Single Mom's Protector - Complete Series

by Nella Tyler

  “How about TV? Any shows you like?”

  Chelsea considered. “I like Cosmos and some of the other educational shows,” she said. I pushed down my slight sense of disappointment.

  The food came and we began to eat, asking each other questions and figuring each other out. I managed to keep myself civil, but it was obvious within fifteen minutes that it wasn’t going to go anywhere. Chelsea was a decent person, but everything she found interesting seemed boring to me, and everything that I liked was obviously not something that she was interested in—although she was polite enough not to comment to that effect. I knew that we’d manage to make it through dinner without causing a scene on either of our parts, but there was nowhere for anything to go. Some of her traits are exactly the opposite of what I asked Katie for, I thought as I talked about my work. She’s smart and obviously independent, but clearly she isn’t all that social. She doesn’t have much of a sense of humor, either.

  I tried to make excuses for Chelsea, I tried to tell myself that it was more because she might have been nervous, or because it was a first date—but Natalie had sparkled even during our first meeting together. Natalie also has had more first dates, and first meetings, than probably anyone else you know, I pointed out to myself as we got to the dessert course, finally. She’s used to just…being herself. But I couldn’t quite believe that. There was something about Natalie that was genuine, and I thought that she had ended up becoming a dating coach because she was good at meeting and interacting with people—as opposed to becoming good at interacting with people because she had become a coach.

  I told myself not to compare Chelsea and Natalie, but I couldn’t help it. Natalie’s darker hair, her dark eyes, her little half-smile, the dry wit and the sense of humor she possessed were so different from what Chelsea had to offer. If I had never met Natalie, or never kissed her, or had sex with her, then I might have been better inclined to enjoy Chelsea, but as it was, at best Chelsea was a dim, altered mirror of what Natalie had been from the first time I’d met her.

  I paid for our meals and we stepped outside; I didn’t exactly know how to end the date—not when it was going bad on such a particular level, but not so badly that we were angry at each other. “How do you think we’re doing?” I shook myself out of my reverie at the question from Chelsea.

  “Hm?” I sat down on a bench outside of the restaurant, not quite willing to start walking towards my car. She sat down next to me.

  “The date? How do you feel about it?” I tried to think of a good way—a polite way—to answer the question honestly.

  “I think it’s a first date—a little awkward,” I replied finally. “How about you?” Chelsea tilted her head from one side to the other, deliberating.

  “Yeah, it feels like a first date,” she admitted. “A blind first date, at that.” She met my gaze and smiled slightly. “But that doesn’t mean that we can’t move things along. Maybe things will heat up if we’re a little more private?” I cringed internally.

  “I want to take things slow with whoever I’m dating from the agency,” I explained. “I’ve done one-night stands, and I don’t want to approach this situation with that kind of idea in mind.”

  “That’s an admirable thing,” she told me, nodding. “But I mean…we could at least see what a goodnight kiss feels like, right?” I thought about it; a goodnight kiss wouldn’t kill me, but it would probably give the woman I was with the impression that things had gone better than they had. Why is she even fishing for this? She should be just as bored, just as uninspired as I am.

  “How do you feel about me?” Chelsea raised an eyebrow at the question, silently asking me for clarification. “I mean—what are your thoughts on the date, really. It doesn’t seem to me like we have a lot in common, and I wonder if you feel the same way.”

  “I don’t think that two people have to have a ton in common to get along well together,” she said, half-shrugging. “I am used to living a pretty independent life, so I would expect to do things on my own, and sometimes with my boyfriend, but it’s not like I’d want you to come hiking with me every weekend or something.”

  “I think…” I took a deep breath. I didn’t want her to think I was a jerk, but it was hard to say what needed to be said in a way that would make that impossible. “I don’t think it’s going to work between us,” I said finally. “I mean—don’t get me wrong—you’re gorgeous, and obviously very smart and very driven.” I smiled, hoping that I was taking the sting out of whatever she might feel for being rejected. “But I don’t think it would work out between us.”

