Once Upon Stilettos (Enchanted Inc #2) (25 page)

I’d been on some spectacularly weird dates in my lifetime—most of them in the past couple of months—but none of them had been quite this weird in quite this way. The mixed messages were enough to make my head explode. He’d invited me out for lunch by making plans ahead of time, he’d made a reservation, and he’d brought me to a fairly nice place that certainly wasn’t cheap. That all made it a real date instead of a casual “hey, let’s go grab some lunch” thing.

But he didn’t act like he was on a date. He was nowhere near as affectionate or enthusiastic as he’d been any other time he’d been around me. I realized he hadn’t kissed me at all, not even after we left the office building. And he hadn’t responded to my feeble attempts to flirt. I might as well have been one of his clients. It was like at any moment he was going to pull out some documents for me to read and sign. Maybe that was it. He was in lawyer mode and having a hard time breaking out of it.

I might be able to do something about that. I slid my foot up the inside of his leg, from ankle to knee. His eyes widened and he jumped. Then he looked relieved. “Whew. That was you. There’s not a lot of legroom under these tables, is there?”

What red-blooded American male would react that way to a woman playing footsie under the table? With all the cat-and-mouse games I was dealing with at work, I didn’t have the mental or emotional energy to play games in my social life. “Is something wrong?” I asked.

With the impeccable timing that had to be bred into waiters (the same timing that enabled them to always show up and ask how everything was the moment you put a bite of food in your mouth), the waiter arrived then with our lunches. “See, I told you they were quick,” Ethan said, entirely ignoring my question as he began eating.

There was definitely something wrong, then, and he wanted to avoid dealing with it until after he’d eaten. If he’d been so eager to see me after not having a real date over the weekend that he couldn’t wait until the next weekend, the conversation would have gone totally differently. He’d shown no signs of bashfulness or hesitation when it came to asking me out, so I couldn’t imagine that his behavior came from nervousness about inviting me to go to his place for an evening (and maybe morning) in that weekend. His jumpiness was more appropriate for someone gearing up to propose, and we were nowhere near that point in our relationship.

I remembered something Gemma had once said about how men always seem to break up with you in restaurants. I’d argued that maybe it was a classy maneuver, better than doing it over the phone. Marcia thought it was because they wanted to avoid a big scene with crying and hurling of breakables. In a public place, a woman would feel compelled to react quietly and swallow her tears. She might fall apart later, but he wouldn’t have to watch it.

“This is good,” I commented after taking a bite of chicken. I was glad it had come with mashed potatoes. I suspected I’d need the starchy comfort food.

“Yeah, that’s why I like this place. Good, simple food that nearly everyone seems to enjoy.”

Wow, was this conversation scintillating, or what? I tried to decide what the breakup risk was on a midweek lunch date. I’d hate to think he’d be cruel enough to do anything at lunch that would make it difficult for me to go back to work. The midweek part, though, seemed like he wanted to clear the way in time for him to have moved on before the weekend.

My appetite totally gone, I shoved my plate away and asked again, “Is there something wrong?”

He looked across the table at me, but didn’t quite meet my eyes. “Wrong?” he asked.

Yeah, there was definitely something going on, and I didn’t need magical immunity to see through his illusion. “You’re acting weird,” I said.

“Weird how?”

“Well, you’re not talking to me. You’re not even looking at me. And you’ve sidestepped every effort I’ve made to flirt with you. You have to admit that’s a very weird way to act when you invite someone to lunch. I could see it if I roped you into it or invited myself along, but you called me. Is there something wrong at work that’s distracting you? Because if there is, you should know I wouldn’t have minded if you’d canceled or postponed our lunch.” I made one last attempt at flirting. “That is, as long as you made it up to me later.”

That attempt, like all the others, sailed right over his head. “No, nothing wrong at work,” he said, sounding vague and distant.

“Then do you have a problem at MSI that you want my help with?” I felt like I was grasping at straws, eliminating all the best-case scenarios until only the one reason I hoped to avoid was left.

“No, no problems there. In fact, I’m having fun with work, and it’s generally easy to get on people’s calendars.”

I leaned back in the booth and crossed my arms over my chest. “Okay, then, what is it? I have to be back at work in about twenty minutes, so I don’t have time for guessing games.” I was surprised by how firm and assertive my voice sounded.

He finished clearing his plate, then shoved it aside. “I wanted to talk to you about something,” he said.

“Yes?”

“You sometimes seem a little unnerved about the magic stuff.”

“Do I? I don’t think so, not at work. I’ll admit that I don’t really like it affecting my personal life, especially where my friends and my parents are concerned. It’s not like I’m an anti-magic bigot.”

He shook his head. “No, that’s not what I meant. But yeah, I have noticed that you don’t seem to like it in your personal life that much.”

“If you’d seen the way it’s affected my personal life, you’d understand. Wait until you have someone under the influence of a spell show up while you’re on a date with someone else and sing arias to you—off-key.”

He laughed. “Really? That must have been hysterical.”

“In retrospect, maybe, but at the time it wasn’t funny at all. My date didn’t think so, either. I never heard from him again.”

“Then you didn’t belong together.”

I frowned at him. “What would you think if that happened to someone you were out with?”

“I’d probably figure that it had something to do with a spell.”

“But you know about magic. That poor guy didn’t.”

“The thing is, though, you and I both know about it. We don’t have to keep the secret from each other, so it should be fun.”

What little food I’d managed to eat threatened to come back up. I had a feeling I knew exactly what he was going to say next.

And I was right. “Katie, I don’t really know how to say this, so I guess I’d better be direct. I think you’re a great girl, but I don’t think we’re going to work out together.”

