The Singles Table, page 10
“You get plus marks for that.” Zara smiled. “Women love a man in uniform.”
Did she love a man in uniform? The question sneaked into his brain like the paparazzi sneaked into the celebrity events J-Tech was hired to protect.
“Do you still have your uniform from when you were in service?” She closed the door and made another note on her clipboard. “I asked around about you at the wedding. Eight years in the air force. Multiple combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Decorated combat search-and-rescue pilot and—”
He could almost feel a steel door slam down in his mind. “That part of my life is over and not on the table for discussion.”
“I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.” Her smile faded, and he immediately regretted his abrupt tone.
“Where would you like to go?” He straightened his tie and stepped away from her soft, agile body and her seductive floral scent.
“I don’t like to make plans.” Her smile returned, beating back the gray clouds that had rolled in when she’d brought up his past. “Let’s see where the wind takes us, so long as it takes us to food.”
* * *
• • •
“I don’t usually eat at this time.” Jay unwrapped his hot dog and settled on the grass beside Zara on the lawn in Yerba Buena Gardens. “I have also never come to this park and I don’t usually sit on the grass.”
“You’re almost like an alien.” Zara took a small bite of her hot dog, desperately trying not to get ketchup all over her mouth. Despite his uptight demeanor, Jay had been surprisingly willing to follow her through the city streets in search of the perfect hot dog, answering her questions about his work and the celebrity parties he’d guarded—no names disclosed, of course. She’d felt safe with Jay, free to talk without having to worry about everything around her. He ushered people out of her path with a wave of his arm. His gentle hand on her back steered her around fire hydrants, dogs, strollers, and small children and pulled her to a stop at traffic lights. He was like a watchful guardian angel.
And now here he was sitting on the grass on a sunny afternoon in his expensive wool suit, eating a hot dog like he’d never tasted anything better in his life.
“Slow down there, buddy,” she teased. “You don’t know what our Earth food might do to your system.”
Jay finished his last bite and dabbed his lips with the paper napkin. “I now have the energy to continue my quest for world domination.”
Zara’s head jerked up and she gave him a steady look. “Did you just tell a joke?”
“No.” His face froze with a guilty expression. “I don’t tell jokes.”
“That sounded suspiciously like an attempt to be funny. I’ll write down that you have a nascent sense of humor but it’s hidden beneath your cold, icy exterior.”
“Very eloquent,” he said dryly.
Zara looked up and grinned. “I learned all sorts of big words in law school. How about these? Hobbies and activities. Go.”
Jay stretched his legs out in front of him. His face was softer now, his body less tense. She liked to think she’d helped him loosen up, because the more time she spent with him the more she suspected what he showed on the surface was only the tip of the Jay Dayal iceberg.
“Paintball with my business partner once or twice a month. Lifting weights at the gym. The occasional early-morning run. Squash . . .”
Zara’s pen flew over her clipboard. “Anything that does not involve physical activity? Not that I’m against physical activity. On occasion I have been known to go for a run or do a spin class at the gym. But just listening to you is exhausting.”
“On a sunny day I’ll take a pile of unread Economists and sit on my balcony with a glass of wine—”
“Stop.” She held up her hand. “I’m not writing that one down. The idea is to find you a match, not bore them to death. How about something fun?”
“That is fun.”
Zara sighed. “Normal fun.”
“I go to the San Francisco Auto Show every year,” he offered.
“Now we’re talking. I used to go to the show with my dad and older brother, Hari, until he moved to San Diego to get away from our dysfunctional family. Now I just go with my dad. We both love cars. He was horrified when I told him about a case I had the other week. I got to visit a movie set and watch a man jump out of a helicopter, set himself on fire, and then drive a car into a wall. It was amazing.”
