My Fair Billionaire(14)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

Ava maintained her calm, teacherly persona. “This may come as a surprise to you, Peyton, but women can generally follow a restaurant host to a table every bit as well as a man can. Furthermore,” she hurried on when he opened his mouth to object again, “when the two of you arrive at the table, if the host doesn’t direct her to a chair and pull it out for her, then you need to do that.”

“But I thought you women hated it when men pull out a chair for you, or open the door for you, or do anything else for you.”

“Some women would prefer to do those things themselves, true, but not all women. Society has moved past a time when that kind of thing was viewed as sexist, and now it’s simply a matter of common—”

“Since when?” he barked. Interrupting her. Again. “The last time I opened a door for a woman, she about cleaned my clock for it.”

Ava managed to maintain her composure. “And when was that?”

He thought for a minute. “Actually, I think it was you who did that. I was on my way out of chemistry and you were on your way in.”

Ava remembered the episode well. “The reason I wanted to clean your clock wasn’t because you held the door open for me. It was because you and Tom Sellinger made woofing sounds as I walked through it.”

Instead of looking chagrined, Peyton grinned. “Oh, yeah. I forgot that part.”

“Anyway,” she continued, “these days it’s a matter of common courtesy to open a door for someone—male or female—and to pull out a woman’s chair for her. But you’re right that some women prefer to do that themselves. You’ll know a woman who does by the way she chooses a chair when she arrives at the table and immediately pulls it out for herself. That’s a good indication that you don’t have to do it for her.”

“Gotcha,” he said. Still grinning. Damn him.

“But from what you’ve told me about the Misses Montgomery,” Ava said, “they’ll expect you to extend the courtesy to them.”

“Yeah, okay,” he muttered. “I guess you have a point.”

“Don’t mutter,” she said.

He narrowed his eyes at her again. But his voice was much clearer when he said, “Fine. The next time I’m in a restaurant with a woman, I’ll let her go first and watch for clues. Anything else?”

“Oh, yes,” Ava assured him enthusiastically. “We’ve only just begun. Once you sit down, let her open her menu first.” When he started to ask another question that would doubtless be more about when women had changed their minds about this sort of thing—as if women had ever stopped having the prerogative to change their minds about whatever they damned well pleased—she continued, “And when you’re looking at your menu, it’s nice to make conversation over the choices. Don’t just sit there staring at it until you make a decision. Ask your companion what she thinks looks good, too. If you’re in a restaurant where you’ve eaten before, you might even make suggestions about dishes you like.”

He considered her for another moment, then asked, “You’re not going to make me order for you, are you? I hate that.”

“I won’t make you order for me,” she said. “But some women like for men to do that.”

“Well, how the hell will I know if they want me to or not?”

Ava cleared her throat discreetly. He looked at her as if he had no idea why. She stood her silent ground. He replayed what he had just said, then rolled his eyes.

“Fine. How…will I know?” he enunciated clearly, pausing over the spot where the profanity had been.

“You’ll know because she’ll tell you what she’s planning to have, and when your waiter approaches, you’ll look at her, and she’ll look back at you and not say anything. If she looks at the waiter and says she’ll start with the crab bisque and then moves on to the salad course, you’ll know she’s going to order for herself.”

“So what do you think the Montgomerys will do?”

“I have no idea.”

“Dammit, Ava, I—”

She arched her eyebrow again. He growled his discontent.

“I hate this,” he finally hissed. “I hate having to act like someone I’m not.”

Ava disagreed that he was being forced to act like someone he wasn’t, since she was confident that somewhere deep inside he did have the potential to be a gentleman. In spite of that, she told him, “I know you do. And after your takeover of the Montgomerys’ company is finished, if you want to go back to your reprobate ways, no one will stop you. Until then, if you want your takeover to be successful, you’re going to have to do what I tell you.”

He blew out an exasperated sound and grumbled another ripe obscenity. So Ava snapped her menu shut and stood, collecting her purse from the back of her chair as she went.

“Hey!” he said as he rose, too, following her. “Where the hell do you think you’re going? You said you would help me out.”

She never broke stride. “Not if you won’t even try. I have better things to do with my afternoon than sit here watching you sulk and listening to you swear.”

“Yeah, I guess you could get a crapload of shopping done this afternoon, couldn’t you?” he replied. “Then you could hit that restaurant where you know everyone’s name. Some guy there will pull out your chair for you and do all the ordering. And I bet he never swears.”

She halted and spun around to face him. “You know, Peyton, I’m not sure you are fit for polite society. Go ahead and bulldoze your way over two nice old ladies. You were always much better at that than you were asking for something politely.”

Why had she thought this could work? Just because the two of them had managed to be civil to each other for ten minutes in her office? Yeah, right. Ten minutes was about the longest the two of them had ever been able to be in each other’s presence before the bombs began to drop.

Well, except for that night at her parents’ house, she remembered. Then again, that had been pretty explosive, too…

“Excuse me,” she said as civilly as she could before turning her back on him again and making her way toward the exit.

She took two steps before he caught her by the arm and spun her around. She was tempted to take advantage of the momentum to slam her purse into his shoulder, but one of them had to be a grown-up. And she was barely managing to do that herself.