This would have been the perfect time for a witty comeback, but all I could do was stare at him in shock. “Not work out together?” I repeated.

He looked intensely uncomfortable, which I couldn’t help but enjoy. The more he had to squirm, the better. “I guess this is when I should say it’s not you, it’s me, but the thing is, it is you, and it is me.”

“Do you think you could diagram that sentence for me? I don’t quite follow it.”

“Okay, then, like we were just saying, you want things to be as normal as possible. I don’t, really. I’ve discovered this whole other world and I want to explore it as fully as possible, take every advantage of it. But you don’t want magic intruding on your regular life. That means ultimately we’d be incompatible. I’d enjoy something that was your idea of a disastrous date.”

“So you like being ambushed by the minions of evil on our way to a party?”

“We got away okay, didn’t we?”

“That time, yeah. But it still wasn’t my idea of a good time. I don’t even really have anything against magic or magical people. If I were dating a wizard or a sprite, elf, or gnome, I’d still want it to be a regularly normal date. They’re just people with different abilities, you know. They’re not a freak show for your amusement.”

He groaned and shook his head. “No, that’s not what I meant. It’s just that I want to explore the differences right now, and you don’t strike me as wanting that.”

“So I’m too normal for you?” It was the story of my life.

“Like I said, you’re a great girl, and if I’d never learned about the whole magic thing, then I probably would have been very happy with you. But the more I learn about other things, the more I want to learn about them.”

“You want to try going out with chicks with wings,” I clarified.

“No!” He shook his head, but the redness rising from his collar was a pretty good sign I’d hit close to the mark. “Well, maybe, but it’s not only that.” He looked down at the table and fiddled with his silverware. “I have a feeling I’m not really what you’re looking for, either. And I’m fairly certain I’m not your first choice.”

There wasn’t much I could say to that, since I’d just been thinking about telling him he’d been my second choice, anyway, and I’d only gone out with him because I’d convinced myself that I could never have the man I really wanted. But although I knew that was true, I couldn’t bring myself to admit it now. “Wait a second, are you taking what Idris said seriously? You know that’s one of his things, where he tries to get under Owen’s skin by saying I’m his girlfriend. My mom misunderstood. It’s not like I’ve been two-timing you.”

He looked across the table at me, and I had the uncomfortable feeling that he could see right through me. “Be honest, Katie,” he said softly. “If not with me, then with yourself. If you want something, you have to believe you deserve it. I like you enough that I can’t deal with the idea of you being with me only because you don’t think you deserve anything better.”

“So now this is for my own good?”

“It’s for both of us. I’d rather end this before it gets deep enough that we get hurt. At least this way we haven’t crossed too many lines that could keep us from ever being friends again.”

If I could put aside my hurt and disappointment long enough, I knew I’d be grateful for the timing. I’d have been utterly desolate if he’d broken up with me after we’d slept together, which is what would have likely happened soon enough if things had gone according to my plans. Then my throat started to ache in the way that meant tears were imminent. I couldn’t let him see me cry.

“Well, thanks for lunch,” I said, fighting for control. My hand shook as I took my napkin off my lap and threw it on the table. “I have to get back to work now. Oh, and the lunch idea was quite the stroke of genius. No time for prolonged conversation or fighting. But for the future, have some mercy and remember that the poor girl has to face her office again after you’ve dumped her. At least do it at the end of the day so she can go straight home and eat ice cream instead of having to pretend to work.” I slid off the booth seat, adjusted my skirt, collected my coat, and turned to go.

“Katie!” he called after me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think about that.”

I couldn’t turn back. The tears had already started to fall and I didn’t want him to see them. Instead, I ignored him and kept on walking. I wasn’t even sure why I was crying. It wasn’t like I’d really fallen in love with him. Deep down inside, I had to admit to myself that he was right, in a way. I did want normal, as much as I’d hated being so utterly ordinary before I joined MSI. I didn’t see how normal and the magical world were necessarily mutually exclusive. The time I’d had dinner with Owen flashed into my brain. That had been such a delightfully normal, ordinary evening, even though Owen was about as magical as you could get. And Ethan was also right about where my heart really was. That didn’t make me feel any less heartbroken. Not only did I not have Owen as anything more than a friend, but I didn’t have Ethan, either.

I paused on the sidewalk to find a tissue in my purse so I could wipe away the tears, and that’s when I felt the tingle. I might not have been able to see anything veiled by magic, but I’d learned to recognize the sensation of magic in use. And magic was in use very close by me, but without my magical immunity I had no idea what was happening. I was as good as blind, and more vulnerable than I’d ever been.

U
nfortunately, the magical tingle wasn’t a directional thing. I got the same sense of the little hairs at the back of my neck standing on end no matter where the magic came from. The best I could manage was to play “hot or cold” and see if the tingle got stronger in a particular direction. But I was not up to playing games at that moment. Instead, I stood my ground, facing straight ahead the way I would have even if I could have seen what magical mischief was afoot. “Look, I don’t know what you’re up to, but this really is
not
the time,” I said to no one in particular. “I’m tired and I’m pissed off, so get the hell out of my way and leave me alone.”

Even a magical creature must have known better than to mess with a woman who’d just been dumped, for the tingle quickly faded. Not wanting to take any chances, I hurried forward to get to the safety of the office before my invisible stalker had second thoughts about letting me go.

I paused before I turned the corner to approach the MSI building and found a clean tissue in my purse. Then I dabbed at my eyes, blew my nose, and checked my reflection in my compact mirror. I didn’t look great, but there was no mascara running down my face, and any redness around my eyes could have come from being out in the cold. With a deep breath, I forced myself to hold my head high and walk toward the entrance with my most confident stride.