  “Why not?” She didn’t look exactly hurt so much as perplexed.

  “Because I do need to have a good bit in common with someone I’m seeing to feel like I’m in a good relationship,” I replied. “I’m an independent person, too—but part of the reason why I’ve decided to use the matchmaking service is that I feel like I want more than my independent life.”

  “We could find a happy medium,” she suggested. “Commit to doing a certain number of things together every week.”

  “That feels like it’s forcing something,” I told her. “It feels like we’d be trying so hard to make a relationship happen that it wouldn’t even be worth it—for either of us.” I gave her a sympathetic smile. “For both of us,I think we deserve someone who’s exactly what we want and need—don’t you?” Chelsea thought about that for a moment.

  “I can definitely see the benefit in finding someone who’s a little better suited towards me in terms of things he likes and dislikes,” she finally admitted. “Thank you for being honest with me. I appreciate it.”

  “Thank you for being honest with me, too,” I said, rising from the bench and getting my keys out of my pocket. “I’m sure on your list somewhere, there’s a great guy who loves books and educational TV, who loves to go hiking and get active. Katie’s great at what she does.” Chelsea nodded again, and we shook hands once more.

  I walked away from the restaurant feeling more frustrated than ever; it was hard to think that I would eventually find someone—other than Natalie—who could possibly be perfect for me. I got into my car and tried my best not to compare the two women; it wasn’t as if I had a chance with Natalie, and even if things had been okay with Chelsea, I knew it wouldn’t work out in the long run. I’d have to try again.

  Chapter Thirty Five

  Natalie

  “You’re much better looking than I would have expected for a dating coach,” my new client Ethan Johns said as he looked me up and down from across the table. I smiled, trying to keep the pounding of my head as under control as possible. Ethan was as far away from Nathan as any of my clients possibly could have been in terms of how he looked, but the combination of a similar name and a tone in his voice that told me that Ethan was unlikely to listen to any of my feedback made me wary—and he was my first new client after the assault, to boot.

  “Katie gave you the speech of not expecting to be attracted to me because that’s not the point, I take it,” I said. Ethan nodded.

  “From that…I guess I just figured you’d be a grandmother or something.” Ethan was a thin reed of a guy, with scraggly facial hair and bottle-green eyes that bugged out slightly. He was dressed in a dress shirt and khaki pants, which was decent—if not particularly stylish—for the restaurant we’d agreed to meet at.

  “Not a grandmother,” I said, keeping my smile in place. He’s awkward. You knew that going into this. Don’t hold it against him. “So, what do are you looking to gain from this coaching arrangement? Other than—obviously—the ability to be matched with other women.”

  “I guess I’m just…” he shrugged. “I’ve never really been that great at flirting, which doesn’t make it all that easy to date.”

  “Flirting is easier than you think,” I told him. “It’s mostly a matter of not taking a conversation too seriously.”

  “You can teach me how to flirt?” He raised an eyebrow. “Not a single one of my friends has ever
been able to get it across to me.”

  “Trained professional here,” I said, jokingly gesturing to myself. “If flirting is part of what you feel you need to be a better date, we’ll work on it.” Almost unbidden, I thought about my last new client—about Nathan. I pushed the idea of him out of my head, reminding myself that Ethan was a new client, and that he’d shown no signs of being aggressive; if anything, Ethan seemed to have the opposite problem: he was too passive.

  I began to relax, bit by bit, as the lunch meeting wore on. Ethan obviously overthought things, like more than one of my other clients. Even when he began to open up a bit and wind down, he seemed to think about and discard at least three different things before opening his mouth to say something. In spite of the promise I’d made to myself more than once to never compare one client to another while I was in session, I found myself thinking about Zeke. Zeke wasn’t perfect when we started—and he still isn’t—but he at least had some natural charm, even if he was kind of oblivious and over-confident… I stopped that line of thought. Ethan’s issues with dating were totally different from Zeke’s problems. Ethan was a different person completely.

