“I’ll catch her later, then. Thanks.” On his way out, Ford stole a glance around the loft and saw that the rest of his new neighbor’s furniture looked as expensive as the dining table. Judging from the elegant cream sofa with its many accent pillows, her taste was sophisticated and decidedly feminine. And he also immediately concluded that she was single.
No man could ever get comfortable watching Monday Night Football with all those damn throw pillows.
* * *
“SO, I’M THINKING I’ll go with a barn theme for this new project. Instead of chairs, everyone will sit on bales of hay, and we’ll bring in actual livestock—cows, pigs, maybe a few chickens—that can roam free in the restaurant while people eat. You know, really emphasize the farm-to-table aspect of the menu.”
Victoria jerked her eyes open, having just caught what Audrey was saying. “Wait. You want to have chickens walking around the restaurant?”
When both Audrey and Rachel smiled, she caught on. “All right, all right, you got me.” So she’d closed her eyes for just a second. In her defense, she hadn’t slept for more than four hours a night in over a month. Not to mention, the bar they were in was filled with cozy, ambient candlelight that practically invited a girl to curl up in one of these big leather chairs and catch a few quick winks . . .
She sat up straight and gave herself a mental face-slap.
“You’re exhausted, Vic. Maybe we should call it a night,” Rachel suggested.
“Nope, I’m good. I promised you guys drinks in exchange for helping me unpack, so drinks we will have.” Victoria grabbed her cocktail—an old-fashioned, the specialty of the house—and tipped it in gratitude. “And by the way, thank you again for that.”
Her friends had been amazing today, coming over to help unpack her stuff. Audrey and Rachel had tackled the living and dining area, the movers had handled the kitchen, and she had taken on her bedroom and bathroom. Between the team of people in her condo, they’d had everything unpacked by eight o’clock with the exception of a few boxes of odds and ends that would probably just go into storage for the summer.
To show her appreciation, she’d insisted on taking her friends out for drinks. They’d chosen The Violet Hour, the place to be on a Friday night in Wicker Park—at least according to Will, who, naturally, already had done the research for her. Located just a couple of blocks from her loft and described as a modern-day speakeasy, the bar had a fun, Alice in Wonderland–like feel, with handmade cocktails poured by bartenders dressed in bow ties and suspenders, dramatic floor-to-ceiling velvet curtains, and high-backed blue leather chairs grouped around cocktail tables.
Determined not to be sidelined by a little drowsiness on her first night out in her new neighborhood, Victoria chatted with her friends for a while about work. Audrey, an interior designer, told them about the pitch she was planning for a new restaurant scheduled to open next spring, and Rachel, who owned a boutique clothing store, had just found out that her shop was going to be featured in Chicago magazine.
Rachel was momentarily distracted by something to Victoria’s left, and then she leaned in conspiratorially. “Okay, I found a good one for you tonight,” she said to Victoria, with a challenging gleam in her eye. “The hottie at your nine o’clock. Dark hair, navy shirt. He was checking you out, by the way. Let’s say his name is . . . Carter.”
It was a game they’d been playing for the last few years, ever since Victoria had told Rachel and Audrey during a mutual friend’s bachelorette party that she didn’t see herself ever getting married. Rachel, a staunch believer in happily-ever-after, would find some guy at a bar and make up an elaborate backstory about him, trying to convince Victoria that her Mr. Right might be out there.
“All right. Let’s hear about Carter,” Victoria said.
Rachel thought for a moment. “He’s a firefighter.”
“Rescues people. Love it.”
“He grew up with three sisters, and he calls each of them once a week just to see how they’re doing. He gets along with his parents, particularly his mother, who he adores,” Rachel continued. “Has a dog that he rescued from a shelter—”
“Of course.”
“—named after some poet. Like . . . Emerson,” Rachel said.
Victoria raised an eyebrow. Somebody was laying it on a little thick tonight.
“His last serious relationship was three years ago, which ended amicably when he and his ex realized they were better off as friends. And he has no commitment issues,” Rachel added, with a flourish.
Audrey laughed. “That’s cheating.”
Rachel looked at Victoria daringly. “So. Husband material or not? But before you answer, you really should look at the man in question.”
“Which guy are we talking about?” Audrey asked.
“Dark hair, blue shirt,” Rachel said.
Audrey angled in her chair, then her eyes widened. “Holy smokes, that is one good-looking man. Vic, you have to check him out.”
Victoria shook her head. “Nope. Don’t need to.”
“I don’t care how cynical you are,” Rachel said, with a satisfied smile. “We’re talking about a hot firefighter with no commitment issues who loves his mom.”
“And he sounds very lovely to date. Probably too lovely for a jaded person like myself, but I’d give it a shot, anyway. But as for marriage . . . nope. Not for me.”
“You don’t know that,” Rachel said in exasperation.
“Oh, but I do. Because in my line of work, I’ve seen all the ways your wonderful scenario here can go wrong.”
“Like what?”
Victoria paused, debating whether to go down this route. Then she rested her arms on the table. “All right. Here’s how I see this potentially shaking out.”
“Here we go,” Audrey said.
“Let’s say this Carter the Hot Firefighter and I get married. It’s good in the beginning, all new and exciting, and we decide to buy a house together so we can have more space. This is where we hit the first bump in the road. See, up until now, he’s been saying that he’s okay with the fact that I make more money than him. But when I want to look at houses that would be outside his budget, because I can cover the mortgage, suddenly the money becomes an issue. At first, he makes jokes about it, referring to me as his ‘sugar mommy.’ But then we start fighting about how much to spend on vacations. And birthdays. And how much my shoes cost. And he begins making snide comments about feeling emasculated, and before you know it, all we do is fight about money. The hot sex we used to have five times a week? Gone. We haven’t slept together in months. Which leads to the second bump in the road.” She paused dramatically, getting into her story now. “The ex-girlfriend he’s stayed so friendly with. See, he’s been telling her about our marriage problems, and suddenly they’re meeting for coffee, and then drinks, and then he remembers how much she used to understand him, more than I ever have, and how easy it is to talk to her, until one day I leave work early to surprise him on his day off and find the two of them going at it like jackrabbits on our dining room table—the expensive antique table he’s always hated because we bought it with ‘my’ money,” she added for extra embellishment. “As for the three sisters and the mom, yes, he does adore them. And in our divorce settlement conference, he’ll spitefully tell me how they secretly always hated me, because I work too much and didn’t put family first, and because they never thought I was good enough for him in the first place.”