Henry took a long sip of wine and his eyes darted around the room. “Is this too much?” he asked.
“No, I think that this is just right,” I held back a giggle, proud of myself for once again, faking that this was normal for me. “It’s just… Do you do this for all your first dates? I just don’t know why me. You just met me. You hardly know me.” Oh God, now I was speaking the truth. But the words just came out of my mouth. I hoped that it didn’t blow my confident cover.
“I only just met you?” he said, his eyes squinting into mine as he held back a smile. “That’s funny because last night I thought you were worried that you had overshared.”
My mind wandered for a second. I was drunk last night but as drunk as I was, I thought that I remembered the night clearly. Did I tell him anything embarrassing or was it just me wallowing about the state of my current life?
“Well, you know all the important things,” I said.
A cheeky smile curled up on his lips again, he was about to speak but a side door opened. The same young man placed a very large bowl filled with oysters on ice before he disappeared again.
“A good night always has to start with oysters,” Henry said. Oysters were the aphrodisiac I already did not need. But he was right. Good nights did start with oysters, particularly this one. I took one from the pile of ice and gracefully tipped it down my throat. I waited for him to continue.
“To answer your first questions. Yes, I have been on some dates recently, but as I’m sure you can understand, the last couple that I have been on didn’t make it past a drink. So no, this is definitely not something that I pull out for all the girls,” he said raising a hand, gesturing quotation marks, keeping that sexy grin on his face. “I asked you out tonight because I genuinely wanted to give you the experience that you wanted. This is the bachelor experience,” he said waving his hands out either side of him. “And I’m really glad that you didn’t accept that rose straight up because that’s exactly what I wanted this night to be about. Just getting to know each other and seeing whether this is something that you might want to continue,” he said, his eyes locked on mine, and we were once again completelylocked in the vortex that I felt with him last night. There was no other world around us.
I don’t know if I had ever felt like this before. I didn’t feel giddy, I didn’t feel sick with nerves, my heart wasn’t pounding out of my chest, and I didn’t have butterflies or goosebumps. Those were the usual symptoms that I felt when I was beginning to like someone. But when I was locked into Henry’s gaze, I felt light, like I was floating or weightless. Of course, I wasn’t going to let him know any of that. But I liked this feeling, this moment, this whole setting. I liked it a lot.
“I think that’s a good plan,” I said as I raised my glass and clinked it with his. “So just to be clear. Where are we right now? Because Aaron told me that he was taking me to your penthouse, which made me think this was going to be a very different date than the one we’re on.”
“Just so you know, I am not that kind of man,” he said, both stern and soft, which made the tingles I was feeling in between my legs fire up even more. Had this become a chase? "I genuinely want to get to know you, Molly. And even though you look so stunning tonight, I’m not going to be that man that takes you straight to bed. There’s a lot more layers that I would love to have the privilege of uncovering before we get to the last.”
Wow. Okay, this was far from what I was expecting and even with everything that Lotte had already told me. I was shocked. Speechless, banter gone. He wanted to get to know me. The bachelor, possibly one of the biggest bachelors in this city,from what Lotte had said. And here was here pulling out all stops of me. He wanted to get to know me, and he could, I could do this. I didn’t need to use my body to get close to him. I could hold back on my desires. I could open up, even if it was just for one night. A sexless date, opening up the parts of me that I did keep closed, but at the same time wanted everyone to know. Here was my chance. I had wanted this, I had asked for this and now the whole package right in front of me was better than I ever could have imagined.
“But technically you are in my penthouse, well, at one of my buildings, actually. It’s not that I was trying to take you home at all, it’s just that this is the best restaurant I know and the private room that we have, I thought there was no better place than getting to know each other than right here. Just you and me. No distractions.”
I nodded my head.
“Your building?” I questioned. Lotte told me how successful he was in tech, but she hadn’t told me about his real estate game.
Henry nodded and smiled. “Yeah, there’s a lot to learn about me as well.”
“Please, enlighten me, who are you really, Henry Bentley?”
“I, Miss Molly, am a lot like you.”
I leaned back in my seat. I didn’t mean to screw my nose up. It wasn’t my best look, but it was my instant reaction. I wished that we were a lot more alike. I wished that I was as successful as he had been in his life. I had dreamed many, many times abouthaving all the things that he did. Even a tenth of his success would make me feel worthy.
I took a deep breath relaxing my face, forcing a smile on my face. I wanted to hear why he thought that he and I were so alike. As I reached for the wine glass, Henry reached across the table grabbing hold of my hand.
“Forgive me if I’m being too forward, but I can feel something between us. A connection,” he said. I stayed poised this time and stared into his eyes, keeping my mouth shut tight.
“I know that I’ve achieved a lot. I know that I can attract a lot of attention. But it’s not the attention that I want. When I first saw you, it was like I finally saw the very thing that I had been looking for. The very thing that I struggled most my life with.”
“And what exactly is that?” I asked. He slowly pulled his hand away from mine allowing me to lift the glass to my lips.
“It’s in the look in your eye, the way you walk. There’s a sparkle within those eyes and they see the world so bright and beautiful. But there’s also a dark mud that unfortunately no one will be able to take away. There’s the hurt between the cards that have been dealt to you. I understand the way that you walk with confidence, keeping your head held high because you deserve to, because you must and because you won’t let anyone else hurt you ever again. Because you’ve already endured enough.”
My lips parted as my hand shook. Dropping the glass back down on the table. I took in a sharp breath trying to calm my beating heart.
“I’m only saying all these things because I understand. And that’s all we can ask for in life, to find someone that can understand the why behind who we are. Not just to understand it but to accept it. I don’t know what it was that caused that look in your eyes or the forced poise in your stance, but I know it. I possess the exact same thing,” he said.
My cheeks felt pink, and I wasn’t too sure if now was the moment that I should get up from the table and run, like all of me had just been exposed by a stranger in one single look. A very hot, and incredibly successful stranger.
“I lost my parents young. I was an orphan. I didn’t just lose my parents, but I watched them get murdered beside me in cold blood. I watched them take their last breath as I sat there helpless,” he said, “I understand that look. In fact, I’ve been searching for that very look in hope that someone could finally understand mine.”
I reached for my glass downing the last sip of wine in my glass as Henry reached forward over the table again grabbing both of my hands tightly.
“Maybe we are more alike than I thought,” I said forcing the words out of my mouth. Knowing that I was only seconds away from cracking, seconds away from letting a tear fall from my eye in front of this very man. Seconds away from saying… Ditto. Or close to.
