Hot and Bothered. Serena Bell

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      “NO MORE HEDGE-FUND MANAGERS.”

      Haven leaned over Elisa Henderson’s broad desk and smacked its surface for emphasis. She had to find a blank space between all the photos Elisa kept of the couples she’d match-made over the years. Brides in white, husbands and wives romping across tropical beaches on their honeymoons and even a few couples mooning over swaddled-up newborns and fat-cheeked infants. Haven had plenty of satisfied clients, but even she had to admit that you couldn’t beat Elisa’s job for visible results.

      Her dating coach frowned at her. “You’ve already said no more lawyers, no more surgeons and no one who’s involved in any way in film. You stipulated up front you wanted a successful, independent, professional man who dresses well. That right there makes the field pretty narrow. You can’t keep eliminating whole categories of men. Next you’ll be saying no chest hair.”

      The thought had crossed Haven’s mind, but she kept her mouth shut. She did like things smooth, metaphorically and literally.

      She had a quick flash of Mark Webster’s decidedly un-smooth face. Probably only because she’d spent so much time staring at it, trying to picture how it would look clean shaven. The last time he’d been photographed without stubble, he’d been considerably younger.

      “Haven.”

      “Sorry, just thinking about work.”

      “Can we agree? No more eliminating whole categories of men?”

      “No one in finance,” Haven amended.

      “That’s even worse. That’s half the professional, well-dressed men in the city.”

      “And no musicians,” Haven said, thinking of Mark again. He was not going to be an easy project. He hated the idea of the tour. Money was forcing his hand, and that never made for a good situation.

      “I’d already eliminated musicians. They don’t tend to be well dressed, at least not according to your vision of what well dressed entails.”

      For Haven, that involved a suit, or at least pressed slacks and a dress shirt hanging on broad shoulders. An expensive leather belt around a narrow waist. It was possible she was salivating slightly at the thought. She’d been sex deprived too long for her own good.

      Haven had hired Elisa after Elisa had pulled a surprise two-match victory out of a tricky dating–boot camp weekend. Both Haven and Elisa had briefly looked like fools as their shared client, Celine Carr, tromped all over a Caribbean island sucking face with a paparazzo, while her two handlers chased after her and failed to catch up. But just when it had seemed that nothing good could come out of the weekend, Elisa had realized that Celine and her paparazzo, Steve Flynn, were head over heels for each other, and she’d managed to make a splash of it on national television. On top of that, she’d found true love herself with a former friend-turned-lover on the trip.

      Haven had been so impressed that she’d signed up for Elisa’s Love Match package, which included both advice and actual matches. Elisa didn’t always make matches. Sometimes she just poked and prodded from behind the scenes. But Haven felt as though she’d exhausted enough possibilities on the island of Manhattan that she’d better seek new blood. She wanted access to Elisa’s top secret, intensely coveted, expensive database.

      Elisa tucked her auburn hair behind her ears. “I think you might need to adjust your criteria.”

      “What’s wrong with my criteria?”

      “You say you want all these things—educated, polished, well dressed, well spoken, a good earner—but then you go out with the guys I pick and say they’re leaving you cold. What if you opened up the field a little? Tried someone a little different?” Elisa tapped a few keys and brushed the trackpad, then turned the laptop around so Haven could see. “Check this guy out. Teaches rock climbing, former Navy.” Elisa ticked off his claims to fame. “Does have a fondness for wool socks and hiking boots, so as you might imagine he’s kinda outdoorsy—”

      “Stop.” Haven held up her hand and noticed that she’d somehow chipped one Screaming Pink fingernail. She had the color in her drawer at work—she’d patch it when she got back to the office. “Outdoorsy? Seriously? Look. At. Me.”

      Elisa did as Haven asked, an appraisal as coldly clinical as a doctor’s exam. Not at all the way Mark’s gaze had felt yesterday. His scrutiny had melted over her skin like warm butter. She thought of saying something about that, but she suspected Elisa would take altogether too much glee in it. She might even cite it as proof that Haven was barking up the wrong dating tree. But Haven wasn’t. She knew what mattered, and for better or for worse, image was a big part of it. It was what she’d made her career on. It was who she was. And she needed a guy who could appreciate its importance.

      “Like seeks like,” Haven told Elisa.

      She could picture him. At least six feet. Dark hair, close-cropped but not so short she couldn’t run her fingers through it. Dark eyes. Tailored clothes. Athletic. Professional—maybe a CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Or, she wasn’t that picky—he could be a small business owner, too. Just—successful. Refined. At ease with social events and people.

      “Okay, I admit, you’re not terribly outdoorsy. But I don’t think like always seeks like. Look at me and Brett.”

      “But you are alike. Education, background, socioeconomics, level of polish.”

      Haven hadn’t worried about any of that in her last serious relationship. Poet Porter Weir had worn consignment-shop artist’s garb to go with his longish hair and his intense, life is nasty, brutish and short gaze.

      Haven had met him at a poetry reading she’d attended when her mother and sisters were visiting New York.

      Haven had somehow been born into the wrong household of brilliant, passionate, neo-hippy women. As a child, Haven had loved her family but never quite felt as though she fit in with their crafty projects and eco-adventures and thinky ideas. She was like a Limited Edition Fashion Barbie among handcrafted fabric dolls made by a fair-trade cooperative in Lima, Peru.

      On this particular New York trip, she had done her best to make her family feel comfortable—taking them to out-of-the-way galleries, artists’ studios and literary events. She’d felt like a fish out of water, much as she had as a child, when her mother had introduced her sisters and then added, with a wry twist to her mouth, “And this is my princess, Haven.” Maybe in some families, “princess” would have been a compliment, but Haven had known from the time she was very little that in her case it wasn’t. She was decidedly outside the freewheeling, new-age family her mother had dreamed of.

      At the poetry reading, Porter Weir had walked past all her sisters in their fun, colorful peasant clothing, their soft, flowing hair and natural faces. He’d made straight for her, in her of-the-moment New York fashion and her pinned-up hair and perfect makeup. He asked her what she thought of his poetry, how it made her feel. And it had been such a long time since anyone had asked her how anything made her feel that she’d found herself answering.

      He’d wanted her. And in the early days of the relationship he had made her feel not only beautiful, but also smart, interesting and creative. Still, she could never shake the fear that if he looked too closely, he’d discover that she was far more princess than poetess.

      And that was more or less what had transpired. He’d dug deep and been deeply disappointed.

      Haven СКАЧАТЬ