“If you think it’s so easy, why don’t you create a profile for yourself, too?” He figured that would put a quick end to it.
“I can’t,” she said. “And you know why. Besides the reaction it would cause in the media, and the gold diggers who’d step forward, I’m in love with someone else. That makes me emotionally unavailable.”
He opened his mouth, but she spoke before he could.
“The person you love has been married to your brother for nearly five years. You have to release her. It’s time.”
“But I can’t afford to get together with another woman like Noelle—someone who might be completely narcissistic and obsessive!”
She tapped her fingernails on the table as she considered this latest objection. “Granted, there’re a few horror stories connected to online dating. But there are also a lot of people who meet this way and end up living happily-ever-after. We’ll be able to spot the undesirables and weed them out.”
“It’s not that simple. If undesirables were that obvious, they wouldn’t continually screw up the lives of innocent bystanders.”
“If you look for the right qualities, it isn’t hard,” she told him. “You can’t let yourself be blinded by a pretty face, or a nice set of...well, you know.”
“You think I’m that easily distracted?”
“You’re a guy, aren’t you?”
“That’s a stereotype if ever I heard one.”
“Stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason. I saw the way you were nearly salivating when I was in that towel.”
“Salivating?”
“Okay, it was only a glimmer in your eye, but it was enough to tell me that it’s been too long since you were with a woman. And that leads me to believe you might be susceptible to getting caught up in the physical.” She seemed to rethink her words. “Now that I mention it, maybe we should work on getting you laid first. Bringing your drought to an end would remind you of what you’re missing and make you more eager to find someone—so eager that you’ll reach beyond your usual prejudices and boundaries.”
“Those aren’t prejudices and boundaries. They’re standards, for your information. You’re going to have to think of some way to forget your problems other than by solving mine.”
“Why?” she asked. “I feel we’re friends. I’d like you to be happier for having met me.”
“I am. I have a lot to be grateful for. I’m satisfied with my life.”
She tucked her hair behind her ears. “But you can’t be completely satisfied, not without Olivia.”
“Olivia’s with my stepbrother now. He just told me that they’re expecting their first child. I would never want anything to hurt their family.”
“Which is why you have to give up on her.” Twisting around in her seat, she rested an arm on the back of her chair while he searched for his keys. “Can you tell me why?”
He found them under some mail he had yet to sort through. “Why what?”
“What made you do it? What made you crawl into bed with Olivia’s sister?”
His friends had asked him the same thing a hundred times. There wasn’t a good explanation. He’d probably never have an adequate answer. It was almost as if he’d purposely driven into a brick wall. “I told you. Olivia and I were on a break. And I was drunk when Noelle approached me.”
“You were drunk last night, too, and yet you behaved like the perfect gentleman.”
In spite of what he’d been feeling. So she recognized that. But he was older and wiser these days, more aware of the consequences. “It’s hard to explain. I was ready to marry Olivia when she moved to Sacramento to establish her business. The fact that she left in spite of my proposal told me I didn’t mean nearly as much to her as she meant to me.”