“More than most people do in a lifetime, and I’m ready to share that and all I have with children. I understand that most people our age aren’t at that stage yet. Men traditionally want children later in life, which is why Anton hasn’t wanted children until now, and he’s forty-three.”
“Almost twenty years older?” he asked. “He could be your dad.”
“He could,” she conceded. “But he’s also ready to be a responsible dad, and that’s more the point. Guys like you want five, maybe ten more years of freedom, and it’s wrong to ask you to sacrifice that before you’re ready to. It’s a huge contributor to divorce. But I’m ready now, so I need a guy who’s ready now. It’s really that simple.”
“Okay,” he drawled, then paused. “I get that, I guess. What I don’t get is how stuck you are on not having a romantic connection—or at least it seems that way. Why treat the whole situation like a business contract?”
Rori stopped mid-stroke, then quickly finished the stroke before putting her brush down. “Because that’s what it is to a degree. We’ve been over this, Mike. I know it’s weird for you, but—”
“I know, but it’s like you’re avoiding a personal connection on purpose. I don’t know how to explain it, but—”
“You get the sense that I’m trying not to let my hormones make the decision of who I mate with?”
“I, uh, well, yeah, I guess.”
Rori allowed herself a smile. She’d flustered Mike at last. Whether her mention of “hormones” or “mate” had done the trick, she wasn’t sure, but it felt nice to have him twitching on the line. She reached for her glass of wine, happy to reward herself with a sip.
“It’s just that Kris is a big believer in the roles of hormones in mating,” he said. “She believes that sexual response is an indicator on the part of the female of her genetic compatibility with the male.”
Rori’s hand stopped half way to the glass. “Is that so?”
“According to her,” he said, sounding both confident and uneasy at the same time. It made Rori wish she could see his face. “I’m pretty sure she could write a dissertation on the subject.”
“Even though divorce rates sit at fifty percent after people marry people they are sexually attracted to on the onset?”
“Ah, but are they just attracted to them, or do they sexually respond to them in spite of what their eyes do or do not like about them?”
Rori blinked, taking another sip of wine. “Okay, I’ll bite. What’s her angle?”
“That it’s all in the kiss,” he said simply.
Rori let out a bark of laughter and took another sip. “You’re sister thinks a girl knows the man for her based on a kiss? Man, she really was a virgin, wasn’t she?”
“I, uh, wouldn’t pretend to know.”
Oh, this was getting fun. “Of course you wouldn’t. You’re probably still trying to pretend that she and Luke are up playing Scrabble at night.”
“I wish,” he groaned. “They’re pretty happy to leave me with no illusions on that front.”
“No mercy?” Rori asked, taking another swallow and enjoying the warmth that spread through her.
“None,” Mike said. “Including mention of how much the taste of Luke gets her motor running and how that’s a predictor of healthy children.”
Rori’s nose wrinkled. “Taste? Are you serious?”
“Well, Kris is. That’s for sure. According to her, the number one thing a woman should look for when picking the father of her children is to have his taste be one of her favorite flavors.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“If it’s disgusting, then you shouldn’t be mating with that guy, according to Kris. If you don’t like the taste of a guy’s skin, his mouth—if you don’t like the viscosity of his spit and the taste of his spit and his, uh, other fluids make you gag a little, then you are not good genetic matches for creating children. If she were telling you this she would site studies and list examples of other mammals doing similar acts of tasting when they come in season. Trust me, I’m letting you off easy here, but I guess that’s why I have the question I have. If everything is so practical with you, why not find a man who is the best biological match for you, rather than a guy with the most money.”
Rori blinked, processing that as she swirled her wine in its glass.
“Did I lose you?”
“Oh, no. I’m still here,” she said, bringing her glass up to her nose and inhaling. “So you’re