“The case or the burning man?” He leaned back on his elbows, one foot crossed over the other. A lion in repose. If he got any more chilled, he’d probably fall asleep. Not that it would be a bad thing. Then she could check him out properly instead of shooting surreptitious glances from beneath her eyelashes. He was the most gorgeous man she’d ever met. Perfect hair. Perfect body. Perfect face. All he needed to do was smile and she wouldn’t have to find him a match; her friends would be begging her for an introduction. The thought didn’t please her the way it should have. Perhaps she needed to spend more time with him, narrow the field to ensure she found the right woman instead of making the easy choice.
“The sports car,” she said, tearing her gaze away before she started contemplating the likelihood that his perfection extended below the belt. “It was a Ford GT. It crumpled like a piece of tinfoil. I had planned to buy one when I won the lottery, but now I’ll have to go for the Lamborghini Aventador S. It’s a beast.”
He lifted a brow. “You know your cars.”
“It’s important to know your dream car, especially if you win the lottery. People like details. It’s so boring when lottery winners say they’re going to take a vacation, or buy a new car, or build their dream home. Which car? Where is the new house going to be? How many bedrooms? Where are you going on vacation? Are you going to quit your job? They always say no but invariably they do.”
She was talking too much. She had a tendency to run on when she was nervous, and Jay lying in the sun, jacket and tie off, made her feel uncharacteristically self-conscious. Usually she didn’t care if there was a dab of lipstick on her cheek or if she overshared personal information, but he was so calm and in control, so solid and stable, she didn’t want him to see the hot mess she usually was. “Would you quit your job if you won the lottery?” she asked to turn the focus of the conversation back on him.
“I built my company so I can hardly walk away.” He lay back on the grass, hands now behind his head, his broad chest and hard pecs now fully on display. Drool became a bigger concern than ketchup and she held her napkin to her lips. She had a sudden urge to stretch out beside him and rest her head on his chest. He would curve one strong arm around her, lean down, and . . .
“Is something wrong? You’re staring into space.”
Zara shook herself out of her daydream. She really needed to get a grip. What kind of matchmaker fantasized about her own clients? She was done with relationships. Her breakup with her ex Javier had finally woken her to the fact that her parents’ divorce had made her unable to form healthy attachments. Her new therapist, Catherine, thought she had a fear of abandonment. All Zara knew was that she never wanted to experience the loss and devastation she’d felt when her family had been ripped apart, when she’d learned the lesson that marriage wasn’t forever and love could stop.
“So what are you looking for in the future Mrs. Dayal?” she asked.
“Whoa.” Jay stiffened. “You said match, not wife. I’m down with meeting someone to accompany me to business events or the odd social evening when our schedules allow, but marriage requires the kind of commitment that I can’t give right now.”
“Good to know.” She spoke as she wrote the words down. “Afraid of commitment.”
Jay bristled. “I’m not afraid. I just don’t have time.”
“You might want to explore that with your therapist,” she said. “Is it really an issue of time or is it avoidance? Take me, for example. Child of divorce. That right there will screw anyone up. I unconsciously sabotage relationships because I don’t know how to receive or accept love, and I don’t want to get hurt, blahblahblah. And then there’s the whole mom issue . . .”
“I don’t have a therapist,” Jay said.
“It’s the twenty-first century,” she blurted out. “Who doesn’t have a therapist? I’ve been through four or five in the last five years, and I have a psychology degree so really I could be saving money by treating myself.”
Jay sat up suddenly, his face smoothing to an expressionless mask. “I don’t need any help.”
Zara didn’t need a psychology degree to know she’d touched a nerve. She scrambled to find a topic that wouldn’t trigger him. “How about family? Brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles . . .”
“It’s just me and my mom.” He stared up at the blue sky. “She had me when she was seventeen. Her parents were immigrants who were from the same village from India. They came to California together to work in IT and settled in San Diego. They disowned her when they found out she was pregnant. Even now, they refuse to acknowledge we exist, and the rest of the family followed suit.” His hands fisted against his thighs. “My dad was in the country from London on a university exchange program. He left shortly after I was born. He didn’t want anything to do with us, either. We don’t know anything about his family, and I have no interest in ever finding them.”
