Love.com (12 page)

Emily smiled as she got up. It was time her
fictitious admirer had a real name. Was it Mike, maybe? Larry? Bob? She giggled and settled on Mike. A common enough name, and yes, he was totally into her, crazy about her, to the point he begged her to go to dinner with him that night. Would she go? Of course, she would.

Janice did
her job. By the end of the day, everyone learned the mysterious Mike was taking her out to dinner that night. Ian was sitting in his office when she left for the evening. He looked up, his eyes taking in her much-changed appearance in the new flower-print dress with more than a little interest flaring in his gaze.

“You look
really nice, Emily. Hot date, I heard? Is it the flower guy?”

“
Yeah, he’s taking me out to dinner,” Emily confided, smiling in what she hoped was an eager manner.

“Have fun
. You deserve it, Emily,” Ian said quietly. She detected a note of something in his voice she would have liked to label as regret or jealousy. But no, it was too soon for that. Ian didn’t know she was alive. Or did he? He certainly seemed to recognize she had a pulse, regarding her over his coffee cup in a way that unsettled her.

“Good night
, Ian.” Emily walked away from him and headed to the elevator, her heart beating erratically, feeling his electric eyes in the center of her back. She promised herself she wouldn’t look up before the elevator doors closed. She did anyway, peeping out from under the elaborate waves she spent two hours creating with her curling iron that morning. Ian was watching her leave, his expression inscrutable. She would have given anything to know what he was thinking just then. The doors shut. She was never to know what message was seen in those impossibly-blue eyes.

~
~ ~

Greyson had a cabin cruiser he had lodged in a slip at the marina. Emily was disgusted to realize all boats looked the same
to her when she got there. She walked up and down the dock for nearly an hour, worrying the time as she saw she was late for their dinner date.

Finally she stopped a
n older man on the pier. “Where is slip #2330? I’m meeting someone there.”

The old man scratched his head, looking confused at her question. It was clear he was hard of hearing. She fairly shouted the question back at him. He smiled and pointed down at the painted numbers on the dock
. So that’s what those numbers meant? Duh!

“Thanks,”
Emily said and hurried away, smoothing the navy and white striped blouse with the red belt over the white pleated skirt. She was sure the nautical-themed outfit would inspire nothing less than romantic interest from Greyson.

Truthfully, she hadn’t been on a boat since her and Eddie’s honeymoon. They went deep sea fishing in Florida. She recalled the seasickness that had her vomiting over the side, the miserable sunburn
she incurred, and her solemn vow to never step foot on another boat with a shudder.

Emily became so preoccupied reading the numbers o
n the dock; she failed to see where she was walking. She tripped over a rope at the edge of the dock, going down with a yelp. She gasped as her feet left the dock. She soon plunged into the sea below.

She spit out mouthfuls of seawater as she came
up bobbing to the surface, still clutching her sodden handbag for dear life. Emily was glad a pair of teenage boys was nearby. The boys helped her out of the water. They handed her a beach towel.

Emily
offered the boys a soggy ten dollar bill for the rescue.  She dried off and hurried to her car, disgusted to know her cell phone was now trashed, everything in her purse was wet or ruined. She had no means of calling Greyson to apologize for her cancelling the date. No way would she show up drenched!

When
Emily arrived home, she showered and consoled herself with chamomile tea. She fumed at her own stupidity and clumsiness. She used her home phone to call in the insurance claim on her cell phone. She was about to phone Greyson with her quite plausible disaster when she saw the computer screen was beeping. She had an email.

Emily
flinched from the cold tone of the email received from Greyson. Obviously he wasn’t happy she stood him up today.

Emily,

It might have occurred to you all the time and trouble I went to prepare for our date, much less
appreciate the expense! It’s obvious you’re nothing but the inconsiderate bitch you appear by not bothering to call me and cancel like a civil person would!

What should I expect from somebody who went to Harvard? Exactly! This salmon de
Alomonde and truffles, not to mention the champagne, cost me a fortune! Don’t bother with any excuses you might give! I don’t wish to hear from you again!

I joined this site to find someone! It’s obvious why you’re still single, you selfish bitch! Loose my number, and do yourself a favor and forget we ever corresponded. I have gone further to delete you from my list of favorites and blocked your profile. Have a nice life, and I hope to never hear from you again!

Sincerely,

Greyson Talbot III

Emily bit her lip as she closed the chapter on Bachelor# 3 before it began
. She mollified herself that it was fate that made her walk off the dock. It was obvious Greyson was a bit high-strung for her. She was irritated the guy acted like she killed somebody just because she stood him up. He wouldn’t have cared that she nearly drowned trying to find his damned boat! He was too worried tallying up his own expenses.

Emily was miserable with how disastrous the date ended. It just made her think of Ian. She was determined to forget about him. It was just her luck his handsome face refused to budge. Later, in her bath, she more than indulged in her thoughts of him, dismayed to realize she was no closer to forgetting him than before.

If anything, she was more stuck on Ian. She got out of the tub and longed for some means to erase him from her mind, find something else, someone else, to take his place. She was doomed to love a man that she couldn’t have. The thought made her reach for the wine.

By ten o’clock she was
roaring drunk, dancing around her living room to really bad eighties music, and convinced she would die alone in her house with fifty cats by the time she was forty. She was disgusted to run out of wine before her self-pity.

Joan called her
repeatedly. She ignored the call and let it go to voicemail. She was too embarrassed to admit how badly the date went. Tomorrow she could come up with something better at the water cooler to intrigue everyone.

Nobody needed to know what really
happened. For now, she just wanted to forget. The wine helped. She toddled off to bed with one slipper on; the other lost somewhere in the house.

