Chapter Three
To a quick question, give a slow answer.
—Italian proverb
“First, we have to come up with your profile.”
Cara opened a binder, which allowed Jules a moment to catch Lili’s eye. As she suspected, Lili was halfway between an eye roll and a brow hitch. Notorious for her organizing skills, Cara never began a project without a binder and an unhealthy supply of office products, and everyone enjoyed ragging on her for it.
They were slumped at a table in the juice bar at Wicker Park Fitness, trying to catch their breaths after a Zumba class that had left Jules reeling. Cara had urged Jules to get to date weight (just a touch-up and tone!). Jules had let the comment slide because she knew that not being able to indulge in her usual exercise regimen while pregnant was tough on a woman who had once defined herself by her D/s relationship with her Stairmaster. Since acknowledging her complicated relationship with her body as she recovered from anorexia, Cara had eased up on herself but she still loved hanging at the gym. Using the mother ship as her HQ for organizing Operation Get Jules Hooked Up was like comfort food for her.
“I have the muscle tone of an eight-year-old child,” Lili said sadly, pulling on the soft skin under her upper arm.
Every similarly toneless muscle in Jules’s thighs and arse throbbed, and not in a sexy way. She lay her head down over crossed arms, ready to be taken by a higher power.
“Kill me now.”
“Oh, quit the dramatics,” said Cara, drama queen extraordinaire. “There’s work to be done.”
Jules grunted, which Cara took as her cue.
“So I’ve done a little research.” She skipped over a frighteningly complex-looking spreadsheet, complete with multi-colored pie charts, and cracked open a section about a quarter of the way in. “And there are certain commonalities to the most successful profiles.”
“Such as?” Jules asked, raising her heavy head.
“Blondes have it best.”
“Already ahead of the curve. Good thing Lili’s off the market, bless her heart.” She smiled at her sister-in-law, who ran a hand through her cloud of unruly dark hair, made even wilder by her Zumba exertions.
Cara gave a sly grin. Blondes of the world unite.
“The best profiles use words like “fun,” “easygoing,” and “travel.” There’s a shockingly huge love of travel in the online dating community.”
“It’s a wonder anyone gets time to date if they’re always out of town,” Lili commented dryly before dissolving into a coughing fit. She took a sip of Cara’s muddy green protein shake and made a face.
Ignoring her, Cara attacked her laptop’s keyboard with gusto. “Fun-loving girl who lives to laugh, travel, and squeeze every drop out of life.”
“Sounds painful,” Jules muttered.
Tappity-tap. “I’m looking for the guy to light my fire,” Cara plowed on, ignoring the smart arse commentary, “and make me smolder.”
“Arsonists should bring their own gasoline and matches,” Lili said, drawing a laugh from Jules and a glare from Cara.
“It’s important to be fearless,” Cara said primly. “Ask for what you want.”
“How do you know all this?” Cara seemed awfully prepared considering Jules had only made her announcement yesterday.
“I was going to start the manhunt online last year but I ran into an Irish brick wall first.” She smiled shyly.
“So you don’t recommend a drunken marriage to a total stranger in Sin City?”
“It worked out,” she said, touching her stomach reverently like she was the Virgin Bloody Mary, “but that’s a one-in-a-billion thing.” Cara had turned into quite the softy since she’d met Shane and fell in love with him on their way to an annulment.
Cara completed the vital statistics section quickly while Jules peered around the monitor. As usual, the words on the screen shifted and changed before her eyes, so it was a good thing she trusted her friends to write this up. Numbers weren’t a problem, though. Twenty-five years old, zip code 60622…
“You put me in as 5’5”. I’m 5’8” if I’m an inch.” Closer to 5’9”. It was always a nightmare to find men who were taller.
“Not online you’re not. Guys are intimidated by tall women. Start as you mean to go on.”
“By lying?”
“Everyone fudges the truth. You’re painting a picture of you on your best day—”
“Or the day when you’re at your shortest,” Lili chimed in.
“We all create faces,” Cara went on, undeterred and clearly speaking from experience. “You can’t show what’s inside up front, not in a forum like this. You have to craft something first and play your cards close. Then when you’ve got him on the hook, reel him in, and let him know a bit more about you. It’s a delicate balance but we’ll be there with you. Daily reports.”
