The evening wasn't going well, and the other couples in the semi–private Mas Rafs’s dining room stared at Daniel's table.
He hated this type of attention.
One too many questions, had been asked. He had not realizing that, “Where do you see us in five years?” would lead to such a heated argument—especially when he had said he didn't see them getting married.
He squirmed in his seat once more. He wasn’t sure why he had stirred the conversation down this route on Valentine’s Day, of all days, but he couldn’t take back what he had said. “Brandelynn, please keep your voice down.”
The look she gave him could have been a death ray pointed to his head.
“Here’s another reason…” she said, her voice prattling off the fourth reason why the two of them should get hitched.
Should. Not want to. Not need to. Not wish to. But should. He wondered if she could hear what she was saying and if it sounded as crazy to her as it did to him.
Daniel stole a glance at the two other couples in the room. The man from table one had proposed to his girlfriend a good twenty minutes ago. The screams of delight, the resilient ‘yes’ that had come immediately afterward…it killed the moods at the other two tables.
As the newly engaged couple remained ecstatic and cooed with delight, the man at the second table seemed nervous. Since Brandelynn currently rattled off the fifth reason why they should also be getting married, Daniel could understand the way the man at table two felt.
Clink, clink
The man at the second table tapped his wine glass with his knife.
All eyes darted toward him. It got Brandelynn to be quiet for a minute. That was until the man held up a ring, knelt, and proposed.
Fuck.
The air in the room felt stifling.
Everyone cheered again for the second time. The wait staff held plastered smiles on their faces as they whispered and glanced toward Daniel as if three was the magic number tonight.
Double fuck.
There wasn’t going to be a hat-trick, especially since, not even five minutes ago for the whole room to hear, Brandelynn had called Daniel a selfish bastard. The crowd needed to read the room.
Daniel once again held up his wine glass, nodded to the second happy couple and said, “Congratulations.” The two men now had happy fiancées, but Daniel wasn't going to cave.
“Everyone is getting married, except us. Brandelynn’s body stiffened and she eyed him like prey.
“You’re a shallow miser.” Brandelynn launched into the sixth reason the two of them should be married, her piercing voice cold and calculating, her face pinching into an evil witch-like appearance.
Daniel jaw tightened. He had always treated her well, treated her with respect, and treated her to many high-priced demands. As for being a miser, he had set up a college scholarship program for Ellington-Weston employees and their families. It was at his mother's request, but he had still done it. At this point, Brandelynn either really didn't know him, or she was just making shit up.
That's when he noticed that something was missing from her little tirade. How could she get to reason number six and not mention the word love?
He stared into her cold eyes and his body shuddered like it had been hit by a blow from Jack Frost himself.
No ‘I love you’, ‘I can’t live without you’, or even ‘I need you in my life’. Nothing from the heart, only cold statistics of how long they’ve been dating and how most men propose by this time to their girlfriends.
Daniel knew in his heart that Brandelynn didn't love him. He was a meal ticket.
The beautiful green dress she wore, he had bought it. The diamond necklace around her neck, he had bought it. Even her breasts…. Well, you could argue that they were a gift to him. But, still. He had paid the bill.
In the candlelit room, he could make out the shine of the new highlights in her hair. Just like the way the dim light reflected off her new tennis bracelet.
She now pointed her finger at him to yell about reason number seven, and he held up his hand to stop her. He hadn’t gotten to this point in life because he feared peer pressure. This was, or should be, a simple business transaction with two opposing parties.
“I'm not going to ask you to marry me because you're yelling at me to do so.”
It was like he’d ignited a fuse.
He took a deep breath and sweat began beading on his forehead. Everyone stared in their direction. One held up a camera phone, but wasn't aiming it their way—not yet.
“Please lower your voice and listen.” He leaned and half way covered his face to keep their conversation private. “We're not even dating exclusively, and you want to get married? We've only been together six months.”
“Seven months.”
Like that was a world of difference.
Had it really been seven months?
“And what do you mean, ‘we’re not even dating exclusively’?” Her crazy eyes zeroed in on him. “Are you dating someone else?”
He barely had time to date her, let alone another demanding woman. “We never discussed moving our relationship forward like that.”
Her jaw locked and she crossed her arms in front of her. “I'm not going to wait around for you to decide if you want to marry me. Other men keep asking me out, and even if you weren't exclusive in this relationship, I always have been.”
“I’m not dating anyone else.” What was the point in trying to prove that to her when she was angry like this?
Her gaze softened, and she reached across the table to stroke his arm. His fingertips danced along the sleeve of his suit, and she played coy. “Things are going so well between us. I think that if we got married, we could spend more time together.”
Her emotional roller coaster was a bit too bi-polar for him. And still, no mention of love.
Emptiness engulfed him—not because he wanted her, not because he needed her, not because he loved her—but because what he had suspected all along was true. She didn't love him past his wallet.
Even though it was Valentine's Day, it was time to let her go.
“I can't marry you, Brandelynn.” The words slipped out, but they conveyed exactly the way he felt.
Her sweet, angelic, plastic face turned wild. Her body stiffened even more.
“Why can't you marry me?”
He thought for a second what to say that would somehow magically end this horrid evening. The idea of saying, “Because I don't love you,” came to mind. Knowing Brandelynn, she would argue her way out of that one and say that he didn't recognize he was in love with her. As if a man wouldn't know they were in love with someone.
“Because I'm already engaged," he blurted out.
Where the hell had that come from? The conversation with Scott and Ravi this morning must have really gotten under his skin.
Based on the look she gave him, he was thankful it was time for dessert, and the heavier knives had already been collected from the table.
“Who is she?”
He shook his head. “No one you know.”
“Liar.”
A flash of light caught his attention. He glared in the direction of the camera only to see that the waiter took a picture of the couple at table number two. Daniel took a deep breath, but his neck prickled, and the hairs on his nape stood on end. He didn't want to make a public display and have a front–page story featuring this breakup.
No crisis. No drama. No hassles.
“I'm not lying.”
Brandelynn stared at him, her reddened face twisting her mouth into a scowl. “What's her name?”
“D…Didi… Didi Offutt.” Where the hell had Didi come from? It was the first thing that’d popped into his mind.
“Didi? What is she? Twelve?” Her eyes narrowed at him as if she could tell the tale was a lie.
“For the last seven months, you've only ever been seen out with me. All those dinners at fancy restaurants, all those boring nights at the fucking opera, all those nights with you in bed… There hasn't been anyone else.” She leaned in. “We fuck four nights a week, and always at your place. When do you even have time to see someone else, old man?”
Daniel twisted his napkin into a mess under the table. How dare she call him an “old man?”
“She's an heiress from Austria and has only recently come to town.” He bit his lip once the words had escaped. Why an heiress? Why from frickin’ Austria? This wasn’t the Sound of Music.
“And you decided to marry her the second her plane landed?”
Why couldn't he just be a jerk and have Ms. Baxter break off his relationship with Brandelynn? His past women always got a parting gift, and it spared Daniel from seeing the women's tears when Ms. Baxter took care of the dirty work.
He was so bad at break ups.
But this engagement lie was a ticket out of another problem, and he was done cowing to Brandelynn and her ridiculous demands.
“My car will take you home. I'll take a cab.” He stood and walked out of the semi–private dining room, feeling accomplished at his well thought out lie. What could possibly go wrong with it?