Take a Chance on Me (10 page)

I smiled. “What can I say, Nia? I care.”

She grinned just as the Goo Goo Dolls started singing “Let Love In.” I watched her pause and listen to the first verse—eyes on me, ears tuned in to 102.5 LOVE FM. “I like this song,” she declared when the chorus started.

I nodded. I did, too.

So, maybe I wouldn’t kill Blake…yet.

She flashed one more smile at me. God, what I wouldn’t give to know what she was thinking… And then she skipped away to the beat of the music.

Chapter Seven

~ Nia ~

Chance Michaelsen was going to be the death of me.

Or at least my unrelenting attraction to him could very well mean the end of my perfectly envisioned future and my currently harmonious relationship with my mother.

“When will we see your young man again?” Mama inquired on Thursday. “That handsome Grant Jordan?”

“Tomorrow afternoon¸” I told her.

“Oh, good!” she squealed and actually clapped her hands. “I liked him.”

“I know.”

“He was so polite when he came to visit. Attractive. Successful. Had good taste. Did you hear what he said about my
triopita
triangles?”

“Yes, Mama. I heard.”

“They were ‘delectable,’ he said. And he ate three of them,” she added proudly. “And he still tried the
spanakopita
and the
saganaki
and the
dolmades
—”

“Grant has excellent taste,” I reiterated, “and a very hearty appetite.”

“I predict you will marry him, Antonia,” my mother informed me. “And your Aunt Helen thinks so, too.”

Oh, no. There was nothing quite so damning as a marital prediction from Aunt Helen. If she guessed right, she’d gloat for decades. Literally. If she guessed wrong, she’d spend years pointing out the flaws in the couple’s relationship.

My mother and I were making a few large trays of our signature
galaktoboureko
, but as soon as the dessert pastry was ready to be popped into The Gala’s industrial-sized ovens, I escaped the kitchen for a while and stole upstairs to read my pink book.

Just one chapter left to go, and it was on “relationship testing.”

The author wrote:

“Once we leave school, no one likes to think that our behavior is being watched, assessed, and scored according to any kind of a rubric, but it is. Dating is nothing if not a series of tests and quizzes, graded informally and weighted according to an individual set of criteria. Your job, when trying to figure out who might be a good long-term candidate, is to know—to the best of your ability—the criteria you’re basing your judgments upon. Most of the time, we rely too heavily on pure instinct. Although that can be a stunningly accurate tool, it’s very easy to doubt oneself afterward. We can make the mistake of talking ourselves out of following our heart (or our gut) if we don’t look deeply enough into WHY we want what we want from a life partner. So, before you begin scoring the behavior of your potential mates, you first need to create your individual test key…”

This was the tough part, but the author made her point very well. It
was
easy to second guess a decision based on pure logic. My mind was telling me that Grant was a better choice and, on paper, he was.

But my instincts were saying something else. My heart and my gut were both telling me that I felt most like
myself
when I was with…well, almost anyone else.

I didn’t know Chance Michaelsen well enough outside of the gym, but when I thought of him, I smiled. Not only because he was handsome and talented at his job and kind, but because he was really looking at me when we talked. I couldn’t hide myself from him with a veil of polite smiles and facile words. He would notice.

I wasn’t sure I could say the same about Grant, but I fully intended to look specifically for that trait on our date tomorrow. It would be my biggest relationship test for the two of us so far.

~*~

The waters of Lake Michigan sparkled with glints of chipped sapphire on this crisp, cold, and clear Friday afternoon in mid-April. Grant Jordan was standing next to me on the outer deck of the luxury yacht he’d hired to take us on this daytime cruise.

It was spectacular, if more than a little brisk when we stepped outside of the toasty cabin. But I’d requested fresh air, so here we were.

“Like it?” Grant asked.

“Who wouldn’t?” I replied. “We have a gorgeous spring day, a free afternoon together, and a stunning view of the lake, the shore, and the city skyline. I’m very impressed, Grant.”

A smile lit his handsome face. “Glad you approve.”

He reached for my hand and held it on the deck as we huddled next to one another and leaned on the metal railing. He talked about some of the things he enjoyed about the city of Chicago—from the Midwestern openness to the cultural diversity—and even some of the things he liked about me. He was attracted to me. Thought I was intelligent, warm, hardworking, and independent. Who would be immune to such compliments?

So, it was lovely for a while. Really lovely. And I was talking myself into it again—being with Grant. I’d been excited to see him during the daytime, mostly because that meant he’d taken off work for me. To be with
me
.

But it was a strange thing…attention. It waxed and waned and, with Grant, it waned much more than waxed.

Especially when his cell phone would buzz.

Even if I didn’t see or hear it, I could feel him responding to it. He might be technically spending time with me, but he was no more attentive really than he’d been before, at the Thai restaurant or during our prior dates. He liked me, but he didn’t crave me. He didn’t make me a top priority over other things in his life, not even for a few hours. I could feel him ready to spring back into action for work, just as soon as he could. He was always ready to jump into the business world again. It made me wonder, did he appreciate my independence so much because he figured it would be a necessary trait for anyone in a long-term relationship with him?

“I’ve got the rest of the day planned,” he told me, “so I hope you’ll be able to stay a while tonight. André is throwing together something good for us to eat.”

“I wouldn’t miss it,” I said, feeling momentarily hopeful. Maybe he just needed more time to decompress than most people. Maybe it just took him longer to truly relax.

See? It was back and forth and back and forth—these arguments in my mind. Grant was trying. That had to count for something, right?