Zara gave herself a mental kick. Another bad topic. Was it possible to get more feet in her mouth? “I’m really sorry. It must have been so hard for your mom.”
“She’s the strongest person I know.” Jay’s voice filled with pride. “She worked three jobs to put food on the table and still found time to get her high school diploma. She finally found a permanent position at a daycare and studied at night to get her early-childcare degree. Now she’s a part owner of the daycare with the woman who first gave her a chance.”
Zara loved how proud he was of his mom, but what about him? Who had looked after him while his mom was working three jobs? Had he had a lonely childhood? She’d had eleven years in a happy family, and even after the divorce, she’d still had two parents and dozens of relatives to look after her. “I’d love to get to know her better. We didn’t really have a chance to chat at Tarun’s wedding because she was laughing so hard. Will she be at any of the weddings this summer?”
“She was at Tarun’s wedding and I think she’s been invited to a few more.” He didn’t seem to have any issue with Zara meeting his mom. She would have to find her at the next wedding. Not just to get more information about Jay, but because she was interested to meet a woman who had become such a success after a rough start in life.
“So what kind of woman are you looking for? Let me guess. Professional. Sophisticated. Classy. Intelligent. Basically, Lucia but younger, or do you like a little Mrs. Robinson between the sheets?” She took another bite of her hot dog. Was there any better food?
“My relationship with Lucia is strictly professional, but yes, I’d be interested in someone similar.”
“So, you want a mini-me,” she teased. “I mean a mini-you. Not me. Obviously. Lucia is pretty much the opposite of me, which is another reason I knew that job wouldn’t work out.”
“You have ketchup on your cheek.” He took a napkin and gently dabbed it at the corner of her mouth.
Desire flooded her veins followed by a wave of desolation. She could easily fall for a man like Jay. Smart, handsome, ambitious, successful, and yet she sensed a longing in him, a secret Jay waiting to be free.
“Is it gone?” Her voice came out in a whisper.
He leaned in and studied her with a serious intensity that took her breath away. He was so close she could see the gentle dip in his chin, the dark stubble of his five-o’clock shadow even though it couldn’t be much past four o’clock. His lips were firm and soft, his mouth the perfect size for kissing. She drew in his scent: pine and mountains and the rich, earthy scent of the soil she’d turned in the garden when her family was whole and she never had to wonder whose house she was in when she woke up in the morning.
But this wasn’t the time to be thinking about being held in Jay’s strong arms or what it would be like to kiss him, or how just being near him calmed all the wayward thoughts in her head. She was supposed to be concentrating on finding him a match and where she should get autographed when he made the promised celebrity introduction.
“We should go.” She jumped up so abruptly her half-eaten hot dog fell to the grass. “I have to get back to the office, and I don’t want to exceed your two-hour-and-forty-five-minute time limit.”
Jay picked up the hot dog and carried it to the nearest bin. “When do you want to meet again?”
His question sent a curious thrill rocketing through her veins. She hadn’t put him off with her rambling, or her quest for the perfect hot dog, or even the uncomfortable questions she’d asked as they lounged in the sun. She couldn’t have been more excited if he’d asked her on a second date. Except he wasn’t really interested in her that way, and she needed to keep that in mind. The last thing she wanted was to get into a Cyrano situation where she would be forced to help someone else win the heart of the man she loved. She made a mental note to rewatch the 1973 Broadway version of the play with its soaring ballads and rousing word- and swordplay as a reminder of the heartbreak that could result.
She pulled out her phone and pretended to study the screen to stop herself from saying something stupid like How about tonight? “Hmmm. I have a big settlement meeting on Friday so the rest of my week is shot. I’ll have to let you know.”
If he noticed her cool dismissal, he didn’t react. Instead, he said the one thing that would ensure she wouldn’t be able to sleep until she saw him again. “I’ll be waiting.”
