Afternoon Delight - By Mia Zachary Page 0,65
in denial even as her mind recognized the truth. His reference to the craving they’d felt from the beginning couldn’t have been clearer. He wasn’t hungry anymore. Not for her. Not for a woman who’d never given herself fully so that she wouldn’t lose everything when it all went wrong.
Well, it had gone wrong anyway and she had only herself to blame. But she wasn’t going to allow old hurt to keep getting in the way of new love. Take a risk.
“I—I miss you, Chris.”
“I miss you, too. But I’ve gotten used to it.” He sighed, a soft exhalation against the phone that said more than she wanted to hear. “You’ve been leaving me ever since we met and I’m not going to keep beging you to stay. I’m glad to know you’re okay. I hope someday you’ll be happy. Take care, Rei.”
There was a click and then the buzz of the dial tone filled her ear. A lesser woman might have seen that as an ending. However, Rei wasn’t about to give up on the best thing that had ever happened to her. Obviously it wasn’t enough to say she was sorry, she knew that. So she’d have to find a way show him.
In her job, she gave people second chances all the time. Now she needed to give herself one and ask Chris to do the same.
“WE’LL BE BACK with The Bayside Morning Show after these messages.”
Friday morning, Rei opened the doors to her closet while a commercial touted “quicker, thicker” paper towels. She rummaged through her clothes, agonizing over what to wear. She wasn’t in the mood for her usual black, white or gray. It was a new day and she had a newfound determination to make it the best it could be.
“Welcome back to Bayside. I’m Autumn Matthews. Our guests this morning are Eric Antoine, Michelle Johnson, Tina Farrell and Marvin Carrington.”
Why had she bought that yellow dress? She looked awful in yellow. It was supposed to be decent weather today, so maybe she could wear the lightweight mint-green sweater….
“As you probably know, San Francisco’s hottest dating service has recently come under fire for some questionable practices.” Rei whipped her head around to stare at the television screen. “These four Lunch Meetings clients are here to try to set the record straight.”
She sank down on the edge of the bed to watch the interview. The show’s host seemed to focus on the earnest-looking man immediately to her right. Eric Antoine turned out to be one of the station’s producers and Michelle Johnson was a news copy editor.
Eric explained that he’d been interested in Michelle for months, but had been too unsure of himself to approach her. He claimed that everything changed when he signed up for Lunch Meetings.
“I give full credit to Chris London for getting Michelle and I together. His courtship counseling forced me to take a deeper look at my life and the kind of woman I wanted to share it with.”
“But, Eric,” the host contended, “the Inquirer article implied that the profile results were being manipulated. Don’t you wonder how you and Michelle were paired up?”
Michelle shook her head and smiled. “Not at all. I never signed up for the service. So there’s no way Chris could have messed around with our compatibility results.”
Rei felt her face heat in shame. She’d believed the worst about Chris without ever giving him the benefit of the doubt. Her attitude had been small-minded and callous and unforgiving—everything she hated about her father.
On the show, Autumn cocked her head to one side. “But he did offer you two, as well as other male clients, special additional services, right? And how much more did he charge for these clothes shopping trips and etiquette lessons?”
“No more than I would have paid an image con sultant, Autumn. I wasn’t charged any outrageous fees, but frankly,” Eric turned to look at Michelle and the affection is his gaze was obvious, “the help Chris gave me was worth any price.”
The round-faced man next to Eric spoke up hesitantly. “I know this is going to sound trite, but I think Chris does this out of the goodness of his heart.”
“Oh, come on, Marvin, you can’t be serious?” asked Autumn.
When Tina leaned over to take his hand, he sat up a little straighter and looked the interviewer in the eye. “If you read the Lunch Meetings literature carefully, there are no express guarantees that any client will end up in a relationship. The brochure