Love the One You're With (4 page)

Grace hid her wince. Camille's words cut a little too close. Wasn't Grace guilty of this very thing? Of smugly writing article after article like some sort of expert on men, only to be blindsided by her own man?

“I'm not disagreeing that we need to accurately represent the opposite sex,” Julie was saying. “But how is this a competition between
Stiletto
and
Oxford
? Who decides who wins?”

“The readers,” Camille said, as though this was completely easy and obvious. “We'll have the digital team get some sort of poll up on our respective websites. After each his-and-hers article is printed, they can vote for who's ahead in knowing the opposite sex. For example, if the male columnist writes that the female columnist completely ate up his compliments on her hair color, and
she
writes that he's an insincere oaf who was making fun of her roots, the women pull ahead. Similarly, if the woman insists on paying because she thinks he'll appreciate it, and then
he
writes that she was a pushy ball-buster, the guys get the edge. You see? Everyone knows dating is a game. Now we just see who wins.”

Nobody said a word.

It was contrived. A little weird …

And yet intriguing.

“Julie's out,” Camille was saying. “Mitchell will have my head if I put her on a real-life date for a story.”

“And he knows firsthand how that turns out,” Riley said. “He ended up having to buy a ring the size of a baseball.”

“So, Riley, you in?” Camille asked.

Riley blinked her cat shaped blue eyes in surprise. “Me? This? But it's so … tame.”

Grace leaned forward and rested her chin on her hands while smirking at her best friend.
“You could just slather the guy with bacon-flavored lube. Sex it up a bit?”

“There will be no lube,” Camille said with a sharp finger jab. “And no sex. This is a dating column, not a prostitution ring.”

Riley faked a big yawn.

“Fine,” Camille snapped. “Emma? You up for it?”

Grace's spine slowly straightened.
Whaaaaat?

She understood why Riley had been Camille's first choice—this sort of battle-of-the-sexes thing was a perfect fit for Riley's snarky, bold style. And she understood why Julie was out of the running—an engaged woman doing a first-person dating project wouldn't work.

But why Emma before Grace? Adding insult to injury, nobody else in the room seemed to think this was strange. Even Riley and Julie didn't seem fazed by the fact that Grace was apparently freaking
invisible
.

Oddly, only Emma seemed aware that something was off, and her eyes flicked to Grace as though asking permission. Grace wanted to give her a reassuring smile. To tell Emma to go ahead and take the story because it wasn't Grace's thing. She gravitated toward stories that were less edgy, less ballsy …

Less interesting.

At least Grace 1.0 gravitated toward stories like that.

Grace 2.0 was screaming that this was their chance to redeem themselves. To expose men as philandering frauds while slowly rebuilding their dignity.

“I'll do it!” Grace blurted out, her hand shooting in the air like a precocious second grader rushing to beat her classmates to the answer.

Twenty pairs of eyes fell on her.

“Grace …,” Camille said, her voice gentle.

Oh
shit
. If their take-no-prisoners, half-batshit-crazy boss was going soft, it was worse than she thought.

“You just got back from vacation,” Camille said. “Give yourself a little breather to get back into the swing of things.”

But Grace 2.0 was strapping on battle armor, so Grace forged ahead. “Look, you need someone to go with an open mind into a dating scenario, right? Who better than someone who's freshly back on the dating scene?”

“But we need—”

Grace held up a finger to stop the objections. “
And
who better to see through a man's bullshit than someone who just got thrown over by a man? Nobody will be more watchful of a guy's BS than me.”

“She has a point.”

Grace was a little startled to realize it was Emma who had spoken, but the new columnist looked completely unperturbed by the fact that Grace was trying to steal a prime story from right under her nose.

“Look,” Emma said in her husky voice. “Office water-cooler gossip has made it obvious that Grace is coming out of a nasty relationship. If this is truly a competition—and if
Stiletto
wants to prove that women read men far better than they read us—then we'll need someone who has a burning desire to get it right.”

