to laugh. His male pride really ought to be dented. None of his other dates had been so blunt. But none of his other dates had been quite so interesting.
‘This is only the fourth date I’ve been on.’
‘In how long?’
He shrugged. ‘A month?’
‘That’s a lot of ladies who passed you by, Noah. Tell me why I shouldn’t follow the crowd.’
Despite the fact that he was known for his cool, unruffled demeanour, he found himself laughing again.
‘I’ve got nice teeth?’
‘There is that,’ she said, her eyes twinkling. And they really were that blue. She looked at the tablecloth and scratched at a catch in the linen. ‘Sorry about the teeth thing. I was a little nervous, and when I’m nervous I tend to say the first thing that pops into my head.’
Although it seemed to get her into trouble, he found it quite endearing. And refreshing. The more successful he’d become, the more people second-guessed their every word around him. Getting an honest reaction—rather than one that had been carefully edited before it left a person’s mouth—was a wonderful novelty.
‘Shall we order?’
She breathed out a sigh, making a little round shape with her mouth. ‘That would be lovely.’
He opened the large, unwieldy menu and scanned it, even though he was pretty sure he was going to start with the carpaccio of beef and follow it with the scallops.
‘We can discuss my many faults over the appetisers,’ he said, completely deadpan.
The bright eyes appeared above the menu, laughing at him. Noah smiled to himself and paid careful attention. You could tell a lot about a person from what food they ordered. She chose the beef too. Another good sign.
No. Not a sign—he didn’t believe in signs. Just an indicator of compatibility.
She let him choose the wine and, by the time he’d narrowed the choices down to match their courses, their appetisers had arrived.
‘So, what do you do, Grace?’
She looked up from her salad—not by raising her head, but by looking at him through her lashes. A flicker of emotion passed across her face and she popped a piece of avocado in her mouth. Didn’t she want to tell him what she did for a living? It couldn’t be as bad as last Saturday’s date. A pet psychologist, for goodness’ sake!
When Grace finished chewing, she mumbled, ‘I’m a barrister.’
Not quite what he’d expected. He wondered if she’d be too tied down to her job to think about travelling with him. That might be a deal-breaker.
‘How about you? What do you do for a living?’
He opened his mouth and closed it again. Time to learn from past mistakes. The moment he mentioned thrillers and novel-writing, the game was normally up. Noah wasn’t a particularly common name and people tended to guess the connection, even if he used his totally imaginative Noah Smith alias. And he didn’t want Grace to go all giggly and stupid like some women did.
‘You do have a job at the moment, don’t you?’ Grace said.
‘Of course I do. I’m a writer.’
To his relief, Grace looked pleasantly unimpressed. ‘What kind of writer?’
He shrugged. ‘I write about military stuff. Quite boring, actually.’ Another little detour.
Grace dabbed her mouth with her napkin. ‘Are you pulling my leg?’
Rats. She could tell he was fudging the issue. Just as well he hadn’t decided to be an actor instead of a novelist. At least his characters were convincing, even if he wasn’t.
‘No,’ he said with his best poker face.
Grace looked at him long and hard. Had she guessed his secret? If she had, she wasn’t smiling and going all gooey, which was unusual.
‘So, tell me about your other dates,’ she said, her eyes never leaving his face. ‘What went wrong?’
‘Nothing.’ He took a deep breath and let his face relax out of his smile. ‘But it’s a serious business, finding a wife. I’m not going to trot off down the aisle with just anyone.’
She put her knife and fork down and stared at her salad for a few seconds. ‘You’re really looking for a wife on an Internet dating site?’
Why did his dates seem to find that so hard to believe? After all, the site in question was Blinddatebrides.com. It kind of gave the game away.
‘Aren’t you looking for a husband?’
Grace shook her head hard to loosen her hairdo a little.
‘What are you looking for, then? Love? A soulmate?’
She dropped her chin and gave him an Are you serious? look from under her lashes.
Good. She didn’t believe in those things either.
‘I’m glad we’re on the same wavelength,’ he said before taking a sip of wine.
Grace pursed her lips. ‘It’s not that I don’t believe in those things. Just that I’m not expecting to find them at Blinddatebrides.com. Nor do I want to. I mean, the whole Romeo and Juliet, all-consuming passion thing really only works for teenagers, don’t you think?’
He raised his eyebrows in what he hoped was a non-committal way. He wasn’t sure what this ‘in love’ thing was. Oh, he’d thought he’d found it once, but it had turned out to be a case of mistaken identity. What people sang about in love songs or wept over at the cinema wasn’t real. It was all an illusion—one he bought into about as much as he had the chick with the AK47.
His parents didn’t do all that hearts and flowers nonsense and they had been perfectly happy for almost fifty years. If it could work for them, it could work for him.
The evening passed quickly. Too quickly.
As Noah dug into his dessert, he decided he’d seen enough of Grace to know she wasn’t what Harry termed a ‘WAG wannabe’in disguise—definitely not a gold-digger! There was a recital at one of the local arts centres next week that he’d planned on going to, and he was going to ask Grace if she’d like to go with him.
He cleared his throat. ‘Grace?’
She looked up at him, a chocolate-dipped spoon half in her mouth. Slowly, and while Noah’s mouth began to water, she pulled it out, sucking the last of the rich brown mousse off.
‘Do you want some?’ she asked, eyebrows raised, mouth slightly smudged with chocolate. Noah meant to shake his head, but it didn’t seem to want to move.
‘Uh-huh,’ he heard himself say.
‘It is rather divine,’ she said, her eyes doing her trademark
