“You talked to my former clients?”
The shock wasn’t that he’d done so, but that he’d just done so. Why hadn’t he had those conversations at the very beginning, when they were still operating under the terms of the wager?
“Not the recent ones, only those matched over five years ago. They should be miserable by now. Happily ever after doesn’t exist.” His rock-hard expression dared her to argue with his perfunctory statement.
Except he’d learned otherwise, and clearly it was throwing him for a loop.
He hadn’t talked to her clients before now because he’d assumed he didn’t need to. That he’d only be told what he already believed to be true.
It was hard to be handed back your arrogance on a silver platter.
“I offer a guarantee, Dax,” she reminded him gently. “No one’s ever asked for their money back.”
Instead of bowing and scraping with apology, he stared at her. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
“Why would I do that?”
His gaze burned through her. “Because you want to know what else I learned when I talked to your clients.”
He’d learned more than happily ever after happened to people on a regular basis? Oh, yes, he had and he was going to make her work to find out what, running her through his maze until she dropped with exhaustion. Or solved it and won the prize. It was a ludicrous challenge. And it was working.
But she didn’t for a moment believe he only wanted to tell her about his findings. The prize wasn’t simply information and they both knew it.
She held the door open wide in silent invitation and prayed she wasn’t going to be sorry.
She shouldn’t have answered the bell. But now she had to know if talking to happy couples had somehow opened his eyes. Maybe gotten him to a place where he could see a future with one woman.
What if she could be that woman? She didn’t want to send him on his way before finding out.
“Dax?”
He met her gaze as he stepped over the threshold. “Elise.”
Searching his beautiful face for some small scrap of reassurance, she put it all on the line.
“Please don’t do this unless you mean it.”
* * *
Dax shut the door behind him and leaned back against it, both hands flat against the wood.
The click reverberated in the silent foyer.
Elise’s eyes were shiny and huge and he didn’t mistake the look for anything other than vulnerability, which just about did him in where the last week of awfulness hadn’t.
Why had he stayed away so long?
It didn’t matter now. He was surrounded by Elise and everything finally made sense again. He breathed her in before he hauled her into his arms right there in the foyer.
Tonight wasn’t about slaking his thirst in the well of Elise, though he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t hopeful they’d eventually get there. He’d have sworn this was all about taking pleasure where pleasure was due. But now that he was here...it wasn’t. He still wasn’t sure what tonight was about, what he truly wanted—or what she wanted—but the fragile quality to her demeanor wasn’t doing his own brittle psyche any favors.
Don’t do this unless you mean it.
He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. Her voice broke as she’d said it and it echoed in his head, demanding an answer—which he didn’t have.
They needed to shake off the heaviness.
“Don’t do what?” he asked lightly. “Tell you about the nineteen conversations I had with blissfully happy couples? It was nauseating.”
Her quick smile set off an explosion of warmth in his midsection.
“Nineteen? That’s a lot of conversations about true love. What I don’t get is why you’d subject yourself to that.”
He shrugged. “Seek-and-destroy mission. I was sure I’d find at least one couple embroiled in a bitter divorce settlement. Needless to say, no one was. On the heels of that estrogen ambush in your office, I needed to figure out some things.”
Guilt flickered across Elise’s face. “I’m sorry that happened. Some of that must have been really hard to stomach, especially coming from women you were formerly intimate with. I was selfishly caught up in my own reaction and didn’t think about how you must have felt.”
“Uh...” He’d been about to brush it away. But this was Elise. She’d see through him in a second. How had she known the whole thing had bothered him so much?
So much for lightening the mood.