said that. It’s been a long day and I’ve forgotten my manners.”
“Is that an apology?”
He nodded.
She had the feeling that he rarely apologized. He was a man in command. She could tell he was confident and obviously chose his own road. This date orchestrated by his mother and her mother was outside his developed character.
“Teddy,” she said. “Everyone calls me Teddy.”
“Teddy,” he repeated. “Since you’re obviously hungry, and we’re already here—” he spread his hands encompassing the room “—we might as well eat. That way I can answer truthfully when asked how my night went.”
“It hasn’t begun on a high note. You sure you don’t want to stop here? If we go on, things could get worse.”
He laughed. The sound was deep and infectious, but Teddy refused to join in. She kept her features straight and unsmiling.
Teddy shrugged and returned to her seat. Undoubtedly, she’d be questioned, too. They ordered, and as she cut into a prime rib so tender she could have used a butter knife, Adam opened the conversation.
“While I was arguing with my...” He stopped. “I hear you’re in the wedding business.”
Teddy didn’t like his tone. She nodded. “I design wedding gowns and I’m a partner in a wedding consulting firm.”
“So you believe in orange blossoms and till death do us part?”
She refused to rise to the obvious bait. “Orange blossoms would be very expensive on this coast. But there are some brides who insist on them.”
He raised a single eyebrow and sipped his drink.
“I take it you are a nonbeliever?” Teddy asked.
“I’m a realist. I’ve seen too many of my friends walk down that aisle only to end up hating the person they vowed to love.”
Teddy was in trouble. She should have taken the opportunity to walk out the door when she had it. Now she was as stuck here for as long as the meal lasted.
“You’ve been married,” she stated. He had all the earmarks of a man who’d been hurt in a relationship, but his tone regarding orange blossoms told her he’d been down that aisle himself. His nod was barely perceptible.
“And you hate her now?”
He shook his head. “Quite the opposite. We’re very good friends.”
She frowned. This was an exception to the rule of divorce. “What happened?” she asked, realizing it was probably the wrong question, but it was already out.
He spread his hands and hunched his shoulders. “We were too young. We got married for all the wrong reasons. Mainly, we didn’t know each other, didn’t understand that our dreams weren’t the same.”
“What was her dream?”
He smiled. Teddy liked it. It was the good-memory smile, the one that appears when a person looks back and only he understands the happy place he’s entered. She was glad he had good memories of his marriage. She’d seen her share of people who only remembered the wedge that separated their relationship and not what created it.
“Her dream was to be an actress.” He took a moment to eat some of his steak before continuing. “After our divorce, she moved to L.A. and got a part on a soap opera.”
A light dawned in Teddy’s brain. Chelsea Sullivan? She rolled the name around in her mind. “You were married to Chelsea Sullivan?”
He nodded. “She kept the name.”
Chelsea Sullivan was the lead actress on the top daytime television program. From what Teddy read in the entertainment magazines, she was about to move her career to feature films.
He sat back in his chair. “And you? What did you dream of being?”
“I have my dream. I wanted my own design business.”
He smiled fully. “Then you’re ahead of most of the world. You have everything.”
Not everything, she thought. Her partner, Diana, married last year, and while the two of them had been friends for years, Teddy wondered at the happy changes she saw in her friend. There was a newness, a happiness that hadn’t been there before. While they both loved the work, for Diana there was something more to look forward to at the end of the day. Teddy had begun to wonder what she was missing.
But as she sat across from Adam, Teddy wondered how anyone could talk him into meeting someone whose business was weddings when he didn’t believe in them. And so far she was sure he wasn’t the one for her.
“What about marriage?” he asked.
The word hit her like a spray of ice water. “Me? Married? Never made the trip.”
“I see,” he said. “You give the story to everyone else but stand clear of it yourself?”
“You say that as if it was by design.”
“Is it?” Adam asked. He stared straight at her.
“No, I suppose I’m the cliché,” Teddy said.
“Always a bridesmaid, never a bride?”
She shook her head. “I haven’t met the right man, yet.”
“But your parents are determined to find him for you if you don’t do it yourself?”
Teddy nodded. “My mother for sure. But isn’t marriage a taboo conversation for people on a first date?” Teddy asked.
“I suppose it is, but we decided this is dinner, not a date.” He laughed again. This time Teddy laughed, too.
“What do you do?” she asked. In speaking with her mother, she’d never asked anything about him. She’d been too busy arguing that she didn’t want to go on a blind date to think about his profession.
“Investments. I own a brokerage house.”
She was impressed, but kept it off her face and out of her voice. “So, I deal in dreams and you in cold, hard cash.”
“Not cold or hard. Just ones and zeros.” There was no censure in his voice. It was also devoid of pride or arrogance.
“Computer transactions.” Teddy nodded, understanding that everything today was done on a small machine you could put in your pocket.
“Actual money is on the way out.” He turned to her, pulling his chair an inch closer. “How much money do you have in your purse right now?”
Teddy glanced in surprise at the clutch bag that lay on the table. Tossing her head, she said, “Enough for a taxi and a phone call.”
Adam smiled. It was the first time since they met that his face showed any emotion. “I remember hearing my mother telling me about taxi fare and carrying cash when she and my father were dating. Of course, their generation can remember life before cell phones.”
“I got that story from my father. He wanted to make sure I could get home or at least call if some guy got out of hand. He said I could lose the phone or forget to charge the battery.”
“Did it ever happen?” he asked.
“The phone, no. The date, nothing I couldn’t handle.”
Adam gave her a long stare. She wondered what he was thinking. She hadn’t issued a challenge, yet she felt as if he was thinking of one.
“What about you? Any sisters to give that message to?”
“No sisters, two brothers.”
“Where are you in the mix?”
“Right in the middle.”
Teddy nodded. Spoiled, she judged.