“I’ve never eaten any of these things,” she said, fascinated.
“Should we order one of everything?” Carlos asked, eyes glinting.
“I’m hungry but I don’t think I’m that hungry,” Pauline retorted.
“Maybe we’ll have to come back, then.”
Startled, Pauline looked at him. Did he not think that this was a one-time thing?
Maybe he meant that they could go on a few dates while he was here. A real fling, and not just a single fun date.
And even though she’d resolved against it, Pauline found herself weakening in the face of his hopeful smile.
“Maybe,” she murmured.
“For now, though, what looks the most interesting?” He raised his eyebrows.
Pauline thought everything looked interesting, but her attention was caught by the braised-goat ravioli and the Korean burger the most.
“They just keep putting things together that I would never think to put together,” she said. “I want to see what it’s like.”
Carlos was smiling. “Well, how about we each get one of those and we can share.”
“Oh—but—you should get what you want,” Pauline objected, feeling suddenly flustered. The way Carlos was looking at her...
“I want to try both of those, too,” he insisted. “And I want you to get to try them. We both win.”
Pauline sighed. “Well...if you’re sure.”
“Absolutely.”
“I suppose you must eat at restaurants like this all the time, in New York,” Pauline said before she thought about it. As the words came out of her mouth, though, she heard how naïve they made her sound. Like some ingenue in an old movie. Of course they had weird expensive restaurants in New York City.
But to her surprise, Carlos shook his head. “Once in a while, for a business meeting, but most of the time I was too busy with work to get out and try new places.”
“What a shame,” Pauline said sincerely. She’d never thought about that—having the money and the opportunity to do things, but not the time.
“It was,” Carlos said, looking regretful. “I suppose now that I’m retired, I could’ve just stayed in New York and experienced all the things I didn’t do when I was working seventy-hour weeks.”
She blinked. “You’re retired?”
Unless he was twenty years older than he looked, this was a startlingly early retirement, wasn’t it?
Before he could answer, though, the waiter appeared. They ordered—Carlos asked if she wanted wine, and Pauline declined, because she wasn’t much of a drinker. “Just water for me, too,” Carlos said with a smile at the waiter, and Pauline couldn’t tell if he was trying to make her comfortable, or if he genuinely didn’t want any himself.
Either option was nice, she had to admit. She didn’t like men who drank too much, and there were plenty of them around.
When the waiter disappeared, Carlos turned his smile back to Pauline. Was it her imagination, or did it warm a few notches when he focused on her?
“I’m taking early retirement,” he told her. “I’ve done all I wanted to in the business world. I worked hard, I got lucky, and I’ve come out of it with plenty of resources, invested in ways that’ll keep them working for me.”
His tone was matter-of-fact. It didn’t even sound like he was boasting, just stating the truth.
“So now I don’t really know what to do with myself,” he continued with a rueful laugh. “I took this vacation as a way to connect with my old friends, see if they could give me any ideas about how to make myself useful, find a fulfilling way to live the rest of my life.”
“Wow,” Pauline said after a second. “That’s really...admirable. A lot of rich guys would just go live on an island somewhere, drink fancy cocktails and chase beautiful women.”
Carlos laughed. “I’d get bored in a hot second. I always need to be doing something. I’d drive all the beautiful women crazy, because they’d want to relax on the beach with their cocktails, and I’d be prowling around looking for responsibilities.”