Page 7 of The Ex Factor

He shot me a restrained smile, but I couldn’t return one.

“Important, like figuring out the condition of the properties we just bought.”

His eyes softened, as if he knew this was a ruse, and I’d rather not acknowledge it. “Sounds daunting, especially in this weather,” he said.

“Yes, thankfully, I don’t have to physically survey everything, just oversee the overseers.”

He chuckled an uncomfortable sound. This time, when our eyes met, his back stiffened as he returned his glass to the counter. He was doing his best to maintain this charade offormality between us, but the discomfort was starting to wear me down.

“I’m wondering how long it will be before we acknowledge the elephant in the room,” I said, finally making peace with our ill-fated meeting.

He slumped slightly. With his posture, I would’ve imagined it was impossible his body knew what real slumping meant. “I was hoping it wouldn’t come up,” he confessed and followed it up with a gentle sigh. “It would’ve been so much simpler if we’d never met.”

We had met in Dallas at the opening night of Tara’s exhibition. “If this whole fiasco hadn’t occurred, do you think you would’ve remembered me?” I asked.

He laughed as he removed his glasses and placed them on the counter. “Yes,” he said. “Unfortunately, I'm terribly good with faces. Not so much with names, though.”

“Aarti,” I offered.

He laughed again and ran his fingers along the stem of his glass. “Yes, unfortunately, yours is a name I do remember.”

“That’s an awful lot of unfortunates for you,” I observed.

“I apologize! I didn’t mean it that way,” he said. Sitting upright, he put his glasses back on. “I meant in the context of this conversation. It would’ve been easier if we hadn’t met.”

“Don’t worry, no offense taken,” I offered truthfully, placing both hands around my glass that stood turning warm on the counter.

“None was intended,” he said in a very sincere voice. “So, how about you?” he asked after a long pause. “Would you have remembered me?”

I didn’t lie often, but sometimes, I employed white lies, as was the nature of my business. But I felt that I couldn’t lie to this sincere-sounding man sitting beside me. “Probably not,” I said, “but then again….I do remember you, don’t I?”

“Professional hazard?” he asked.

“Something like that.” This was a lie. A white one, but a lie, nonetheless.

“So…how do we proceed from here?” he inquired.

“Well, we can shove all emotions under the rug and continue with this business very professionally.” I brought my wine goblet to my lips.

“Or?”

I smiled as I returned my glass to its spot on the counter and pursed my lips. I was highly impressed he knew there was anorcoming.

“Orwe match our stories and drink away those memories.”

“I’m game,” he said, his body perking up. “Unless you have another meeting.”

“No, that’s an excuse I use to get out of bothersome ones. It’s safe to say you haven’t annoyed me enough yet to employ that excuse.”

This time, he laughed heartily, giving me a full display of two very deep, very attractive dimples.

I invited him to the lounge and asked him to order a bottle of whisky. There was only one way to melt the awkwardness of our meeting, and that solution lay at the bottom of a bottle of whisky. He ordered a well-aged highland scotch. I’d always been a wine drinker, never a whisky or bourbon connoisseur like the rest of my family. But that evening, I knew my salvation lay not in a slender bottle of wine but in the thick, formidable glass of scotch.

“To us, the jilted lovers,” he said, clinking his glass to mine.

“To fresh starts,” I responded defiantly.

“To fresh starts!” He sipped with a satisfied look on his face.

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