The Invitation

Hudson shook his head. “No clue.”

“Yet you asked me to dance?”

A hint of a smile threatened at the corner of his lips. “I did indeed.”

My heart sped up. “Why?”

“Why did I ask you to dance?”

I nodded.

Hudson’s eyes dropped to my lips and lingered for a few seconds. “Because I thought you were interesting.”

“Oh…okay.”

He leaned close and lowered his voice. “And beautiful. I thought you were interesting and a knockout.”

My cheeks flushed. “Thank you.”

Hudson kept staring at me. I’d practically dragged the compliments out of the man, yet my face was beaming red.

He drummed his fingers on the table. “Anything else?”

“No.”

He grinned. “You’re sure?”

I nodded. But once again, after a minute of mulling things over, I changed my mind. “Actually…”

“Let me guess. One more question?”

“When I came to your office to pick up my cell, you asked me out to dinner, but I sort of got this weird feeling you were pissed off at yourself that you asked.”

He tilted his head. “You’re very perceptive.”

I bit my lip, debating my next question. But I really wanted to know the answer.

“Would we have gone out if I hadn’t accidentally given you the wrong number?”

The corner of Hudson’s lip twitched again. “I called, didn’t I?”

“Oh…yeah. Well, I guess everything worked out for the best anyway. We’ll be working closely together and wouldn’t want to muddy the waters.”

Hudson’s eyes flickered down to my lips again. “So if I asked you out right now, you would say no this time—because muddy water and all?”

Every part of my body wanted to go out with this man…except the part of my brain that had invested five years in my business. I just couldn’t do it.

I frowned. “I almost didn’t go forward with Signature Scent because of the mess I made with my last business partner.”

“You mentioned during your presentation that you had a partner but you bought them out.”

I nodded. “Yeah, it didn’t work out.”

Hudson seemed to be waiting for further explanation.

Sighing, I said, “My fiancé was my partner. When he became my ex-fiancé, I bought him out.”

Hudson nodded. “Is he a perfume chemist, too?”

I scoffed. “Definitely not. Aiden is a poet. At least that’s what he tells people. His paid occupation is teaching English at a community college.”

“A poet? That doesn’t sound like a very helpful business partner.”

“He wasn’t. He didn’t help with the development at all, but he contributed to the start-up funds.”

“What came first? The broken business partnership or the broken relationship?” Hudson forked a piece of shrimp and ate it.

“Hmmm... I guess what came first was him having sex with someone who wasn’t me.”

Hudson started to choke.

“Shit. Are you okay?”

He held out a hand and spoke with a strained voice. “Yes.” He grabbed his bottle of water and washed the food down. “Just give me a minute.”

Once his eyes stopped watering and he had an open airway again, Hudson shook his head. “Your fiancé was sleeping around?”

I smiled sadly. “Yeah, but everything turned out for the best—for my business anyway.”

“How so?”

“Well, I don’t know that I ever would have made it this far if Aiden and I hadn’t split up.”

“Why is that? Didn’t buying out your partner cause the initial strain on your finances?”

“It did. Aiden had contributed a hundred-and-twenty-five-thousand dollars over the years. So the money I had saved for the rest of the start-up inventory went to buy him out. But I’m not sure I would have ever made it to launch, even if I still had all of that money. Aiden and I were young when we first got together. Back then, he was very encouraging, and we slowly started banking funds together in a joint savings account. At first it wasn’t a lot, but as the years went by, the money started to add up. And by then, Aiden had gotten interested in using it to buy investment property. It probably should’ve been a red flag that he wasn’t interested in using it to buy a house for us to live in together, even though we’d dated for years and still didn’t share an apartment. But anyway, he said investment property was less risky than my business idea. He suggested we buy one property and then start saving for Signature Scent after that.”

Hudson frowned. “Your ex sounds like a real dick.”

I smiled. “He is. But I often let him sway me when I shouldn’t have. A few months before we split up, we had started looking at rental properties. My dream wasn’t his dream, and I was about to give up on mine and accept his. I had a good job, and he made me feel like I was selfish for wanting even more.” I paused. “Our breakup was awful for many reasons, but the one good thing that came out of it was that I decided to take back my future.”