Grace didn't know why Emma was taking her side, but Emma made an excellent point. Grace
did
have a burning desire to get it right.

She felt Camille studying her, her boss's auburn bob barely moving as she tilted her head to the side.

“Okay,” Camille said simply.

Okay?
Okay
? That was it?

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Julie and Riley give her victorious smiles.

Camille changed the subject to some rant about organic skin care, and Grace sat back in her chair, feeling the best she'd felt in weeks.

Grace 1.0 was biting her nails nervously, and Grace 2.0 was doing victory push-ups.

Operation Reclaim Dignity was officially on track.

And Mr.
Oxford
better watch his back, because Grace Brighton was
fully
committed to exposing whatever smarmy, womanizing tricks he had up his sleeve.

* * *

“Cheers to Greg,” Riley said, lifting her cocktail to be clinked.

Julie choked on her martini. “You're not suggesting we toast to the guy who cheated on Grace?”

“Actually, I think Riley's on to something,” Grace said thoughtfully. “Had Greg not been a philandering jerk, I would be at home right now, watching whatever
he
wanted to watch, eating whatever
he
wanted to eat, after which I'd be putting away
his
laundry. So yeah … Cheers to Greg.”

They clinked glasses, and she felt Julie study her carefully. “You've come a long way. Just a few weeks ago you were alternating between causing a Manhattan Kleenex shortage and developing a strange obsession with chocolate.”

Grace took a sip of her drink to avoid mentioning that she
still
had that new obsession with chocolate. She'd always liked chocolate. But after the breakup, it had become her ultimate comfort food. Hot chocolate, chocolate fudge, chocolate ice cream, chocolate chips …

If only her hips liked chocolate half as well as her taste buds.

Don't
, 2.0 warned.
That's Greg and old Grace getting into your head. Grace 2.0 rocks her curves
.

Riley nodded. “You do seem marvelously well adapted. Did you get some healing rebound tail in Florida?”

Grace rolled her eyes. “Yes, Riley. I got some healing rebound tail.
That's
what restored my mental and emotional stability.”

Riley snapped her fingers and pointed at Grace. “There's that dry sarcasm. I knew it. You
are
back.”

Grace considered. “Well, I'm not going to claim that there aren't a few battle wounds. And I can't say that I don't still wake up in the middle of the night reaching for someone who's not there, purely out of habit. But … I'm sort of done, you know? Sure, Greg screwed me over. But that's also sort of what makes him not worth my time.”

Right? Tell me that's right
.

“So you're ready to move on,” Julie said slowly.

Grace held up a manicured fingernail. She knew that tone. “No. No setups. I've told you both a thousand times. This is the
me
period of my life. No men. No dating. No sex. Not for six months.”

“And what, after six months you'll be magically ready to enter a relationship?” Riley asked.

“God, no. But if I wait six months, at least I'll know I'm not jumping into anything solely
because I miss the companionship. I need to figure out how to be on my own.”

It was true. But it wasn't the
whole
truth. Grace would never say it in front of Julie, who was over-the-moon happy with her new in-a-relationship status, but Grace couldn't even begin to fathom being in a relationship. Not in six months, not in a year … maybe not ever.

They
hurt
.

“Okay, so if you're all anti-men, then what is with your insistence on doing this story?” Riley asked. “There's a reason we didn't volunteer you, you know. How is it that the woman who claims to be done with dating wants to write a story
about
dating?”

“Oh, come on. You two know better than anyone that doing something for a story is not the same as doing it for real.”

“Actually, Julie doesn't know that,” Riley said in a loud whisper.

Julie shrugged her perfectly toned shoulders. “Riley's right. You may
think
you're doing it for a story. But if it's the right guy …”

“Mitchell was a fluke,” Grace said with a wave. “One in a million, and all that. Plus, Mitchell didn't even
know
he was part of your story. Whatever turd from
Oxford
I get stuck with will have his eyes wide open.”

