The Dating Game

‘My ex-wife.’ He reached into his pants pocket. ‘Do you want to call her or shall I?’

‘Hey, no!’ Sarah cried, and then she sucked in a breath that was half-outrage, half-laugh. ‘Oh, you … you villain! I believed you!’

‘Smarty-pants. Villain. What next, thesaurus girl? Meanie-beanie?’

‘How about knave?’

‘Not bad.’

‘Dastard.’

‘Better.’

‘Rapscallion.’

‘Now you’re talking.’

‘You weren’t really going to call her.’

‘No, but I promise Margaret really does think I’m nice. So come on, cheer me up: take advantage of me.’

She blinked at him. ‘Take what?’

‘Take advantage of me. Of my niceness. Indulge my White Knight Syndrome.’ He gave her his most innocent look. ‘Why, what did you think I meant? Do you want to take advantage of me in some other way?’ He flexed his dimple-power again. ‘I’m game if you have designs on my virtue.’

‘You’re being deliberately disingenuous.’

‘Disingenuous!’ he said admiringly. ‘Can you give me a really hard word, and use it in a sentence? Like, really, really hard?’

Another of those chokes, but she straightened her shoulders and picked up the gauntlet. ‘“Absquatulate”. Sarah Quinn had been trying to “absquatulate” from the storage room for quite some time!’

‘I’m such a sucker for a girl with words. Sorry, but you can consider your fate sealed. You’re not absquatulating from the storage room, Sarah Quinn—not without giving me my White Knight fix. I’m saving you whether you want me to or not.’

‘You’ve ably discharged your White Knight duty by offering me your handkerchief.’ She smiled, proffering his handkerchief on one upturned palm. ‘Which I hereby return to thee with gratitude, Sir David, unused and snot-free.’

Damn! He was losing her. ‘Yeah, you might want to use it before you face the crowd,’ he said, thinking fast.

She started to wave that suggestion away—but he twisted his face into a theatrical wince, and that stopped her.

‘Oh, how could I forget?’ She dropped the phone into her open evening bag and pulled out a compact. ‘It’s why I was trying to sneak out in the first place. Instead, here I am, standing around, talking to you. All I can say is thank God you’re not him.’

‘Er … not who?’

‘Him. The man of my dr— Oh, never mind!’ She started to open the compact. ‘It’s bad enough that even you should see me looking like— Oh. My. God!’ She stared in horror into the little round mirror for one frozen moment. And then she started manically dabbing at her cheeks with his handkerchief. ‘I need to invest in some waterproof mascara.’

‘Even though you don’t generally cry?’

‘Oh, you!’

‘Here,’ he said, taking the compact off her. ‘I’ll hold it while you do the repair work.’

‘I can manage.’

‘Hey, I’m a nice guy, remember?’

‘Sorry but I’m not sold on the whole “nice guy” thing,’ she said, but she let him hold the compact while she recommenced dabbing at the black-streaked tear tracks on her cheeks. ‘Don’t think I’m not grateful, but shouldn’t you be out there mingling with the bank’s clients?’

‘I’ve done my quota of mingling.’

‘Then shouldn’t you be out there looking at the paintings?’

‘I looked at the paintings out there. Now I’m looking at the paintings in here.’

‘And you got a bonus—Edvard Munch’s The Scream come to life.’

‘Except you didn’t scream.’

‘I was speaking figuratively. I generally don’t scream.’

‘Generally don’t scream. Generally don’t cry. Don’t throw phones—new ones, anyway. And you know big words. I might be falling in like with you.’

‘I have more than enough people in like with me already, thank you.’ She dipped into her bag again and pulled out a lipstick. She smeared on a layer of what looked like glossy rust, then rubbed her lips together. ‘It’s the other part I’m missing.’

‘Other part?’

‘Never mind.’ She turned her head to one side, then the other, assessing her face in the mirror. ‘I’m going to have to put on more mascara.’

‘You look fine without it.’

‘I’m blonde, in case you haven’t noticed. Which means my eyelashes are almost invisible.’ She narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. ‘Mind you, you’re blond, too. How did you manage to score such dark eyelashes? Are they tinted?’

‘No they bloody well are not.’

‘Hey, there’s no shame in an eyelash tint.’ She examined his face. ‘Or a facial.’

‘My eyelashes are the result of genetics. And so is my skin, so do not mention the word “facial” to me again if you value your life.’

‘Oooh, touchy,’ she said, and her eyes were doing what he’d never thought possible and dancing. ‘Seriously, though, do you know how much it hurts when a guy gets that combination? Blond, with dark eyelashes?’

‘Yes. Margaret, who is also blonde, used to tell me all the time. Which is how I know I’m not going to win the mascara fight. So go right ahead and slap it on.’

Sarah dug in her bag again and pulled out a tube of mascara. David was starting to think that tiny bag of hers had mystical qualities, given how many objects went in and came out of it. She brushed on the mascara with the speed and accuracy of an expert cosmetician. ‘There,’ she said, putting the tube in her bag along with his handkerchief. She batted her eyelashes at David as she retrieved the compact he’d been holding for her, popped it in with everything else and snapped the bag closed.

‘Hang on, there’s a clump at the corner,’ he said, and reached out to pinch one of her outer eyelashes between his thumb and forefinger. Did she jump a little? He wasn’t sure, but he thought—hoped?—she had. He stood back to examine her. ‘Better.’

‘Your ex-wife teach you that?’

‘Let’s just say I know my way around a tube of mascara.’