Free The Blonde Theory by Kristin Harmel Page B

coffee table and two teak end tables with tall, chrome lamps on them, and the walls were filled with large, teak-framed photos of Paris, Venice, and San Francisco, my three favorite cities in the world. The tables and two metal magazine racks were piled high with old issues of
InStyle, Real Simple, W, Mod, Vogue, Wine Spectator,
and
Time
, all of which I devoured the moment they arrived in the mail.
    I led Matt over to the sofa and asked if I could get him a drink while I finished getting ready. He thanked me and said he’d make it himself, so I pointed him toward the bar in the corner of the small dining room, which was stocked with Grey Goose, Bacardi Limón, and Tanqueray, as well as a large selection of wines I’d picked up here and there when a label interested me. I was as obsessed with wines as I was with shoes and often made impulse purchases based on
Wine Spectator
ratings or simply the interesting names on bottles (Fat Bastard wine had become a favorite of mine, oddly enough). While Matt mixed a Grey Goose and cranberry for himself and a Limón and Sprite for me, I went back into my bathroom and applied one more coat of lipstick. Then I just stood there for a moment, looking at myself in the mirror.
    What was I doing? I stared into my green eyes reflected in the mirror. I wasn’t bad looking, even though my hair hadn’t wanted to cooperate with me today and was currently sticking out at moderately funny angles. And I wasn’t that hard to get along with. I wasn’t unpleasant or mean or anything. At least I didn’t think so.
    But I’d been dating for more than twenty years, and some things never changed. From the time I’d had a crush on Ryan Patterson in the sixth grade and he had told me to my face that it wasn’t cool to go out with nerdy girls, to the last few years when every date ended with guys running scared, I was slowly learning that I was just undatable, unlikable, and clearly downright threatening to every male ego in Greater Manhattan. Maybe rather than hating Peter, I should have been commending him for sticking around so long in the first place.
    That was a depressing thought.
    “Get ahold of yourself, Harper,” I said sternly to my reflection.
    “Are you talking to yourself in there?” came Matt’s muffled voice from the other side of the bathroom door. I froze and widened my eyes at myself in the mirror. Great. Now Matt probably thought I was a lunatic who talked to herself in the bathroom. The night was clearly off to a stellar start.
    “Uh, I’ll be right out,” I said quickly, cringing once more in front of the mirror before opening the door.
    When I stepped out of the bathroom, Matt was standing a few feet away, holding two glasses. He handed me the one with the clear liquid and raised his own glass in a toast.
    “To the most beautiful attorney in town,” he said with a wink.
    I arched an eyebrow at him skeptically as we clinked glasses. “You don’t have to butter me up,” I said flatly after I’d taken a long sip of my drink.
    Matt looked surprised. “I’m not buttering you up,” he said, clearly feigning hurt. “I mean it.”
    “Whatever,” I scoffed, still feeling pathetic. I averted my eyes and took another sip of my martini. When I looked back at Matt, he was staring at me. “What?” I asked.
    “I just don’t understand why you do that,” he said, shaking his head.
    “Do what?” I asked suspiciously.
    “Put yourself down like that,” he said. “You always do that.”
    I looked at him in surprise. “Matt, I’ve maybe had three or four conversations with you in my entire life,” I protested, feeling suddenly defensive. What, like he thought he knew me or something because we’d said hello to each other a few times at cocktail parties and at bars? “I don’t
always
do anything.”
    Matt shrugged. I noticed with some surprise that he didn’t look unpleasant or aggressive. Just concerned. That was worse, somehow.
    “I didn’t mean to offend you,”