The Love Coupon (Stubborn Hearts 2)

“Let me get dressed and I’ll tell you.”

r /> He went to shave and suit up himself and they arrived in the kitchen together. He checked her over. The dress was simple. Clean lines. Did that mean it was cheap or expensive? Women’s fashions were a mystery. The shoes went with it fine. She wore the pearls and the earrings he’d suggested and she’d done her hair and eyes the way he liked.

“Does it work for you?”

“I’ve never worn these shoes with this dress before, but they work.”

He ran a finger over his lips. Lip color was missing.

“That’s what I want to talk to you about.”

“I have to choose the lipstick?” All these choices before a woman was even out the door.

“After.”

“After what?”

She stepped in close and he smelled oranges. She had a million eyelashes to hide those rusty, knowing eyes behind. He knew the what when her arms looped over his shoulders. He didn’t have to dip his head so much when she wore heels. It was a soft, slow kiss that didn’t make any demands, but filled him with a buzz of happiness. He hadn’t screwed up dressing her and they both liked the effect.

He chose a lipstick she called neutral after failing to work out whether to match her dress or her skin, and deciding less color was more, and it was a whole day till he could enjoy another coupon.

He walked out of the condo and into a day of drama at the office with his head still full of how many decisions a woman had to make before she even got to work. One of their clients had been arrested in a DEA raid. So long, reputation; hello, lawsuit. It caused chaos, and threw everything else on his schedule out of the window.

The one thing he made time for was to call his headhunter. There was no reason why his open job brief couldn’t include other cities. New York, Washington. Nothing to do with Flick specifically, only that she’d opened his eyes to his own career complacency. He could afford to think bigger.

“You’re sure?” Denise Revero said. She had that are-you-really tone.

“You’re not.”

“You’re incredibly marketable, Tom. But even more so if you do a year or two as MD of Rendel. It’s the cost of waiting versus jumping into something new now. Unless I can get you into an MD role, you might get there quicker by waiting than you will by starting fresh somewhere else. Is there another reason for wanting to search outside Chicago? Because if there is, I don’t think I’ll have any trouble placing you in either city, but you could also think about San Francisco. I know, I know, living costs are higher, but for the right job, I’d get you the right money.”

There was a wine-colored dress with what he now knew were called three-quarter sleeves that would soon be seen on streets outside Chicago. “No, no other reason. I thought it made sense not to restrict the search.”

“In any case, you’re right to think about this before Rendel slap a restraint clause on you and you can’t move to a competitor without them suing you. I’ll nose around and see what I come up with,” Denise said.

Later in the day when he next saw Wren, he checked her feet. Navy with a white toecap, medium-height heels. “Those are no-nonsense,” he said, pointing at them.

She looked down. “Why are you taking notice of my shoes?”

“Everyone notices your shoes.” She didn’t buy them loud by accident.

“I repeat, why are you taking notice of my shoes? I know they’re fabulous, but they’re all about me, so you don’t get a say about them.”

“I don’t want a say about them. I just figured out there is a rule of law about your shoes.”

Both her brows shot up toward her hairline. “This’ll be good.”

“You choose your shoes based on what you think is going to happen during the day. That’s why sometimes you arrive in zebra or leopard and later I see you ditched the zoo for something plainer. I thought it had to do with comfort, but it’s not that.”

Wren narrowed her eyes at him. “How many years have I known you?”

“Since the grad program here.” They’d joined Rendel together, along with Josh.

“And now you have a theory about my shoes.”

“I always noticed them. I never understood them.”

“And what makes you think you do now?”