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He scrubbed at his face and sighed, relaxing into the leather of his chair a little bit more. When he opened his mouth again, the words came out softer, gentler, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d realized how cutting the last couple things he had said had been.
“If we need to refine it after the first few matches, then we will. But for now, that’s as far as I’m going.”
“Fine.” I shut my binder and shoved it back into my bag, not fully accepting his silent apology in the shift of his tone. “I’llcontact you once I’ve figured out how to pitch this to potential matches.”
Chapter 12
Adrian
The woman across the table from me smelled so heavily of sickly-sweet cotton candy that I couldn't help but wonder if she’d rolled around in a bathtub full of it before lathering herself in a similarly scented perfume.
“It’s a shame they don’t allow kids in here,” she complained, stabbing the ice in her vodka soda with the end of her straw. For the life of me, I couldn’t even remember her name. “You wouldloveVeronica.”
I nearly shook my head in confusion as I tried to wrap my mind around what she had said.She had a kid? That isn’t something I requested.“Uh, who?”
The bright blue of her obviously colored contacts met my gaze as a grin spread across her brown-painted lips. I wasn’t typically one to judge, but she wasn’t someone I would usually gravitate toward—the overdone makeup, the bleached blonde hair, the filler, the intense cleavage of her worked-on breasts…it was someone’s type, but it wasn’t mine. “Veronica. Hold on, I’ll show you.”
She plucked her phone from her overly large handbag that she’d insisted needed to sit on top of the table. The clack of her nails against the screen was either so loud I could hear it overthe music, or the sound just simply grated on me. A couple of seconds later as the waiter rounded the corner with our desserts, she spun the phone around toward me.
“Isn’t she just adorable?”
A blur of white against a black background had me backing up an inch to see the screen better without my reading glasses, and oh,no, who the fuck had Ava set me up with? “Is that a…pomeranian?”
“Yes! Good eye,” she giggled. “Purebred, too. I’m sure she’ll get along with yours just fine.”
What the hell was happening? “Mine…?”
“Oh. Ava said you had a kid, too.” Her brows met in the middle as she dropped her phone back into her purse.
“Uh…yeah, I do have a kid,” I said. The waiter deposited a slice of chocolate cake and a small bowl of strawberries in the center of the table, and it took almost everything in me not to ask him to take it back and put it in a to-go container so I could get the hell out of here. “A child. Human child.”
“Oh.” Her head cocked to one side, and I couldn’t help but suddenly realize how absurdly dog-like the movement was. “I’m confused?—”
“Did you tell Avayouhad a kid?”
She nodded as she stabbed the cake with her fork, shoveling a bite of it between her brown lips.Why are they brown?“Mhm.”
“But you don’t have a kid.”
“I do. I have Veronica.”
I thanked my lucky stars that I hadn’t grabbed for my fork yet. It would have bent in half with how much I was clenching my fists. “That…is not the same thing.”
She waved at me with her fork. “My friends and I call our dogs our kids. It’s not weird.”
“It’s weird to not clarify when you’re talking to amatchmakingservice,” I insisted. “Do you even like kids? Human ones?”
She shrugged. “I mean, I guess. They’re fine.”
It took everything in me not to slam my head onto the table.
————
Me: Was that on purpose?
I pulled my jacket closer around me as I stepped out of the lobby of the building, my jaw aching from how tight I was clenching it. Either Ava wasn’t nearly as good at her job as her father made her out to be, or she was fucking with me.Ding. Ding.
Ava: What? What do you mean?
