Elizabeth Bevarly - The Perfect Father

Although he wanted to disagree with her, Chase didn’t dispute her words. He was quite certain that what Sylvie said rang absolutely true—for Sylvie. But he thrived on being in charge of his own company. For him, working was living. And he was perfectly happy with things that way.

“Living means something different for everyone,” he told her. “For me, and for everyone who comes to work for me, business has to come first. It has to be the one thing in life that’s important. Hell, it has to be life, period.”

She surveyed him intently. “If you ask me, that’s nuts.”

“I don’t recall asking you,” he said with a smile.

Normally, no one—absolutely no one —spoke to Chase so frankly and dogmatically. They didn’t dare. But the attitude was perfectly normal coming from Sylvie. He expected it, and he more than tolerated it—he welcomed it. On more than one occasion she had been his devil’s advocate, and the byplay he enjoyed with her was something he shared with no one else.

What was odd was that Chase really didn’t know Sylvie all that well—hell, he didn’t even know her last name. But he’d been coming into Cosmo’s after work three or four times a week ever since he’d moved his office into the building across the street. That had been two years ago, and at that time, Sylvie had just been starting her own stint at the restaurant.

Somewhere along the way he had altered his schedule to match hers, stopping by for dinner at the restaurant before heading home only on those evenings when he knew she would be working behind the bar. Why he’d done this he didn’t know. But Chase liked Sylvie. He liked her a lot. She was funny and spirited and a welcome change of pace after a long day of stress and high pressure. She was cute in her man’s white dress shirt that always appeared to be two sizes too big, and the neckties she wore with her uniform were always something interesting. She had a nice smile. And somehow she always made him feel better before he went home at night. Already he sensed the day’s tension and irritation easing from every corner of his mind.

He’d even come close to asking her out a couple of times. But he never had. Because he just didn’t date women for very long, and he hadn’t wanted to put an end to the easy camaraderie he shared with Sylvie.

When he looked up from his drink she was eyeing him thoughtfully, and he wondered what was going on in that beautiful blond head of hers.

As if she sensed his inquisitiveness, she asked, “Are you telling me you’d rather work fifteen or sixteen hours a day than go home after the usual nine-to-five to a wife and family?”

Chase grimaced, running a big hand through coal black hair liberally threaded with silver. “God forbid. What a nightmare. Look, I’m forty years old and rabidly single. What does that tell you?”

She shrugged, still smiling. “Maybe that you’re not such a great catch after all?”

He gaped at her before chuckling. “Oh, thanks a lot. I’ll have you know there have been plenty of women who have tried to wrestle me to the ground and have their way with me—their way usually culminating in a leisurely stroll down the bridal path.”

“But you want none of it, is that it?”

He shook his head vehemently. “Absolutely not.”

“Not even the pitter-patter of little feet? You’re not one of those guys who wants to make sure he leaves his mark on the world in the form of a little Mr. Buchanan, Junior?”

He shuddered for effect. “God, no. I can’t stand children.”

Her brows arched in surprise. “Are you serious?”

“Absolutely. I mean, think about it. When they’re babies, all they do is lie there and look at you, commanding that you do everything for them. When they’re children, they’re constantly into things they shouldn’t be into—you have to watch them every moment of the day. When they’re adolescents...hell, forget about that . And when they’re adults, they’re completely ungrateful for everything you ever did for them, for every sacrifice you ever made.”

He sipped his drink again before continuing, “Don’t tell me you’re surprised by the way I feel. You don’t exactly seem like the kind of woman who wants to be dragged down by a passel of kids. You seem to enjoy being single.”

“Oh, I love being single. But I also love kids.” She bent beneath the bar and appeared to be searching for something, then rose again with a wallet in her hand. She flipped it open and thumbed through a bulging collection of photographs housed in the plastic sheets contained within. “This is my nephew, Simon,” she said as she opened her wallet on the bar before Chase. “He’s the most wonderful baby in the world. Look at that smile. You can’t tell me you don’t think he’s adorable.”

Chase offered the photo a perfunctory scan, pretended to be interested and replied dryly, “Adorable. Look, I’m starving. What’s good tonight?”

Sylvie sighed and shook her head at him again. She seemed to be doing that a lot this evening, he thought. As if she were considering him for some major project only to find him lacking in some way. Or maybe not lacking, he amended when she continued to study him as she put her wallet away. That look in her eye was distinctly...interested.

He pushed the supposition away. Probably he was working too hard lately. No doubt he was thoroughly misreading the signals Sylvie was sending his way. She had never once offered him any indication that she wanted to get to know him better, and having heard her bemoan the shortcomings of some of the men in her life, he knew he was in no way her type.

And even if he was, even if she ever did come on to him, Chase knew he would never succumb. It was nothing personal, he reflected. If he were to get intimately involved with a woman right now, he supposed Sylvie was a likely enough candidate to fit the bill. But involvements led to entanglements, and entanglements led to relationships. And relationships, he thought, simply commanded too much time to keep them running properly. Time was a precious commodity. He had very little of it to spare. Therefore a relationship with a woman was the last thing he could afford.

Watching Sylvie as she strode to the end of the bar for a menu, he sighed wistfully. But maybe he had gone too long without the intimate aspects of a relationship, he conceded. When was the last time he’d made love to a woman, anyway? he asked himself now. And who was the last woman he’d made love to? He thought back, trying to recall the details.... His eyes widened when he remembered. No, surely it couldn’t have been that long ago, he told himself. Could it? He shook his head in disbelief. Obviously he really didn’t have time for a relationship.

If only he could find a nice woman with whom he could share a brief, one- or two-time interlude and call it quits. Unfortunately, most of the women who could provide such an encounter did it for a living, and that wasn’t exactly the kind of woman Chase had in mind. He couldn’t make love to a stranger, nor to someone who chose sex for her occupation. For his fantasy fling, he wanted a woman he cared for to at least some degree—and who cared for him in return—but who wouldn’t demand all of his attention after it was over.

“Yeah, right,” he muttered to himself. And what self-respecting woman would concede to an arrangement like that? No one of his acquaintance, that was for sure.

He looked up from his drink and saw Sylvie standing before him, holding a menu out for his inspection.

“Sounds wonderful to me,” she said. “Want to give it a try?”

For one wild moment Chase thought she was offering herself up for just the kind of hit-and-run encounter he had just been imagining. Then he realized she must have been talking to him for several moments without his listening, and that he’d only heard the conclusion of her speech.