Don’t Love, Don’t Lose

But knowing that he had thought that she’d been in on this strange effort to get his attention in a personal way – that mortified her.

Aunt Della, thought Jasmine, glad that she was too dark for her blush to show, you are so going to pay for this. I bet you thought of this. Oh, you’re going to pay. I’m going to cook next Sunday and make you eat every last bite.

“I do believe it hadn’t occurred to you until now. Well, Ms. Turner, you intrigue me more and more. Dinner tonight. I’d like to pick you up at eight, but you seem like a cautious woman, so you’re welcome to get yourself to the restaurant. I have a few options in mind, but I’m sure you know this place better than I do. Seafood, I believe, is what is recommended here.”

“You’ve been here this long and you haven’t tried our crabs? Or the shrimp? Or, for somebody like you, probably the lobster?”

“You can hardly complain that I judged you when you’re doing plenty of judging yourself, Ms. Turner. After all, I had reason enough to want to judge. I have your number, as your Aunt Della meant for me to do, I’m sure. I’ll text you. Or call you, if I have time. You can think of it as a business dinner if that will help you feel better about it. And we will talk business, and at the end of it, maybe we’ll even work together. But for now, I have a meeting. Take care, Ms. Turner. I’ll see you later today – unless you decide you’d rather run scared, of course.”

The infuriating man didn’t give her a chance to say anything to him. He got up, dropped a few bills on the table – far too much, she saw, it would cover an extravagantly generous tip –and walked out.

Every eye was on him as he walked out. She had no doubts that he knew that. She had no doubts that he liked that just fine, either.

She hadn’t even been able to tell him that she couldn’t make it to dinner because she had Lucy. Well, when he texted her – if he texted her, she figured he’d move on to more important things soon enough – she would tell him that she couldn’t make it because her cat was sick.

Lucy wasn’t completely cleared yet. She was kind of a little sick. She needed her. She wasn’t going to leave the poor cat alone when she needed her.

Coward.

She could hear Rita saying it.

Drat. So maybe she was a cautious woman. There was plenty of reason for women to be cautious in the world. Just look at the state of it!

Rita might have had to deal with less heartbreak if she’d learnt to be cautious, too.

But he had thrown it down as if it were a gauntlet, so casually, and so smoothly. Scared – as if she would run scared from an Italian-suited megalomaniac who had far more money than good sense. Any man with good sense would’ve hired her immediately. She had a vested interest in making sure his objective was met. And besides, she was the best. There was no need for her to prove that, to herself or to anybody else. She was the best at what she did.

How dare that man insinuate that she needed to convince him!

How dare…

She caught sight of the time and nearly squawked.

She was late to work! What on earth was wrong with her!

She was always punctual – always. And now in just one day, she was going to be late twice.

Obviously, the cat was bad for her. The man was worse.

She was stuck with the cat. She had accepted that.

But she was not stuck with the man, and she was not going to go to dinner with him.

She absolutely was not.