raise the question without it coming across as hypocritical, especially when, just a few minutes earlier, I'd been talking about how I needed to spend some time on my own without a man in my life?"

Carter just smiled back at me. "At some point, I'm sure I'll find a woman who shares the same passion that I do," he said, and returned his attention back to the other half of his sandwich, pointedly not looking at how my cheeks flushed at the potential implication of his words.

As he'd promised, Carter tossed down his credit card on top of the check, holding up a hand at my half-hearted protests and my attempt to reach for my purse. "Maybe in exchange for this lunch, you'll give me a heads-up if any nice pieces come into the gallery, so that I can snatch them up before they get sold off to little old retired ladies," he teased me.