It sounded so complicated and just a little bit deceitful, though the line about creating faces hit the mark. There had been a lot of that in London. Bad Girl Jules was a pro at never letting the bastards see the real you.
“What about the talent here?” Lili cast an assessing gaze around the gym, seeking out potential guinea pigs for Jules’s Big Dating Experiment. “Oh, there’s Tad.”
Yup. There he was.
The Italian hunk lay stretched out on a bench at the back, pumping weights like they were matchsticks. Holy Channing Tatum, look at those forearms! Not to mention his strong, muscular thighs as they strained against the hem of his shorts with every smooth motion. The sight of his glistening olive skin and the touchable thatch peeking above the neckline of his tank completed the unwholesome image and boosted her pulse precipitously.
One look at Tad DeLuca: cardio without moving your fat arse.
A perky gym bunny—a two-percenter in the body fat department—approached and settled in for the show. Within seconds, she was joined by another. And another. It was if they were breeding. As Tad set down the weights, there was a minor scuffle over who should hand him his towel.
“See anything you like?” Lili asked with a smirk.
“Catfights are always entertaining,” Jules said, ignoring Lili’s insinuation. After wiping down the bench like a good gym citizen, Tad generously allowed his horseshoe of admirers to pay homage for a few before he swaggered off to the showers.
Swallowing a green lump of envy shot through with want, Jules turned back to Cara, who was clicking through menu options with nimble-fingered expertise.
“Now, what do you want in a guy?”
This was more like it. She had given her requirements some thought. “All his own teeth. No rugs. No aspiring anything like actor or poet. Maybe somebody who works with his hands.”
“Okay, starting low,” Cara said suspiciously. “An auto mechanic? A carpenter? Do you want to date Jesus?”
She’d take an emotionally intelligent and sensitive guy over a hot shot lawyer or brain surgeon any day of the week. Smart guys always freaked her out.
“What are you looking for?” Cara continued. “Companionship, friendship, marriage?”
“I’m supposed to come out and say that? I thought we were fudging the truth.”
“Not about this,” Cara said gravely. “The whole physical profile is one thing, but the expectations going into the relationship are important. You want to be on the same page with potential matches about where the dates are going. If you want a commitment, you don’t want to be with a guy who’s looking to play the field.”
Since becoming pregnant with Evan, she had been the good girl. No reckless behavior like stripping to her undies at a party on a dare or pulling a guy she had just met into an alley to play doctor. No self-destructive indulging her need to make her body feel good because it compensated for her lack in the brain department. Bad Girl Jules was a thing of the past.
Her little monkey would always be number one, but wouldn’t it be nice to have someone to talk to where there was a potential for a little more? A chance to dress up, be admired in flickering candlelight. Jules suspected she looked wonderful by candlelight. She wasn’t expecting the great love story the girls had with Jack and Shane. Like Cara said, that was a one-in-a-billion thing and she’d already fulfilled her quota of wild passion when she’d fallen flat on her face for Evan’s father.
Simon had been her great love and look where that got her. Evan, yes, and she wouldn’t swap a single day, but it had also landed her a heaping load of heartbreak. The kind that no amount of cookies and ice cream could fix.
Most of all, she needed to get over this crush on her friend. What a cliché. The lonely single mother hankering after Chicago’s most eligible bachelor. Tad was a bona fide bad boy, hottie, and heartbreaker in one sizzling package. Paeans were written to his beauty and his skills with a cocktail shaker. Woman loved him, men wanted to punch him. And during her moment of weakness—the Incident—he had told her in no uncertain terms that he would never, ever, not in a million years think of her that way.
Dating would open her mind to a non-Tad, non-Simon world. Things were fairly insular right now. She spent all her time with family and that lip-licking fantasy of her dreams was always there, not so much holding her back but making her wishful for things. She needed to expose herself to new people and new men.
“Just companionship at first. A nice guy who I can talk to—”
“Who’s good with his hands,” Lili finished.
Cara’s suspicious tone waylaid her expression. “Why don’t we add, lives in his mother’s basement? Works the line at Mickey D’s? Dungeons and Dragons 100th level wizard?”
