“That makes it even better.”
I sigh and lean back against the couch, giving up. “Fine. Go ahead. But you can’t hold anything you find against me.”
She narrows her eyes. “Wait, seriously? You’ll let me read what’s inside? Is it private?”
“Very private.”
“Ooh. Great. I will absolutely agree to your terms.”
She pulls her legs up onto the couch and opens the cover. I watch her face as she starts flipping through the pages. Her brow furrows, then her eyes widen, and then she snorts.
“This is your personal rating system for women.”
I laugh.
“Ten to Win?” She glances at me. “Win you?”
I give her a cheeky grin.
“Lady Marguerita. Forty-three. Awful human.” She flips more pages. “Princess Charlotte. Fifty. Talks about her dogs too much.”
She laughs.
“Contessa di Venetia. Fifty-one. Sneezed constantly. This is insane.” But she’s smiling as she continues flipping. “You’ve been rating women like restaurants.”
“I prefer to think of it as a rigorous evaluation process.”
“Ten categories,” she murmurs, studying a page. “Intelligence, sense of humor, opinions, chemistry, conversation, art, challenge,authenticity, kindness, passion.” She whistles low. “You really thought this through.”
“I’ve had over a decade to perfect the system.”
She moves through more pages, scanning the numbers. “And no one’s scored above sixty. Ever?”
“Not until recently.”
“Wait.”
She stops flipping. Her finger hovers over a page near the back, and I know exactly what she’s found.
I don’t say anything.
She looks up at me. “You rated me?”
“I rate everyone.”
“Ninety-eight.” She says it in a whisper. “Out of a hundred.” Her eyes drop back to the page, scanning the breakdown. “You gave me an eight in kindness. What the hell?! I’mkind, Louis.”
This makes me smile wider. “Please. You can be harsh as fuck sometimes.”
She considers this, her head tilting to the side. Then she shrugs. “Okay, that’s actually fair.”
When our eyes meet again, neither of us is laughing anymore.
“You broke my system,” I confess. “It took sixteen years and hundreds of women, and you made the whole thing obsolete.”
She closes the book and sets it on the coffee table. “That’s a lot of pressure.”
“Be yourself,” I tell her.