“At least he'll be a gorgeous turd,” Riley said, waving their server over for another round.

“How do you know?”

Her friend smiled mysteriously. “I have my connections.”

Julie pointed at Riley. “Spill. Now. Grace is going to need all the intel she can get.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Grace said dryly. “Have you ever read an
Oxford
article? I've been doing my research, and I can see why a woman who picked up the magazine would write a scathing letter to the editor. Their male columnists seem to think all women have a secret desire to make sandwiches and give blow jobs.”

Riley fished an olive out of Julie's glass, ignoring her friend's glare. “Wait. We're supposed to aspire to more than that?”

“The point is,” Grace continued, “If this is a competition to see whether women know men better than men know women, I can do that in my sleep.”

Sort of. She hoped.

Actually, she wasn't sure.

Her friends looked even more skeptical.

“Okay, back to Riley's secret intel,” Julie said. “Ri, you know who the guy columnist is?”

“Not for sure, but I at least know who it's likely to be. When I went out for a coffee run this afternoon, I rode the elevator back up with Camille and Alex Cassidy—who happens to be super young and hot, by the way—and I heard them talking about the article. Alex wants to put Jake Malone on it.”

Julie whistled. “Whew, that
is
a gorgeous turd.”

“How am I the only one who doesn't know this guy?” Grace asked, feeling uncomfortably out of the loop.

Riley patted her friend. “You're loyal to a fault. You were blind to the rest of the male population the entire time you were with Greg.”

Grace knew Riley meant it as a compliment, but she couldn't help feeling a bit like a dutiful Labrador retriever who'd spent her twenties following after her master. She
had
been loyal to Greg, of course. But she'd been able to appreciate a good-looking guy. Hadn't she? She'd had her fair share of celebrity crushes. Such as …

Hell, none were coming to mind just now.

Grace 2.0 sighed in despair.

Note to self: check out more men
.

Grace racked her brain for everything she knew about Jake Malone. The name did sound vaguely familiar. He was one of
Oxford
's golden boys, if she was remembering correctly. She seemed to recall an elevator ride in the Ravenna building in which two rather smitten-sounding women had been lamenting his lack of attention toward them.

Come to think of it, hadn't she read an article or two while waiting in the dentist's office? It was the typical guy stuff: “How to Make Her Orgasm in Thirty Seconds or Less.”

Grace snorted. Please.

Then there was the more innocuous stuff … “The Guy's Guide to Grooming.” “Claiming the Corner Office.”

He was a good writer if you liked the straightforward, no-bullshit style. But while his cocky, cavalier tone likely appealed to his male reading audience, it reeked of condescension and machismo. She wasn't surprised that females who read his take on women would complain.

“I'll bet he's short,” Grace mused out loud. “I'm sensing
total
short-man syndrome
there.”

Riley shook her head as took a sip of the drink the waitress had just put down. “Uh-uh. This one's over six foot, easy. If his stuff reads as over-testosteroned, it's because
he's
over–testosteroned, and I mean that in the good way.”

Damn
.

Grace tapped her fingernails against the table and considered. “But that could still work in my favor, right? If he's a total caveman, he can't possibly have a good read on women.”

“I dunno, Grace,” Julie replied hesitantly. “I've seen him around at parties. We've even flirted a few times back in the day. He's …”

“Conceited? Macho? Boorish? Give me
something
here.”

“I was going to say
charming
. Jake Malone is gorgeous, successful, and, well,
nice
. There's not much to dislike.”

This was not good news.

She'd been counting on her
Oxford
counterpart being a slightly uncouth tits-and-ass-obsessed kind of guy. Instead, it sounded like she'd be dealing with Prince Charming.

But if he was as seemingly flawless as Julie described, that could work in her favor too. It would mean he'd be overconfident. Too sure in his assumptions about women to bother making an effort to actually read her. He'd be all easy jokes and smooth compliments.