“They only go to 20,” Lili said, and when they looked at her curiously she added, “I dated a gamer in college. And those guys are smart, too.”
“Hmm,” Cara said, not convinced. “You don’t want some idiot who can barely put his pants on in the morning. You want someone gainfully employed, nicely groomed, who can afford to take you out to dinner.”
“Or can make you a nice dinner,” Lili said. “We know lots of chefs.”
“No chefs,” Jules said so sharply that the girls looked taken aback. After her experience with Simon, she was done with chefs. “It’d be nice to date a guy who was around at night time.” That left handsome, Lothario wine bar owners out of the running.
The girls sighed in recognition. Both had chosen to make their lives with chefs who had insane working hours, but they came from a restaurant-owning family so they knew the score.
“No chefs,” Cara said, her eye snagging Lili’s.
“No chefs,” Lili repeated.
* * *
“So I guess the days of restaurant critics wearing disguises to make sure they get the genuine service experience are long gone,” Tad said with a smile at the woman sitting before him. Not so much sitting as perching on the edge of the leather sofa in his office.
She had already given an oh-so-surprised lip tilt when he didn’t sit down beside her, but instead chose to put an appropriate distance between them by plunking down in the swivel chair three feet off. Definitely close enough to conduct an interview with Monica Grayson, food critic for Tasty Chicago.
She smiled back, her teeth radioactively bright against her porcelain skin. Her sharply angled bob framed a strong jaw and stubborn chin.
“It’s usually enough to reserve under a fake name,” she said in the flat vowels that signaled her origins as being East coast, probably New York. “I’ll come by two, maybe three times before I write the review. But really, I’d like to do a more extended profile.”
“Well, anything that brings us positive attention.” A profile was so much more than he’d expected when Tasty Chicago’s top food journo had called to say she wanted to meet with him ahead of his opening.
“So Tad… I can call you Tad, right?”
“Sure.”
Glancing down at her phone, she tapped a couple of times and scrolled. “But your full name is Taddeo?”
“Only my aunts call me Taddeo. Everyone calls me Tad.”
She gave what he imagined would be a very winning smile for the right audience. He was curiously unmoved. “And the name for the wine bar? Where does that come from?”
“Vivi was my mother’s name.” He had said her name a million times while preparing for the opening, but there was something about “Vivi” and “was” in the same sentence that called up an achingly familiar lurch in his chest.
Monica made a note and he was grateful for the few seconds to get his emotions under tether.
“You were voted one of the top ten mixologists in Chicago last year, and I wonder how many of those votes came from your female fans.” Squinting, she consulted her notebook. “The Hot Taddies, they call themselves.”
He had wondered how long it would take to get around to that stupid AssBook page. Her comment was iced with condescension, as though it were a fact she was unfortunate to have in her possession but, by God, the readers of Tasty Chicago must be informed.
“It’s nice to be appreciated, I suppose,” he said evenly.
“More than nice. The Facebook page your fans created has close to thirty thousand likes. Your name is a regular in all the “Hot Bartender” lists.” She paused and eyed him from under her dark lashes. “Things really took off for you when Jack Kilroy picked your family’s restaurant to be on his TV show a couple of years ago. And now he’s an investor in your new venture.”
“Jack brought a lot of attention to DeLuca’s Ristorante, but the quality product has always been there. There’s only so far an association with someone like Jack can take you and I intend to prove it at Vivi’s.”
“Right. Talent is key as well,” she said with a smirk he didn’t enjoy.
He waited for whatever dig she had at the ready, but she retracted her claws.
“So what makes your wine bar different?”
“Well, small plates are a lately popular trend and that’s not going away. I’d like to bring the Italian enoteca concept to Chicago where the emphasis is on shareable small plates. In Italy, the core elements of traditional enotecas are small plates of simple, authentic, delicious food, designed to be shared, plus plenty of affordable wines.”
She looked unimpressed but then he supposed that was her job. Practiced indifference. “And the wine?”
“We want to keep it accessible. Everything on the 56-bottle wine list will be available in 3 oz. and 6 oz. portions, as well as in full bottles. We mean to be generous with the food portions and the pours.”
“You’re fairly well-known for your generous dating policy.”
He coughed, unsure he’d heard that right. “Excuse me?”