• 10 •
What the hell was he doing? Jay pulled open the door to courtroom 62 and slid into the rearmost bench, grateful for the high school students and court watchers who had filled the remaining seats in front of him. Zara had sent him a message letting him know she would be free on Friday after court to meet him for a drink at a nearby restaurant, but he’d been beset by curiosity. How did a woman who shot people in the ass and knocked them out of their chairs try a legal case? He had to know. Instead of going over the latest financial statements from J-Tech’s statewide branches, he’d asked Jessica to call an Uber to take him to court.
Plaintiff’s counsel put his client on the stand. Dressed in a 49ers football jersey and jeans, the middle-aged man limped to the witness stand, leaning heavily on his cane. Through his testimony, Jay learned that Zara’s client had allegedly gone through a red light and hit the plaintiff’s vehicle in the middle of a left turn. Severely injured, the plaintiff claimed he could no longer play football with his son, nor could he work at his job as a painter because the injuries to his back and neck had left him with restricted mobility, limited use of his arms, and chronic pain.
Poor guy. One chance encounter and his entire life had changed forever.
The plaintiff was offered up for cross-examination. For the first painful two minutes, Zara searched through her files. The judge sighed loudly and urged her to hurry while opposing counsel snickered. Finally, she pulled out a piece of paper and approached the witness box.
Her cross-examination was sharp and focused. She started with questions about the witness’s family life before drilling down into the details of the activities he claimed he could no longer do. The witness shifted uncomfortably in his seat. His lawyer objected but was overruled.
“You testified that your son was drafted for the NFL,” Zara said, the tone of her voice changing from demanding to conversational. “Did he get his love of the sport from you?”
“I played in college,” the witness said. “Wide receiver. I was a lock for a top-ten draft selection until I tore a ligament and that was the end for me.”
“You must have caught some good ones in your time.” Now her voice was all warmth and sympathy, tinged with awe.
The witness’s eyes grew misty. “I miss those days.”
Plaintiff’s counsel objected on the basis of irrelevance, and the judge sustained. Zara walked back to her table and consulted her notes.
Was that it? He’d been expecting some theatrics, a smoking gun, or even a witness reduced to tears. Even without any legal training, he could see her cross-examination hadn’t elicited any particularly useful information, and yet she didn’t seem perturbed.
Zara bent down to grab something from her bag. “Hut!” She spun around and threw a foam football at the plaintiff, her shout echoing through the courtroom, freezing everyone in place.
The plaintiff shot out of his seat and took two steps to the side, hands in the air. “I got it. I got it.” With a jump he grabbed the football and held it up, victorious. His smile faded as he stared at the stunned crowd, clearly realizing what he’d just done.
“Objection.” Plaintiff’s counsel glared at Zara. “What was that?”
“I believe it’s called a Hail Mary pass.” Zara smiled at the judge. “No further questions.”
Jay’s phone buzzed in his pocket and he slipped out of the courtroom. Damn shame. He could have watched her all day.
* * *
• • •
Three Pesos was not the kind of place Jay usually went for quiet conversation. The upscale Mexican restaurant and saloon was a sensory overload of Mexican decor, music, conversation, and rich mouthwatering scents. Cacti and succulents, fake chili peppers, sombreros, baskets, and woven blankets were stuffed into every alcove and piled high on every shelf. A collage of Talavera plates juxtaposed with paintings of Mexico and faded prints of old Mexican films covered one yellow-stuccoed wall.
They joined the mix of suits, tourists, and casual diners in the booths. The focus at the bar was a vast lineup of mescals, but Zara had ordered a Mexican mai tai in a tall painted glass. She’d taken her hair down after settling her case and removed her suit jacket to reveal a sleeveless red top, the neckline dipping down to the crescents of her breasts. She wore a silver dragonfly necklace with a blue enamel center that sparkled in the overhead lights, and somewhere between the courthouse and the restaurant she had added a matching clip to her hair. If not for the fact she had brought her laptop to the restaurant, she could have been his date for the evening. The thought was not unpleasant.
