But now! Yes, now, Tanner was going to get a belated Christmas present.
“Okay, Dad, I suppose I could help you out. Not for more than this mercy operation, you know. I don’t do long term. But if you want me to take her out once or twice to cheer her up, I’m sure I can take everything into hand.”
“Great, son. She wants to go to a new place. It’s called L’Appétit Avide.”
“Of course she does. I wouldn’t expect anything other than the highest pedigree of taste for a woman like Merinda.”
“I thought you could afford it, Tanner, but I’d be happy to slip you the cash if you need a little help.”
Crap. He’d completely forgotten that his father thought he was on the same tight budget as his siblings. He’d best be a little more careful in what and how he said certain things.
“C’mon, Dad. You know it’s no problem.” He delivered those words with just enough arrogance that his father surely had to ask himself what was going on. Was he wondering whether his son was covering up his insecurity about being trapped in this game with his dad as puppet master? Or was the guy unsure how he’d be able to afford the five-star meal?
Tanner expected to pay the highest of prices for his dates. It was well worth it when, at the end of the night, they kindly paid him back.
* * * * *
Merinda was certainly treating the place as if there were prizes to be won by finding the top-dollar dishes despite the built-in handicap of places like these, which had no prices on the women’s menu. What would she do, Tanner asked himself, if he suggested going to get warm cookies for dessert? Or if he took her to a soup kitchen? Nah…
But he was having a good time, he tried to assure himself. All signs pointed to the sack. Her knee kept brushing his, and the gleam in her eyes and the flutter in her eyelashes told him a lot, too. She could talk with authority about caviar and wine, and when the subject turned off onto business and even the stock market, she easily kept pace with him there as well. Maybe he’d even consider a second date, at least if she was as good in bed as her looks and the heat coming off her promised.
Just as he was getting ready to suggest they take their meal to go, her eyes lit up and she looked him straight in the eye. And the conversation turned quickly for the worse.
“I couldn’t help but hear about your recent sentence, Tanner.” Merinda threw him a sly smile after saying what she must have been holding in all evening.
“Oh, that.” He pursed his lips together, then decided to chill. Maybe she was going to actually commiserate with him and say properly nasty things about that senile judge. What was the worst she could do? They were having a great time. She wouldn’t want to ruin it.
“I wish I could have seen you as Santa! I could have poked that cute little padded belly, and…”
Dammit. She was screwing with him. He should have guessed that even the most cultivated of women weren’t above poking a guy while he was down. But he wasn’t a wimp, or a little girl, as someone had recently suggested. He could handle this. Or he thought he could until Merinda continued.
“But, seriously, Tanner, how did you manage to live and work among the great unwashed? All those middle-class people brushing up against you in a tacky Seattle mall! And those old apartments! Have those people no shame? How can anyone live that way?”
Great unwashed? He had rubbed up against the truly unwashed on Christmas Eve. And at first he was horrified. But he’d come to know a few of them, if only a little, and to understand where they were coming from. And this woman was treating even people with homes and jobs as beneath her contempt.
“…And those awful kids, of course. Sitting on your lap! They probably drooled as they begged dear old Santa for lots and lots of the most ridiculous gifts.”
No, not all of the kids were awful. Tanner could think of one in particular that he wouldn’t mind seeing again. But Merinda was at last saying something sensible. He knew where this was going — she would soon launch into a denunciation of the commercialization of Christmas and the greed choking our great nation. Of course. He’d thought a bit about that over the past few weeks.
“And those kids were doubtlessly disappointed. Hell, even I was disappointed this year. Daddy is still struggling a little from the real estate bust a few years ago. And I was really eager for a decent car. My Mercedes is just so embarrassing. It’s such a conservative car, really, even in price, and the darn thing is a year old now. My friends all pity me. And my wardrobe. And…”
Tanner had a lot of practice tuning this sort of thing out, and tune it out he did. What was shocking him was the fact that he was no longer so eager to take her back to his place and get her in his bed. What in the hell was wrong with him?
Who gave a crap if she was shallow? What did it matter if she was beginning to bore him? Her body was still out-of-this-world erotic, and she had lips that would fit just right around certain body parts. Strange. Why did that thought now disgust him instead of excite him?
Dinner finished a couple of long-suffering hours later, and Tanner decided that as soon as he got the woman out of the restaurant, he’d rush her to his car, dump her at her place without so much as a goodnight kiss, and, pleading a headache, speed away.
“Tanner, you wouldn’t mind making one quick stop for me, would you?” she asked, her fingernails sliding up and down his forearm, her eyes fluttering once again. He’d been interested a few hours ago, but that look was now making him physically ill.
“Of course,” he said automatically, though he would rather chew on nails than spend any extra time in her presence. How had she been so interesting a month ago, and even at the beginning of their evening tonight, and then turn on him so quickly?
She named an address and Tanner’s eyebrows shot together, but he pulled out into traffic and headed in that direction. When he pulled up in front of an exclusive jewelry store that was normally closed at this time of night, his pulse picked up speed.
“Oh, thanks, darling. My daddy needs me to pick up his cuff links,” she said with a giggle. And she didn’t move from the passenger seat.
In any other circumstance, he would have gotten out of his car and gone to open the door for her. But this time he sat there, frozen. He last thing he wanted to do was to go with her into that jewelry store.
“Tanner?” she asked.
Dammit! Caving in, he apologized for the delay before stepping from his car and moving over to open her door.