After we disembarked, he took me to his place for dinner…and by “place” I meant “mansion.” I’d been here before a couple of times already, but the magnitude of it struck me anew each time. The well-kept grounds. The gazillion rooms. The pricey furnishings. Part of me wished those things meant more to me than they did. The house was notable, striking, and imposing. But it wasn’t anywhere I’d want to be alone for days at a time. Or years. And, if my relationship with Grant were to progress as far as I’d once wished it would, I would be alone. A lot.

Grant had a live-in French cook (naturally). And the dinner André “threw together” for us was rather extraordinary. There was tender veal with some kind of special sauce. Asparagus spears cooked to perfection. A mixed salad of baby greens with sliced peaches and strawberries, tossed in a citrus dressing. Red potatoes sliced and pan fried with spices. And a melt-in-your-mouth cherry cobbler for dessert with a scoop of French vanilla custard on top.

It was all delicious, but it was the after-dinner “menu” that I was most curious about. I couldn’t eat another bite, but I was hoping Grant would find something else for us to do with our mouths… Was he going to finally make a romantic move?

“Do you have a favorite type of music, Nia? Something you’d like to listen to tonight?”

“I love all different styles,” I told him. “What about you? What do you most enjoy?”

He shrugged. “I usually just put on a classical station. Not because I’m a Bach or Mozart aficionado, but because I like not having the words there. Lyrics tend to break my concentration.”

“Interesting,” I said, but I immediately thought of Chance at the gym on Wednesday afternoon. There were a lot of songs with lyrics that touched my emotions in some way. And that last one we heard together, “Let Love In,” was meaningful. I thought Chance and I had a little moment, actually, when that song came on the radio. He wasn’t a man who was particularly gushy. He usually played his emotions very close to the vest. But the expression in his eyes when I defended him against Donna’s bitchy comments was like an hour of conversation condensed into just one look.

“Would you like to dance?” Grant asked me.

I grinned. “Sure.” He’d put on some sort of Viennese waltz that made me feel like I was on the set of a BBC period drama. I mean, I was more Black Eyed Peas than Brahms, but I could play along with this scene, if that was what Grant liked.

He held out his hand, and I took it. He drew me toward him and, soon, our bodies were flush. But Grant was so poised. So very…competent. I supposed that wasn’t a traditionally
sexy
thought to have about my boyfriend, but it was true. Grant was the kind of man that looked like he could pull off a complicated business merger, run a board meeting blindfolded, and select the perfect appetizer for a party—simultaneously—without breaking a sweat.

Somewhere in the middle of the musical movement, he stopped dancing and let his hands slide upward to cradle my face. He ran the pad of his thumb lightly over my lips, smiled, and brought his mouth down on mine.

Like everything else about Grant Jordan, his kiss was polished and well practiced. He’d kissed me in passing a dozen times and, on a few occasions, went a little deeper. But I was far too aware that I should be wanting more right now. I should not be objectively analyzing his kiss as if I were grading an assignment or rating a project according to a 100-point rubric.

I thought of the pink book and all of the relationship tests and quizzes, and I barely suppressed a shudder. What was wrong with me that I couldn’t feel more for this brilliant, attractive, and successful man?

Then, I felt a surprising vibration against my hip and, for a split second, I thought,
Whoa, there!
And hoped that, perhaps, I’d been too hasty in dismissing the potential for a strong sexual chemistry with Grant.

But he pulled away from me, and my brain and my body both finally understood that this brief zip of excitement was just his cell phone buzzing. Again. My hope for us dissolved the instant he said, “Apologies, Nia. I need to grab this call quick.” And my determination to change the course of the evening intensified.

While Grant spoke with some business person on the phone, I excused myself and slipped into the bathroom—a palatial one, especially for a man who technically lived alone. (Although, I guess he had enough live-in staff to justify it, eh?) I didn’t need a lot of space, however, for what I intended to do. Just privacy.

I pulled out my own cell phone and texted Chance Michaelsen before I could talk myself out of it. I wrote:

If you get this message, could you please call my cell in about 10 minutes? Just go with whatever I say.

Fifteen seconds later, my phone dinged, and Chance texted back:

You got it.

Oh, boy. I’d set this in motion…was it too late to go back on it?

Well, I guess it wasn’t. I could ignore the call when it came in or change what I’d planned to say…but, as it turned out, I didn’t want to.

Would I live to regret my decision, though? Maybe. Only time would tell.

Grant was waiting for me when I stepped out of the bathroom. “European distributors,” he explained with a wave of his hand. “There shouldn’t be any other interruptions for a while.”

I appreciated his optimistic comment, but I knew it wasn’t entirely true. No matter how much Grant wished he could relax and spend time with me, he just wasn’t built that way. I couldn’t help but feel that it wasn’t even his fault. He was like a shark who had to keep swimming (and working, and checking his iPhone) or he’d die. Being still simply wasn’t an option for him, and the people he worked with knew it. That was why they kept calling. They knew he’d respond.

The sad truth was that, even if he eventually came to love me with his whole heart, and vice versa, this wouldn’t change. No amount of love could alter such a fundamental trait in another person.

“Life partners can and should learn to compromise on the details of daily living, but neither partner should ever be expected to change his/her own identity or to try to force the other to change his/her core self,”
the author of the pink book had written.

I was starting to resent and despise the author of the pink book, but I couldn’t deny that her research and wisdom were frequently accurate.

Grant leaned in to kiss me again, and I tried one last time to relax into his embrace. To feel more than I did. But it was no use.

When my cell phone rang, I literally leapt to answer it.

“It’s my brother,” I told Grant. Which was, of course, a massive lie. “Hi, Dimitri,” I said, answering the call.

“Hey, there…uh,
Sis,
” Chance said.

I smiled and then paused, pretending to listen to my “brother’s” side of the conversation. Grant was preoccupied halfway across the room, scrolling through some texts or emails on his own phone.