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had never realized before just how hard it was to breathe consciously. In when Mark breathed in, out when he exhaled. It took so much concentration, she could barely think about anything else.
Maybe if they’d been lying quietly in bed—a scenario she liked—she could have done it, but with him sitting at a table in front of her, moving every once in awhile to get papers or artwork or whatever, she couldn’t keep up.
When he eventually looked at her and asked if she was hyperventilating—his hand hovering over the telephone, ready to call for help—she decided to give up.
“It was so embarrassing,” she said to Paula later that night at Bungalow Billiards, a little dive of a bar in Tappen. “The idea, as I understood it, was that this was supposed to create a subconscious feeling of comfort in him. It wasn’t supposed to make me look ill.”
Paula downed a big gulp of beer. “Frankly I think all of this makes you look ill. Think about it, you’re reading a book on how to make a man fall in love with you!”
Bonnie squeezed a slice of lime into her club soda. “I’ve been back here for five years, working five days a week in a bustling metropolis that you would think would have men to spare, yet I’ve met no one interesting. Mark is the first guy I’ve really thought might be It. I mean, if you look at his stats, he’s perfect for me.” She shrugged. “I’ve got to do what I can.”
“His stats? What about chemistry?”
Bonnie shook her head. “Oh, no, no, no, chemistry has failed me far too often. I’m not listening to that anymore. I’m listening to my head on this one, and my head tells me Mark is perfect for me.”
Paula looked skeptical. “Then I think you ought to consider Dalton’s offer. Get a real guy’s take on seduction, not some highfalutin semi-psychologist’s.”
“For one thing, Dalton wasn’t really offering anything except snide commentary. And for another thing, I stopped trusting Dalton Price’s judgment a long time ago.”
“He’s a guy. You can’t argue with that.”
“No. I can’t.”
“A guy who knows women.”
“Tons of them.”
“That makes him an expert in my book.”
“Well, in my book, that makes him something else.” She took a sip of soda. “Look, Bancroft has got the numbers behind her. I looked at her Web site. Over a thousand women have reported marriage proposals that they attribute directly to her book, and that’s just over the past three months. She’s onto something.”
“I’ll say,” a familiar voice said from behind her. “She knows how to make money off of desperate women.”
Paula stifled a laugh and Bonnie turned around. “Dalton. How nice to see you again.”
He signaled the bartender for a beer and said to Bonnie, “So that book was for a client, huh?”
Her face warmed. “One of my favorites.”
He smiled. “Mine, too. Come on, Bon. You like a guy, he likes you, what’s the problem? Be yourself. Why use tricks?”
“Because the guy doesn’t know she exists,” Paula interjected.
Bonnie shot her a look before turning back to Dalton. “Maybe not, but he will soon.”
“If a guy doesn’t know you exist, he’s got to be blind.” Dalton took the beer the bartender handed him, sloshing some over the side and onto the scarred wooden bar top.
Bonnie flushed at his compliment. Why did he affect her this way? This was Dalton Price, for crying out loud. “From your lips—”
“Speaking of lips,” he said, pulling up a bar stool and sitting uncomfortably close to her. “What’s with the red lipstick?”
Red lips remind men, on a primal level, of the fruit of your sex, ripe for the picking.—Leticia Bancroft.
“Nothing,” Bonnie said.
“In the book, huh?”
She didn’t answer.
A drunk swaggered up and asked Paula to dance. She accepted and bounced out to the dance floor, leaving Dalton and Bonnie alone.
“Look, I need to talk to you about something else,” Dalton said, dragging the basket of pretzels closer to him. “I need a favor.”
“Did you fix my shower?”
“I did.”
She smiled. “Okay, shoot.”
“You know how I told you the building had a new owner?”
She nodded.
“Yeah, well, it’s me.”
Her mouth dropped open. “You? You bought the building?” She thought of Elissa, and her future security, and felt a warm ember of pride in her chest.
“You don’t need to sound so surprised. It wasn’t like I just wanted to clean it up for someone else for the rest of my life. I was checking the place out.”
“But how did you swing it? That place must have cost a fortune!”
He looked a little taken aback. “I’ve got some resources.”
Bonnie could have kicked herself. She really needed to be more careful and think before speaking. “Of course you do, I didn’t mean—”
“Whatever. Here’s the thing. I want to fix the place up and get some advertising going. We only have sixty percent occupancy at the moment.”
“I kind of like the emptiness.”
He shook his head. “Much as I’d like to please you, I’d prefer to have more renters.”
“Of course,” she acknowledged. “But what can I do? I’m no Realtor.”
“You’re in advertising. You’re surrounded by people who spend their lives making things look appealing to the public.”
She was glad he didn’t add a codicil about the exception of herself in drab green clothes and red lipstick. “True. But real estate…” She shook her head. “If you wanted to sell toothpaste, I’m a pro.”
“I’ll keep it in mind. Meantime, can you recommend someone who might want to take on some freelance ad work?”
So he wasn’t even asking her to do it? “Someone else? Not me?”
He drank some beer and swiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “Is that what you thought? I was asking you to do it?”
She took a pretzel from the basket in front of him. “What are you saying, you don’t trust me to do it?”
“You just said you can only sell toothpaste.”
“I didn’t say I could only sell toothpaste. All I meant was, yours is a different job than I’m used to doing.”
He shrugged. “And you don’t feel capable of handling it on your own. I get that.”
“Hey, it’s not rocket science. I think I could handle it.”
“Yeah? Hey, thanks for offering.” He gave a broad smile. “I’ll take you up on that.”
Once again, Dalton had steered the conversation to his benefit. “Wait a minute, I didn’t mean—” She couldn’t give him this. “What’s in it for me?”
“I could pay you, of course. Or—” he smiled “—we could barter.”
“Barter?”
He nodded. “I help you get your guy.”
Her face went hot. It felt like far too many people knew about her quest for—and