Page 7 of You Had Me at Chateau
‘Well, what do publishers know, hey?’ he replies. ‘Sex sells. You want to think about it. It’s what women want these days.’
My jaw drops ever so slightly.
‘I’m sorry – are you mansplaining women to me?’ I ask. ‘And my job? And… and…’
I notice Ray’s eyebrows shoot up and, if I didn’t know better, I would say he looked almost scared.
‘I… I… I wasn’t, I would never,’ he insists. ‘Is everything okay? You seem a little…’
Ray’s voice trails off. Ah, shit, is this me? Am I just determined to have a bad date tonight? Perhaps I should be honest, show him that I’m a genuine person, I’m just having a bad day.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say with a sigh. ‘I pretty much came here from my parents’ house, where they sat me and my brother down and told us that they were getting a divorce, so my mind is all over the place. So, that might be why I seem a little… off.’
‘I was going to say “intense”,’ he replies. ‘But, wow, that’s rough. Did they say why they were divorcing?’
‘I guess they’re just not happy together any more,’ I reply with a sigh. ‘I don’t know, it all sounded so confusing.’
I take a big gulp of my drink. This is the last thing I wanted to get into but perhaps it will be good to talk about it?
‘No wonder you don’t think of yourself as a romance writer,’ he points out. ‘Between your parents, and your own love life, there’s not much to feel inspired by, is there?’
I don’t know if Ray is trying to insult me, or whether his speciality really is just saying the wrong thing at every opportunity, but I don’t need this. To borrow Ray’s analogy from him, it’s not Christmas Eve yet, so I don’t need to settle for ‘whatever is left’ tonight.
‘I’m guessing the sex isn’t there either then?’ he continues.
Yep, that’s my limit.
‘Listen, sorry, but I need to go,’ I tell him – apologising yet again.
‘Oh?’ he says, and he sounds surprised, which is hilarious. Does he think this is going well? ‘But you’ve hardly touched the food – it was expensive.’
‘I’m sure it was,’ I reply. ‘Let me give you some money for it.’
I’m on my feet now, hurriedly fussing with my clutch, so that I can give him some cash and then get out of here as fast as I can.
As I pull out my purse, my still kind of wet knickers fall out of my bag, landing on the table in front of him. For a second or two, Ray just stares at them.
‘What, er…?’
I think he might finally be speechless.
I snatch them up, quickly stuffing them in my bag.
‘Sorry, sorry, that’s from… before you got here,’ I blurt, not making any sense.
Ray’s eyebrows shoot up.
‘Oh,’ he says, his voice so much higher than it has been so far.
Oh. Oh God. He thinks I mean something far, far different to what I actually mean. Ah well, he was implying I was sex-starved a moment ago, and I am, but I don’t want to spend another second on this date so I may as well own it.
‘Anyway, bye,’ I tell him.
He doesn’t even say goodbye.
Wow. I really, really didn’t expect to show my date my knickers tonight, and yet here we are.
Bloody table 13. I couldn’t have got more unlucky if I’d tried.