  I had to make myself focus. I took a quick breath and a sip from my glass of water. “What are some date ideas that you can see yourself enjoying? Obviously, we want to create situations where you can shine, and go from there,” I told Ethan. He shrugged.

  “I guess…I like going to poetry readings,” he said tentatively. “But everyone I know outside of the readings thinks they’re boring.”

  “The idea would be for us to connect you with someone who shares your interests—so if you like poetry readings, we’ll work on finding you a woman who also does,” I explained. “What else sounds good?”

  “I don’t want you to be bored, or think that going somewhere with me is annoying,” he told me. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, or to sigh. Ethan would need careful handling, especially since I was fairly certain that he’d had to deal with being laughed at pretty frequently by women he had been interested in before. It was easy to figure out why he’d gone about using the matchmaking service: he wanted an easy way to find someone to be with, without risking rejection.

  “I have a lot of interests, Ethan,” I said simply. “I really doubt that I’m going to be bored or think that something you want to do is annoying.” But the habit of constantly excusing yourself and making disclaimers might do that, I thought grimly. I would have to help him break himself of the constant almost-apologies he made; no matter how patient, no woman he dated would be able to handle that tendency for very long, even if she herself did it.

  “We could go to the science museum,” he suggested.

  “That sounds great!” I caught sight of movement in the corner of my vision but ignored it. The restaurant was starting to get busier. I reminded myself to pay attention to Ethan, to block everything else out. “How do you feel about art museums?”

  “I like them,” he said, making the reply almost a question.

  “We could also try one of those studios that lets you paint your own crafts, or somewhere that lets you work with clay,” I pointed out. “That would be something that isn’t too socially demanding, but where you can enjoy yourself.”

  “Maybe we could go to the planetarium?” I considered that; I wouldn’t have really thought about it as a potential date, but Ethan obviously leaned towards academic interests, so it would be a decent thing for him to do to spend time with someone he wanted to be with, and a good litmus test for a woman he would date.

  “Absolutely,” I said. I heard something and in spite of having told myself to pay attention to Ethan to the exclusion of everything else going on around me, I turned my head.

  Someone was advancing towards the table I sat at, dressed in jeans and a tee shirt, practically running through the dining room. One of the waiters tried to intercept the man, but got shoved into another table for his troubles. I looked up at the face of the person coming at me and immediately recognized Nathan. “Shit.”

  “What? What’s wrong?” Ethan turned to look over his shoulder and blanched. “Who’s that?”

  “It’s an asshole ex-client,” I told Ethan quickly. “Do me a favor and call the police, okay?”

  “I—I—okay,” Ethan said, reaching into his pocket for his cell phone. I stood up from the table, throwing my napkin down and stepping away from my seat.

  “You bitch!” I put my arms up in front of me slightly, remembering some of the self-defense lessons I’d taken in the weeks since I’d had my first altercation with Nathan during our first meeting. “I just got lawsuit papers from your agency! You drop that fucking suit or I swear…”

  Nathan closed the distance between us, lunging at me, and I heard Ethan saying something on his phone. “Nathan, if you don’t want to make everything worse for yourself, I’d recommend you leave right the fuck now,” I said, sidestepping his grab for me.

  “I’m not leaving until I hear you say you’re going to make that dumb bitch boss of yours drop the suit!” Nathan’s hand grabbed at my wrist, and I clenched my teeth as he squeezed. Remember what the trainer said: use his own momentum against him. Remember: SING. I struggled to keep out of the range of Nathan’s other hand, but to get in where I could hit at one of his vulnerable spots. I twisted around and brought the heel of my foot down on what I hoped was his instep—and Nathan shouted in pain, snatching at my hair with his other hand even as he brought his aching foot up. I let him grab my hair and moved in closer, pulling my elbow up to slam it into his solar plexus—at least, I hoped I could hit that particular bundle of nerves.

