Page 87 of Matchmaking the CEO

"Let's find you a bench, then." I put an arm around her back, kissing her temple.

We found one farther away from the water, sat down and opened the paper bags, taking out the burgers. We ate them quickly. I had to give it to Natalie. It was great, and I'd eaten plenty of burgers in New York.

"I thought you were going to take a bite out of my soy burger," she said when she was almost done.

"Watching them prep it was enough for me. I don't need to taste it."

She laughed throatily. "Your loss," she said before downing the last bite.

My phone buzzed. I took it out and looked at the screen. Groaning, I rejected the call before sliding it back into my pocket.

"What was that?" I asked.

"A client."

"Didn't you have a rule that you never ignore calls from clients?"

"I like breaking the rules for you, Natalie. I don't want to waste time with my clients this evening."

"Then what do you want to do?" she asked.

"I want to focus on you. Tell me about your future. How do you see it? What are your hopes, dreams?"

"You want the answer as dreaming Natalie or realistic Natalie?"

"Why are they separate?"

She sighed, toeing off her shoes. "Realistic Natalie wants to get a good job, build up her credit score, and do adult stuff. Dreaming Natalie just doesn't want this evening to end, honestly. Dreaming Natalie also wants my family to come back so I can pop over to their place any time I want. I want my parents to be here so when I have a million babies, they’re here to shower them with love."

In the past, hearing a woman talk about children would've stunned me, but for some reason, I liked hearing Natalie talk about how she envisioned life. It tugged at a primal need inside me, one I didn't even know I had.

"Okay, now your turn," she said.

"I've never thought about it," I admitted.

"You never thought about the future? How is that possible?"

"It always looked the same," I explained. "The work, the clients, going to Martha’s Vineyard on the weekends."

"You never thought about changing that?" Her voice was incredulous.

"After what happened with my father, I didn't care about anything except building a business in New York. I didn't even think about my personal life. My parents seemingly had it all—successful marriage, children—and the reality was completely different."

“You felt as if a rug had been pulled from under your feet. It's normal to put a barrier between yourself and everything else."

"A barrier," I parroted. I never thought about it like that. She was right, though. She was 100 percent right.

“I kept doing one thing—building my consulting business—and it consumed me. But it’s a system that worked for me."

"A system." She sounded stunned. "Your life is a system. I'm not judging. I'm just, well, surprised."

I threw the empty food bags into the nearby container and then came back to the bench, sitting closer to her.

"Now that I'm here, I'm surprised too. It all seems so cold. But when you're caught in it, you don't have time to reflect."

"Now you do?"

"A certain someone is making me reconsider some things."

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