ready to get married to anyone. But now, at thirty-five, the stakes were higher and I didn’t want to be an inadvertent surrogate mother to any more guys searching for their identity. It never ended well. For me, at least. For my exes’ new girlfriends-turned-fiancées, I supposed my “mothering” worked out beautifully.
After a few more moments of faux-encouragement from Emmie, she wished me luck and we hung up. I sat back against the couch, trying to rid myself of all signs of attraction to Matt James, because it would be entirely futile. Not to mention self--destructive. And of course I was an attorney, so logic was my forte. All I had to do was come up with the reasons why I shouldn’t like him, and I’d be fine.
Okay, so he was cute. But the cute ones were always the ones you had to worry about. They’d have all the girls looking—and they usually looked back. And sure, he was friendly and flirtatious. But surely he flirted with every woman he met—not just me. And those snappy comments he was so fond of making? They
sounded
smart, but I bet they were just lines he had used on the show or something. No way was he a witty brainiac walking around in an actor’s admittedly hot body. He was just some con artist who liked to make girls think he was smart and sexy and witty all rolled into one. Real guys were
never
like that.
Just then, as I was deep in the midst of the little game I liked to call Pass Judgment on a Guy Before He Has a Chance to Pass Judgment on Me, the doorbell rang.
“Coming!” I yelled, leaping to my feet a little too eagerly for someone who had just convinced herself that there was no compelling reason to be attracted to Matt James.
I opened the door and there he was, standing on my welcome mat, larger than life. His dark hair was tousled—but in that sexy way that made me want to run my hands through it. (Would that be wrong? Okay, yes.) He was wearing a charcoal suit with a maroon shirt underneath, the top button undone. He looked polished and professional—but at the same time laid-back. It was a look only he could pull off. His eyes looked greener and brighter than usual today, and his teeth were so white they seemed to sparkle in the hallway lights when he smiled.
I was dismayed to find that he looked really good. Hot even. Really hot.
“Hey, Harper,” he said, smiling that wide, white toothy grin at me from the doorway.
“Hey, Matt,” I said. Or at least that’s what I intended to say. But in my effort to remain calm and casual, I think the words came out in sort of a gurgle instead.
Matt looked confused for a split second, then the perfect grin returned to his face. “You look gorgeous,” he said, looking me up and down appreciatively. His gaze made me blush just as it had in the dressing room. Damn my excitable cheeks. “I really mean it, Harper,” he said, his green eyes returning to rest on mine. “You look really nice.”
“So do you,” I said. And of course, that was the understatement of the year. It was getting hard to focus on him thanks to the increasing tempo of my heartbeat.
“Come on in,” I said finally, stepping aside and holding the door open for him. I tried to deactivate the pitter-patter in my chest. But so far, I couldn’t seem to locate the off switch. Matt grinned again and crossed over the threshold, taking in my apartment appreciatively.
“Nice place, Harper,” he said, nodding with apparent approval as I led him down the narrow hallway into my living room, which was actually quite spacious for a Manhattan apartment. Well, that’s what a $300K salary could buy. “You have great taste.”
“Thanks,” I said, smiling at him shyly.
The living room walls were painted a pale beige with one broad accent wall a deep maroon color. The sofa and love seat, which I had bought after the Peter breakup to replace the sofa he’d taken with him, were made of overstuffed taupe leather with accent pillows that matched the wall. I had a teak