~
~ ~

Emily ran
amok with her make-believe love interest for weeks. She sent herself flowers, cookies, and even an edible fruit arrangement before the romance fizzled. She got bored making up romantic dates with Mike to circulate about the office.

She knew she would burn in hell for the outrageous lies she was telling, but it satisfied her to feel Ian’s eyes on her more often than not.
The shock factor wore off. Ian rarely asked her about her weekend plans each Friday when she left the office. She felt like an idiot now, worse; she felt deceitful. She broke up with Mike discreetly one Tuesday; sure she did the right thing. She let Janice know the instant it occurred.

Emily caught the sympathetic looks of other ladies in the office
. Janice did her job. Now everybody was thinking she got dumped. Great! It was not the message she wanted put out there, but it wasn’t long before Ian strode into her office, smiling in amusement as he leaned against the door frame.

“Could have told you the
flower guy was a total flake,” Ian announced, looking a bit too happy her and the imaginary Mike called it quits. “Anybody who sends flowers just to get laid isn’t somebody you need to be dating, Emily.”

Emily gritted her teeth
at his matter-of-fact response. “Is it so hard for you to consider he might have liked me, Ian?”

Ian shrugged and slid into a chair
opposite her. “Emily, you’re what we guys call a nice girl, but one you have to work at. Any guy who sends flowers that soon is only after one thing. It’s kind of desperate, if you ask me.”

“You don’t know anything about him!” Emily glared at Ian
; bristling to know she was the mysterious Mike. She took offense he thought she was a flake as a guy. “I’ll have you know, he was a perfect gentleman the whole time! I broke it off with him! I wasn’t interested in him that way.”

Ian looked pleased to hear it. “
Hey, I’m just trying to help you out here. God knows I have enough of my own failed relationships. I’m not judging you. Just maybe suggesting you’re rushing things a bit? Didn’t your husband just die?”

Emily
could see it made her appear shallow for dating so soon after Eddie died. Ian obviously thought she was rebounding. Still, she found it hard to believe Ian failed with any woman. “Yeah, maybe it’s too soon, you’re right. Or maybe he just wasn’t the one?”

“That’s a bunch of bullshit
you women are all programmed with as soon as you try on a training bra,” Ian retorted and rolled his eyes. “You women all believe in the magical one, but settle for some jerk-off while you’re waiting. Then you punish the next guy for it! Nice!”

“I don’t recall ever asking you for your input, Ian,” Emily snapped and glared at him. “Not everybody has your negative outlook on relationships
, you know? Some of us still believe.”

Ian laughed outright, a sarcastic expression on his face. “I’m not negative, Emily, just realistic. Anybody can be
the one if you want them to be bad enough. Believe me; I know that more than anyone. People change. Don’t want to blow your little bubble to smithereens, but destiny doesn’t have a lot to do with it.”

“What made you so bitter?” Emily shook her head in dismay
, her heart lurching at his cryptic words. “Was it losing the Xbox?”

Ian chuckled at that, leaning forward
deliberately, looking her dead in the eye. “Not as much as realizing I missed the Xbox more than I ever did her. I was relieved when she was gone. I realized it was over long before that. Why I stayed, failed to see how unhappy we both were, made me feel this way now. What’s the point in investing yourself in something that’s doomed to end from the beginning?”

Emily realized Ian was hurt by his past romantic failings; saw it in his eyes, though he hid his disillusionment
well behind his scornful swearing off of relationships now. As soon as she saw that lingering vulnerability; it was gone in an instant. Knowing he’d been hurt so profoundly in the past made her realize his true depth. “So just because a relationship didn’t work out; you just give up, is that it? Kind of a cop out, don’t you think?”

Ian shrugged dismissively. “
It was more than just one. Women come and go, Emily. I’ve learned that the hard way. When all the reasons it ended start sounding familiar; you start to think maybe it’s you. That’s why I’m still single. It’s better not to have any expectations.”

“You really believe
all that crap?” Emily laughed and shook her head. “I think maybe you just have bad taste in women.”

Ian’s smile faded
abruptly. She could see she struck a nerve. “Actually, some of them were pretty amazing. Can’t blame them for realizing I’m not what they wanted.”

Emily could see
Ian wasn’t one to tell tales or bash his exes. Ian had more class than most men. Whatever went wrong in his past relationships, he was content to take full responsibility for it now. She wasn’t buying it. It took two people to end a relationship. “You’re being a little hard on yourself, Ian. You really like to punish yourself, don’t you? Ever hear, it takes two?”

Ian avoided her gaze. “Emily, I’ve learned that we can’t change who we are, even to be with another person. I’m not
that
guy. I’ll never be him.”

Emily could see Ian truly believed this. She wanted to argue his harsh interpretation of himself. It was hard to think a guy who looked like him had
any hang ups. There it was. Ian wasn’t perfect. He was flawed in his distorted belief he didn’t deserve to be happy. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy he took into every relationship, growing more convinced of his lack of worth. It was more than just a pattern he set for himself. Ian wasn’t programmed to be happy, a startling realization that saddened her. Given her emotional attachment to him, she refused to allow him to wallow in such self-loathing.

“Why do you think you don’t deserve to be happy, Ian? What happened to you?”

Ian rubbed his chin, his eyes meeting hers with an inscrutable expression. “Oh, I could give you a lot of reasons why I’m so fucked up, Emily. I could give lectures on why I don’t ever let people in anymore. Can we just say I’m not cut out for relationships and leave it at that?”

Emily shook her head
, her eyes filled with sympathy. “I don’t believe that at all.”

“Then you have expectations
of me too, Emily, just like all the women in my past. Admitting I’m not made that way was liberating, cut through all the bullshit in my life. I find, the least expectations you have; the less disappointment when everything ends.”