  We struggled like that for what felt like an eternity, with Nathan trying to slam me onto the ground, trying to hurt me, and me scuffling and twisting to stay out of his ability to disable me, even while I tried to disable him. Someone other than Ethan must have called the cops at the same time—or they must have called when they first spotted Nathan storming into the restaurant—because I could hear sirens, cutting through the din of startled conversations all around me and the heavy breathing and curses that came from Nathan.

  I managed to hit his nose hard enough to make him let go of me and kneed him in the groin, and Nathan went down, knocking me onto the floor with his heavier weight. I somehow managed to scramble free and lurch back into my chair as one of the waiters pinned Nathan where he was on the ground. “Sorry about that, Ma’am,” the waiter said, looking up at me with a rueful smile on his face. “He got past me too quick.”

  “Thanks for helping, anyway,” I told him. I ached—my knee, my ankle, where I’d injured myself before, throbbed, and I was pretty sure that Nathan had managed to yank some of the hair out of my head in our struggle. The police came and I looked at Ethan, just moments away from shaking to pieces, and told them I’d answer their questions outside.

  Just like before, I answered their questions and told them moment-by-moment what had happened and how it had gone down. The police apparently had cross-referenced Nathan’s ID with a database somewhere, so they knew that he had been involved in a previous altercation with me. “If you want to file for a protective order…” I shook my head.

  “He doesn’t have the sense to stay away from me when he’s got criminal charges and a civil suit against him. I doubt he’d obey a restraining order,” I pointed out.

  “You’re probably right,” the officer admitted. “But all the same, it’s good documentation to have. Consider requesting one—I’ll back you in court.”

  “Thanks,” I said, feeling exhausted. “Is there anything else you need from me?”

  “If you develop any bruises, take some pictures of them and send them to us,” the police officer told me. “We can add them to the file.” I told him I’d do just that and said goodbye to Ethan, who looked more shaken up even than I was—and I was plenty shaken.

  I didn’t know what to do with myself. My hands felt numb and tingly at the same time, my heart was still pumping in my chest, and I wasn’t sure if my br
ain was up to the task of navigating the traffic. I couldn’t call my parents, all of my friends would be at work, and there was so much to do—even with the police up to speed on the situation—that for a moment after they left I just stood in front of the restaurant, bewildered.

  Somehow, my phone was in my hand before I even knew what I was doing. I scrolled through my contact list until I fell on Zeke’s name. I hesitated for a fraction of an instant before tapping call, and closed my eyes as I waited for my phone to connect, leaning against the exterior wall of the restaurant. The management had—predictably—comped the meal, and the police had said that they would call Katie for me. I wanted to go home, to rest, and to get over the intense adrenaline surging through my veins, but I didn’t trust myself to drive home just yet. The only person I could think of to talk to was Zeke.

  “Natalie? What’s up?” My eyes stung and tingled, and I heard myself sob.

  “I got attacked again,” I said. “Nathan—he came to where I was having my date with a new client.”

  “Fuck—are you hurt? Are you okay?” His voice cracked with concern, and I found myself crying harder.

  “I’m okay. I’m okay,” I confirmed. “The police have taken him back to county.” I smiled even through my tears. “I managed to get him on the ground and a waiter kept him pinned there.”

  “Good job! Where are you now?”

  “Still at the restaurant,” I said, laughing bitterly. “My hands… I’m shaking. I guess I’ll have to call a cab or something.”

  “Stay put,” Zeke told me. “I’m going to come and drive you home, okay? I’ll get Trevor to ride with me so he can drive your car back to your place, and he’ll get a cab to the office.” I started to tell Zeke that it didn’t make any sense for his assistant to take a cab, but I couldn’t make myself say it. I was too scared, too exhausted, and only too willing to let him take control of the situation. “I’ll be there in ten minutes,” he told me before hanging up.