A Profiler's Case for Seduction(20)
His smile was so sexy, so warm, and the light in his eyes as he swept her with his gaze from head to toe whispered of intense approval, of male interest.
“I was beginning to wonder if maybe you were going to stand me up,” he said.
“And why would I do that?” she countered lightly, shoving all her previous doubts about the night aside.
“It seemed to be some sort of a rite of passage for girls when I was in high school.” Before he could say anything more the hostess motioned to them to follow her. She led them to an intimate table in the back of the busy restaurant. She handed them menus along with a bright smile and told them their waitress would be with them shortly.
“Now, what’s this about high school and girls standing you up?” she asked as she shoved the menu aside and instead focused on his beautiful eyes shimmering in the light from the candle in the center of the table. “I thought you went to private schools.”
“I did. Until I was a junior in high school and then I begged my parents to send me to public school. They finally relented and I began my junior year at Washington High School in Dallas.”
He paused as the waitress arrived with a basket of freshly baked mini garlic loaf. He ordered lasagna and meatballs, she ordered chicken Alfredo. He asked for a glass of wine while she went for a diet cola. When the waitress departed he continued.
“I was nerdier than the worst nerd. To be honest I was too smart for the classes, too stupid to try to fit in. So, I became the class joke without really understanding it.” He smiled at her ruefully. “Chemistry I did well, people I flunked. I made a total of five dates and was stood up all five times.”
“That’s awful, they must have been the mean girls in the class.” Dora couldn’t imagine a hunk like him being stood up by anyone.
He shrugged and reached for a piece of the garlic bread. “The good thing is after a semester of that I was ready to go back to my private school where the other students were more like me.” He cocked his head slightly, his gaze a bit more intense. “What about you? What were your high school days like?”
“Definitely unmemorable.” The lie slid easily from her lips. It wasn’t really a big lie. She’d spent a lot of time trying to forget that time in her life.
“You mentioned you got married at eighteen. That’s really young.”
“That was my first marriage,” she replied, and then blushed. He raised a dark eyebrow. “I’ve tried marriage twice and both were dismal failures.” The last attempt at a happily-ever-after had sent her descending into the very pits of hell.
“You mentioned the other day that you married a man like your father.” He took a bite of the garlic bread and then washed it down with a sip of wine.
“Billy Cook.” She carefully unfolded her napkin on her lap, refusing to look up as she continued. “I had just graduated from high school and I thought he was my escape from my father, from my life, but instead he was just more of the same abuse and misery. We divorced when I was twenty and then when I was thirty I decided to try the institute of marriage once again.”
She paused and looked at him. “Surely I’m boring you.”
“On the contrary, I find you and your life fascinating. Who was husband number two?”
“Jimmy Martin. He worked at the bank in town, had an aura of respect and genuine politeness that was appealing to me. He’d come into the café almost every night and flirt shamelessly with me. One thing led to another and we got married. It lasted for two years before things fell apart and that’s when I decided romance and marriage just didn’t fit into my life.”
Billy had been her need to escape, Jimmy had been her first real love and in the end he’d led to her near destruction.
“I feel the same way,” Mark said, pulling her from her teetering on the edge of painful memories. “Been there, done that and made a mess of the whole thing. I wouldn’t be too eager to try the marriage scene again anytime soon.”
His words put Dora at ease. Knowing that they were both on the same page and that this was just a meal between new friends, she felt her nervous tension ebb.
By the time the waitress arrived with their meals, they were deep in a conversation about college football, the traditions of homecoming and the upcoming festivities.
“Friday night before the game on Saturday they always build a huge bonfire on the right quadrant of the campus. It draws a massive crowd and they burn an effigy of a football player from the other team,” she said as she dug into her chicken Alfredo.