Page 42 of Mr. Flirt

I laughed and shook my head. “Enjoy dinner? How am I supposed to think about halibut when you’ve flooded my mind with crazy thoughts?”

“Because I can cook as well as I...”

I waved my hand in surrender. “Okay, I get it. I don’t think I can stand any more of your bedtime stories.”

I was like a puddle of confusion sitting in front of Shep. Never in a million years had I, Miss Divorce Attorney, thought that a man could spin me in such knots.

“So, back to Saturday.” He took a bite of halibut. “You ready to meet my sister and best friend Mike?”

“As what?”

A thoughtful expression flickered through his features. “As whatever you’re most comfortable with.”

I let out a deep breath and thought about how easy things were for Mae. If she liked a guy, she dated him, slept with him, and then let it play out.

My mind didn’t do that.

Instead, I was busy eating an incredible dinner with an extremely interesting man who looked like he’d stepped out of the pages ofSeattle-Men-R-Us, all the while trying to logically parse out the odds of our lasting five, seven, or eleven months or years before the relationship imploded. With questions bombarding me, like, would his friends no longer be my friends, and would my friends want to stay friends with him?

And kids? What about kids?

Who gets them, and for how long? Would we be good at co-parenting?

Would the prenup hold up?

Those were not the thoughts of a normal human being about to hop into bed with someone.

I was doomed. My mind was a servant to the law. I couldn’t shake the unromantic nuances of living life with the opposite sex.

“How about friends?” I asked. “That seems simple enough.”

“Not your Mr. Wrong?” he teased, but I felt my cheeks blush.

It was as if he could read every single secret thought I had while sitting in front of him.

“I have to confess that you don’t feel like my Mr. Wrong.” I chuckled and took a bite of halibut. “Apart from that moment when you lied to me and said your name was Terry. No red flags there at all.”

“Perry,” he corrected, smiling.

“Right. Something to tell our grandkids,” I teased.

“If only I could be that lucky.” He sat back in his chair and watched me while I played with my food for a brief second.

“Do you really mean the words you say?” I asked, genuinely curious.

In a courtroom, I did a dance. It was my job to believe what I said so I could convince jurors or a judge of my convictions. But in the dating world? There was no dance.

“I do.” He sat up and pushed his empty plate away. “You intrigue me, Lucy. You’re this scintillating woman who goes to work every single day with the intention of helping people untangle themselves from nasty situations. And because of that, you won’t let yourself open up to love.”

“I wouldn’t say I can’t be open to love.”

His brows arched in surprise while I groaned.

“Okay. You know me well in a very short period of time.” I shrugged and laughed. “Now, how are you going to help me?”

Shep’s head cocked slightly. “You want help?”

“I don’t want to be loveless forever, and we’ve already established that lying to me from the moment we first met is going to be an issue for me, but I like spending time with you. Maybe you can be my teacher and send me out into the world when you’re all done with me. Maybe you really are my Mr. Wrong, and if we go into it knowing that, I can at least learn what I need to before getting my heart shattered by some jerk out there.”

---