It was a little disturbing, thinking about how Axel had ensured he would be tangled up in my life for a long time. I wasn’t sure he’d done it deliberately, or at least he hadn’t thought the ramifications through as well as he could have. Since nothing else about the situation he’d started with me was logical, I was willing to give him a pass on that.
A server came to us while Axel was demonstrating the thing’s ability to move on its own—a capability that was entirely Axel’s doing, if Dad had come up with it we would probably have killed one another long ago in an escalating war of mischief.
“Oh, that’s something I don’t see here every day,” the girl remarked, her eyes wide in the direction of the tumbling toy.
I poked Axel. “He’s an inventor. May I order the strongest alcohol you have in the largest quantity you have it?”
She didn’t seem to know whether to take me seriously or not. “I’ll handle ordering our drinks,” said Mr. Bennett with a grand air.
“Just water for me,” I told the server. “I’m even serious this time.”
Mr. Bennett seemed at a loss for a second, then went on selecting drinks for himself and Axel. Once the server was gone bearing our orders, he turned his attention to me.
“Are you one of these young women who can’t take a gesture from a man, then?”
“I wasn’t aware that was a category that could be used to make a point.”
Mr. Bennett grimaced at me. I was pretty sure he would have added ‘…and talk back to men’ to his category if he thought he could get away with it. “I’ve known a lot of women, Aileen. It’s not as charming an attitude as some of you seem to think. A little gratitude can get you a long way in this world.”
I didn’t have to look very far to see where Axel had gotten his ideas about the sort of woman he should be with. I didn’t feel too inclined to judge Mr. Bennett, though. It must be hard for him to be out at dinner with the same sort of woman who had cleared off with his money… and maybe he knew I was good friends with the guy whose father his own wife had disappeared with. It had to be a pretty unsettling case of history repeating.
If I knew two things in life, they were that history had a way of repeating… and that there was no reason it had to be that way.
“There are two things you should know about me, Mr. Bennett,” I said. “One: I’m not going to accept things from you I didn’t want and then thank you for them. And two: I’m not going to take things from you that you didn’t want me to take. I think those are both fair.”
Mr. Bennett didn’t say anything to me, he just shot Axel this incredibly resentful squint, like he wished he could have decided to harass a more obliging girl. Well, at one point in my life that would have suited me just fine too, but now I was committed to this path.
With both my gentleman companions looking a bit sulky now, it seemed to be up to me to get things back on track. I grabbed my copy of the food menu, which we all seemed to be ignoring at present in anticipation of the stars eventually aligning. The starters were weird things I mostly didn’t even know how to pronounce and the only soup I was familiar with, tomato, had a bunch of additions I didn’t think I was likely to enjoy, so I kept on flipping to the mains. Those offerings were also bewildering, but there was one universal favourite I was certain I wanted to try. Even with the addition
of garlic and some varieties of cheese and herbs I’d never tried, it couldn’t possibly be ruined.
“Spaghetti bolognese!” I blurted out as our server returned. “No question about it.”
Mr. Bennett grimaced like I’d said I wanted to eat shit with a side of shit. “She might prefer the fettucine with cream pasta, mushrooms and pine—”
“Ew, no, I hate mushrooms and too much dairy makes me fart.”
Yeah, I was being deliberately obnoxious. And Bennett Senior deserved it.
Axel headbutted the rim of the water bottle the server had brought while he was putting his head down, but it just highlighted how his shoulders were shaking.
The serving girl raised her clipboard just over her mouth in a more practised and discreet move. “Shall I tell them to be light on the cheese, then?”
“Probably easier than getting a fan in here,” I said.
Mr. Bennett hardly said anything for the rest of the meal. Axel took us through the paces of his gadget about five more times before our food arrived to fill in the lull, but he invited me to come back to their house as we were walking back out to the car, so I was pretty sure I hadn’t offended him that greatly.
The spaghetti was pretty good, too. If I ever got a chance to go back to that restaurant, I was going to try some of their more exotic dishes. They’d definitely earned my trust.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Axel was smirking as he brought a tray of herbal tea to my seat in his little private sitting room. That was Axel all over: had to go a step beyond all those guys with their own ensuites when flexing.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t stroke your dad’s ego sufficiently to make him like me,” I said.
Axel shrugged. “It would be nice if you could, but my dad’s ego is not the number one thing I’m interested in you stroking.”
I splashed tea all the way down the front of my dress.