“Uh-huh. So you weren’t describing Sebastian Maxwell on this form?”
“Absolutely not.”
She flipped over the page and looked at the questions I’d answered earlier this morning. “How many children does your ideal mate have? Zero to one? Since when are you in the market for a single dad? This is the first time I’ve heard about this.”
I grabbed the papers out of her hands. “Don’t you have a job to do? Or coffee to mainline into your vein or something?”
“You need to just ask him out and you know it.”
“Yes. That’s exactly what I need to do. Because the foundation of any good relationship starts off with a series of lies about . . . let’s see . . . my name, occupation, and relationship with his only child. It was obviously meant to be. We’ll probably be married by Christmas.”
Devin sighed. “Why don’t you just come clean, then? Tell him the truth.”
“And then what? Ask him out on a date?”
She shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”
“Because he’ll go ballistic on me if he finds out. He bought an unruly Great Dane that is driving him crazy because his daughter suddenly became convinced her dead mother was mad at her for something she’d done. That was all my fault, Devin. I made a child think Santa Claus had a direct line to a dead woman.”
“But you meant well.”
“I’m sure Sebastian Maxwell won’t see it that way.”
“Well, you’ll never know unless you tell him, will you?”
I sighed and shook my head. “I could really use that coffee.”
Devin nodded. “Fine. I’m going. But think about it, Sadie. There’re eight million people in this little city of ours and somehow you wound up meeting this guy. Maybe it started out wrong, but maybe there’s a reason you two met.”
After Devin left, I crumpled up the matchmaking application I’d been filling out. The truth of the matter was, I had no desire to go on any date. Devin was right. I had a real thing for Sebastian. And it wasn’t just that he was ridiculously handsome. He had a soft side that he reserved for his daughter. I was certain that his wife had been privy to that side of him, too. There was something just so beautiful about a man who saved the best parts of himself for the women in his life. I knew . . . because he reminded me of another man I adored. God, Freud would have a damn field day with me.
I decided to come clean. Shockingly, Devin had been right. Since the very first letter from Birdie, something had felt like kismet. Like I was supposed to meet her and her father for a reason. Of course, it helped that once I did, the man was insanely handsome. But a part of me truly felt like even if Sebastian Maxwell hadn’t turned out to be gorgeous, I’d still be drawn to him. My attraction went deeper than the surface. I was also well aware that I was bringing parts of my own history into my fascination with his little family—but isn’t that how life works? Our hearts are made up of all different broken pieces that belong to others, and when we find the right one, they show us how they can all fit together again.
Maybe I was reaching too far and being too philosophical, but the bottom line was . . . I’d run the dating gauntlet enough times to know that when someone comes along and makes you feel butterflies, you need to chase them. Because it doesn’t happen very often.
So I decided that after today’s training session, I was going to ask Sebastian to speak to him privately and then come clean. Chances are he’d freak out and never want to see me again. But at this point, I couldn’t keep up the lies anymore. It wasn’t fair to me, or to him and his daughter. And if there was a shot in hell that maybe something could happen between us, I couldn’t have that built on a foundation of lies.
My palms started to sweat as I got closer to the Maxwell brownstone. I was so damn nervous. A part of me hoped that Sebastian wouldn’t be around today, just so I could delay going through with it. Last time I’d trained Marmaduke, only Magdalene and Birdie had been home. When I arrived at the house, I took a deep breath and prayed that was the case today.
The walk up the stairs to the front door felt a lot like walking the plank. I shook out my tingling hands and then forced myself to knock. A few seconds later, I saw shadows on the other side and held my breath as the handle started to turn.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t Magdalene.
“Mr. . . . umm . . . Sebastian . . . I didn’t expect you to answer the door.”
He folded his arms across his chest and squinted at me. “No? Why is that, Sadie?”
Was it me or did he just say my name weird? Or maybe my nerves were getting the best of me. Picking imaginary lint off my pants to avoid his intense stare, I cleared my throat. “I . . . uhh . . . thought you’d be at work. Last time I came on this day, Magdalene was here.”
His mouth slid to a wicked smile. “I took the afternoon off. Thought you and I could have a little training session. Just the two of us.”
A giant lump formed in my throat. Shit. Now I had no choice but to come clean. I’d left it up to fate, and fate couldn’t smack me in the face more than it was doing right now. This man who worked six days a week had miraculously taken the day off to spend time with me. Alone. “Umm. Okay. That’s good.”
He stepped back, opening the door wide. “Come in. I’d like to start the training inside today, if that’s alright with you.”
It wasn’t. Not at all. Stepping over the threshold made me feel claustrophobic. At least being outside, I had a place to run. The door suddenly slammed closed behind me and I jumped.
Sebastian flashed another wicked smile. “Sorry. Slipped.”
If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was intentionally making me feel on edge.
Luckily, Marmaduke came to my rescue. He charged at me and nearly knocked me over in an attempt to lick my face. “Hey, boy.” I scratched behind his ears. “It’s nice to see you, too.”
When I looked up, I found Sebastian’s eyes searing into me. He held a folded sheet of white paper in his hand that I hadn’t noticed before.
“Where did you say you got your training from again?”
Uh. I hadn’t that I remembered. Looking around the room, I felt a panic come over me. I could have just ripped off the Band-Aid and come clean right then, but my heart was racing out of control, and I just wasn’t ready. So what did I do? Of course, I dug myself deeper. The hallway we were standing in had a large round table. On top of it was a set of keys. “I went to the Key Training School.”
“The Key Training School . . .”
He glanced at the keys on the table and back to me with narrowed eyes. “Where is that located exactly?”
“Umm . . . downtown.”
“I’ll have to look them up. See if they have a comments section so that I can give you a good review. Is it K-E-Y Training?”
Shit. “Yes . . . but they’re closed now.”
“Closed today or closed for good?”
“For good.”
“That’s a shame. Since they clearly produced such a qualified dog trainer.”
What the hell? Was he mocking me? We’d ended on such a nice note after I’d saved his dog’s life, and now suddenly I felt like we were back to square one.