Counterfeit Love

"Disney, princess? There's nothing embarrassing about Disney," he told me just as the waitress came back with the pancakes, dropping them down in front of me, but keeping her focus on Finch. "Can you do me a huge favor, sweetheart?" he asked, reaching for the cold glass container of syrup.

"Sure thing, dear," she agreed. I couldn't see her face, but I bet she was giving him a shameless smile.

The power this man had over women...

"Could you warm up this syrup for me? It's not the same when it's cold, is it?" he asked, handing it to her.

"You didn't have to do that," I told him as she walked away to do that for him. Because of course, she did. I highly doubted it had anything to do with her tip, either.

"Of course I did. You're too good for cold syrup, love," he told me, gaze lowering to my plate, watching as I scraped off the butter. "No butter. Interesting."

"It makes the syrup taste weird," I told him, not knowing why I was engaging in small talk with him. As a rule, I wasn't a small talk type of person. "Don't look at me like that," I demanded, hearing a strange almost... husky edge to my voice as I looked up from wrapping the butter up in a napkin to find his deep eyes on me once again.

"Like what, doll?"

Like he liked what he was looking at.

"Like you're trying to figure me out," I told him instead. It was partially the truth, anyway. I was in the camp of half-truths being better than full lies.

"Oh, but I can't stop looking at you like that."

"Why not?"

"Because I can't stop myself from wanting to know more."

"You don't even know me," I objected. "Thank you," I told the waitress, tone just a little pointed when she dropped the syrup off at Finch's elbow instead of my side of the table.

"She can't help it if she likes me better," he said, lips twitching.

Our hands went for the syrup at the same moment, his hand landing on top of mine on the handle.

The impact was immediate, familiar in a way I didn't like. The gut-punch of panic, the need to yank my arm back. This time, so fast that the container wobbled and fell off the side of the table, making Finch lean down to grab it with impressive cat-like reflexes.

His gaze stayed on the container as he carefully wiped it with a napkin before carefully pushing it across the table toward me, gaze on mine.

"No," he agreed. "I don't know you. But I would like to," he added.

There was an immediate reaction to that as well. Something far less sickening. But no less panic-inducing.

Because I shouldn't have been feeling something akin to, I don't know, hope? Anticipation? A combination of the two, maybe. Not about any man. Let alone this one I barely knew.

That wasn't how I worked.

I didn't tick that way.

Maybe, once upon a time, I did. I had been normal once, Average. Capable of warm and tinglies. Someone who could be interested in the opposite sex. Someone who would be pleased when an attractive man was interested in her.

But that was not the woman I was now.

There were many things I was simply not capable of--as much as it killed me to admit that--and wanting a man to want me was at the very top of the list of things I couldn't do.

"There's no reason for that," I told him, hearing the frigid, obnoxiously professional tone slip into my voice. "I am your boss," I added. Even though, right that moment, I didn't feel like it.

"I think we're more like partners, angel," he countered.

"Partners don't blackmail each other into doing things," I told him.

"Might have done it out of the goodness of my heart without all that ugliness," he told me, picking up his fork again.

He was someone who twirled his spaghetti. It was something I had no reason to notice, let alone think about. Since I was someone who cut mine up like I was still a little kid. I didn't like the potential for having to slurp the noodles. I didn't like the notion of pasta splattering on my carefully chosen clothes. I was neat and cautious and very aware of how I came across to others. It went to say that Finch was the opposite to all of that.

"I very much doubt that," I told him, carefully cutting half the stack of pancakes into little triangle pieces, pouring the syrup only on the cut section.

"You think so lowly of me?" he asked, pressing a hand to his heart. "I'm crushed, love, crushed."

"You'll recover," I told him, rolling my eyes, and taking a bite.

"Now, that's the sound a man wants to hear when he buys a woman dinner," he told me, making me realize I'd let out a little moaning noise. But just a little one. Barely audible. Finch had the hearing of a dog.