Page 101 of Fifth Avenue Flirt

To him, I’m a baby bird waiting to be fed.

We ride up the elevator.

“It’s just lunch today,” Ben says. “An introduction. He knows that you were trying to buy the building already. He knows why you’re here. Let him lead the conversation.”

Maybe I’m imagining it, but it feels like any warmth there was between us has gone. He’s all business now, and the flutters I felt when I first saw him this morning wither as he talks.

“Yes, okay,” I say. “Thank you again.”

He nods and offers me a half smile, but I can’t just leave it at that.

“How was Colorado?” I ask him. Maybe I can figure out why he went up there. Was it for a date? Is he dating someone?

“Good,” he says. “Useful.”

Useful? That doesn’t sound like the kind of language anyone would use to describe a date.

“Useful is good,” I say, but before either of us can say anything, the elevator doors open and we’re in the lobby of a restaurant.

“I can’t eat,” I say. My stomach is in knots. But it’s not the Boston hotel that I’m ruminating over. It’s Ben. “I just wasn’t expecting to eat.”

“If you’re not hungry, you can just push the food around your plate. We can pick up something devoid of nutrition and high in calories when we leave.”

I smile to myself. It’s the first acknowledgement that either of us know each other beyond our terse, formal interactions of the morning so far. But I’m not worried about a lack of appetite. “Do you think he wants to sell the building?” I ask. I’m not here to chitchat. I want him to agree that he’s going to sign.

Ben stops dead just before we get to the hostess station.

He turns to me. “Listen to me. If you go in there guns blazing, asking him to sell, this won’t work. You need to get to know each other and establish a working relationship.”

“I don’t want to marry the guy. I just want his building.”

The corners of his lips twitch. “I’m not sure he’s your type, but it doesn’t matter whether you want to marry him. You need to get to know him. From what I’ve found out about him, he’s a man who doesn’t do anything he doesn’t want to. If you want him to do what you want, it needs to align with what he wants. You’re not going to find out what he wants if you do all the talking. Just listen. Be charming. I know you have it in you somewhere.”

I narrow my eyes at him as I clench my fists and try not to punch him.

“Come on,” he says. “Try and act like you’re having fun. You might end up actually having fun.”

“Is that what you do?” I ask. “Fake it until you make it?”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

I look him in the eye and shake my head. “No. I don’t fake things. I don’t fake relationships.” I’m trying to tell him that everything I said and did when we were together last week was real. Can he say the same?

“Most people fake it every day. People pretend to be happy when they’re not, they pretend to like gifts they hate, and they pretend to be cleverer than they are. That’s life.”

“That’s some people’s lives.”

He pulls in a breath and goes to speak, but we’re interrupted by the hostess, who’s come back to her station.

“Can I help you?” she asks.

“We’re here to see Patrick O’Leary.”

“Certainly. Please follow me.”

Ben is right. Patrick, it turns out, is not my type, even if I was looking to marry him—which I’m definitely not. He must be at least sixty, with ruddy cheeks and a red bulbous nose. Ben has also got at least a foot on him. I figure even I’m a couple of inches taller than him at five foot five.

“Very nice to meet you,” I say, reaching out my hand. He takes my hand in his and shakes it enthusiastically.