“You have a lot of exes, though they all seem to rave about you. No one has a bad word.”
He shifted in his seat. “I thought you were here to interview me about my opening in two weeks. My private life couldn’t possibly be of interest to the readers of Tasty Chicago.”
“You’d be surprised. These days, the cult of the celebrity chef, bar owner, entrepreneur—”
She waved a hand that he supposed encompassed the type of businessman she was forced to lower her standards to deal with.
“—extends beyond New York and L.A. People are always interested in what inspires people, what impassions them, what turns them on. People are always interested in sex, don’t you think?”
Huh. That was pretty balls-out. While he had no problem with a woman openly expressing her interest in him, there was a professional line of ethics here he wasn’t willing to cross. Neither was he sure she was genuinely interested. He felt a little like a mouse being batted about by a predatory kitten.
He tried to bring it back to the reason they were here. “Well, sharing a full, lush Pinot over a mouthwatering plate of crostini in the right venue can be a sexy experience in itself.”
“Fantasizing about the handsome sommelier might work wonders for a date as well,” she said, eyes sparking in challenge.
“Fantasies cost nothing,” lied the guy who spent his nights, and increasingly his days, playing a sensual loop in his head about a particular person. Those fantasies cost him sleep, peace of mind, and untold supplies of lotion. He should get stock in Jergens.
Monica had the bit between her teeth now. “Your reputation as a guy who knows his way around a woman’s body precedes you. It’s like the equivalent of ‘for a good time, call this number’ on the bathroom stall wall. Lisa Delaney said you were just the ticket after her divorce.”
Lisa Delaney… Lisa Delaney. Ah, yes. Lovely Lisa with the legs that stretched miles past eternity and a penchant for licking whipped cream off his body. That had been over a year ago, long before he had made a vow to keep his dick in his pants. The moment Jules’s soft, lush lips touched his, interest in other women had waned to nothing. He still dated, if you could call it dating. He tried to get excited about a pretty face and a nice pair of breasts but as soon as he got to that crunch moment, it all fell flat. Literally.
His smile felt stitched-on. “How is Lisa these days?”
“Oh, fine. Still whipping herself into a frenzy over any cute guy that comes along.” She laughed at her joke, and Tad’s body clenched into tight fists. At what point should he stand up and throw a hissy fit about how insulted he was? If the roles were reversed, the feminazis would be out in full force.
So he had a reputation—past tense. Need to dust off those cobwebs? I know a guy who’ll tune you up real good. Gone through a rough break-up and looking to climb back up on the horse? Call this guy. He’s got moves you’ve never seen.
He was good at making a woman feel good and keeping expectations to a minimum. He used to be good at other things. Cooking with passion, laughing like he meant it, loving without reservation.
At his stony silence, she stood and adjusted her skirt, pulling it down in an obvious attempt to draw attention to her thighs. Attention drawn and acknowledged. He was infatuated with another woman, not completely dead below the waist. He made to get up and she placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Look, can I be honest here?”
“Sure,” he said though he really meant ‘no’ because nothing good ever followed that question.
“I’m attracted to you and I think you’re attracted to me.”
For f*cking out loud, what the hell was he supposed to say to that? He reached for the professionalism that seemed to have left the room through the air vents about ten minutes back.
“You’ll be reviewing my wine bar once it opens. Seems it wouldn’t really be appropriate.”
She looked down her beautiful Roman nose at him. “Getting a good review in Tasty Chicago can make or break a new establishment. I’m sure you’ve heard the statistics about new restaurants. It applies to wine bars, too. Nine out of ten restaurants fail in the first year.”
Those stats were bunk. It was more like one in four.
She ran a nail down his collar bone and unpicked the top-most button of his shirt. For the briefest moment, he considered letting her continue but common sense prevailed.
He placed his hand over hers before she could work her way further.
“You can write what you want.”
The edge in his voice made his position crystal. Standing, he swapped her hand out for the door knob, attached to the door he wished he hadn’t closed. This had now taken on the trappings of a crazily inappropriate situation.
Her laugh was low and sultry as she placed a hand on his chest. “Okay, Tad. Just kidding around.”
He felt the door push back against his hand. On the other side stood Jules, her eyes wide with surprise.