You Had Me At Christmas: A Holiday Anthology(42)

Would it matter?

Don’t tell her.

It was simple enough. Avoid that two-year period of his life—hell, it was six years ago now—and tell her about everything else. Then if there was a second date or a third, he could be honest with her. She would know what kind of man he was by then and she could decide for herself if she could be with someone who had a criminal record.

Hell, if she got to know him, realized what kind of man he was, and decided it still mattered to her, then that wasn’t anyone he wanted to be with anyway. John was no damn snob. He knew good men, he knew bad men and he was probably somewhere in between. He didn’t spend his life judging other people and he sure as hell would not tolerate being judged by someone who didn’t understand the circumstances.

Then he shook his head. He was overthinking the shit out of this. It was a freaking blind date and nothing else. She could be nothing like her picture. Her personality could be nothing like how he had… what was the right word… read?

Because that’s all they had done so far. Typed things to each other. Intimate things. True things.

Lonely?

So lonely.

Really, wasn’t that what all the matchmaking internet websites and apps were about? Trying to find someone to be less lonely?

John didn’t know if he was cut out for any kind of real relationship. He had a woman once, he lost her and he figured that was it for him. Loading that stupid app on his phone had been nothing but a joke he and his buddies had done after work at the bar.

Johnny, trust me. You just swipe and it’s like all the free * in the world is right there in your fingertips.

Kate didn’t feel like * to him, though. Yes, it was intimate, yes, it was the most action he’d seen in a year, which probably made him the horniest man alive. And yes, it got him off hard last night once he put the phone down.

Still, it had felt like… more.

He guessed he would find out tomorrow. Which of course begged another question.

What the hell was he going to wear?





Chapter Four





It was eight o’clock on the dot according to her car clock, which was perfectly synced to her phone. Kate always made sure all the clocks, watches, oven clocks, microwaves at home and in the office were all always the exact time. It was a little OCD thing she had. One of those things someone might think was really cute about her or really annoying.

She was parked in front of McGlinn’s, frozen in her car. She could hit the button on the dash, start the expensive Mercedes, pull out and pretend…

That she was a coward?

There would be no pretending. She was a coward.

A grown, sophisticated, successful independent woman, and she was frightened of a blind date.

No, it wasn’t the date she was frightened of, it was him. John.

She’d read back through their exchanges, and thinking about some of things he’d said to her, made her do, the way he seemed to take control of everything… it had all happened so fast. While at the time it had been incredibly arousing, she wondered for the thousandth time since she’d agreed to meet him what he might be like in real life.

There is only one way to find out.

Kate undid her seat belt and heard her phone chime. This was it. He was probably cancelling. Maybe he was sitting in his car too, thinking that this was all a big mistake. She reached for her bag and pulled out her phone.

I’m at the bar. Dark leather jacket.

Dark leather jacket. Got it. Kate took a huge breath and opened the door. She did one last check of hair and makeup in the rear view mirror and made the march so many singles had made before into the depths of the unknown.

She walked inside the restaurant and was struck by all the Christmas lights that winked and glittered over the bar. Christmas music was playing, and she realized that not two days later she had already forgotten it had been Christmas. That New Year’s was just a few days way.

She scanned the length of the bar and saw him immediately. Even just from the profile, she could see he looked like his picture. The first test a pass, she started forward when he turned to look toward the door. He saw her and smiled, and then she watched as he moved his eyes over her, taking in the sleek, hopefully sexy black dress she wore along with the expensive shoes. Or maybe he was thinking about the body beneath all of that. She didn’t know, but she saw that this smile was gone.

“John?”

“Kate.” It sounded like a sigh.

She held her hand out to him, and he took it carefully, as if she were made of china. She could feel his calluses. He would feel the pampered, manicured hands of a woman who spent most of her day typing.

“Hi.”

“Please, my manners. Sit down.” He scooted over on the stool he was sitting on to allow her to sit next to him. She put her clutch purse on the bar as she tried to elegantly lift up onto the bar stool, and his eyes went directly to it, fixed on the expensive purse.

Now not only was he not smiling, he was scowling instead.

She’d overdone it. The dress, the heels, the designer purse. It was too much. Especially looking around the bar and the crowd that filled it. “I haven’t been to a place like this since college,” she said without really thinking. Then it occurred to her how that might sound. “I didn’t mean…”

“Yeah. Right. I’m an ex-con. Shit. Fuck. I’m sorry. I can’t do this.”