How to Win a Guy in 10 Dates Read Online Free Page A

subsidiary just for fun. Not that he left the boardroom much these days. A desk-bound explosives expert, who’d lost his way.
    Something about that reply shut her up, and she leaned back and closed her eyes again.
    He sat back, scanned the busy waiting room, a world away from the smart, sparsely populated private clinics his family used. Beyond the silent TV with subtitles, an elderly man was helping his wife negotiate her walking frame past a couple exchanging grimaces over the heads of their squabbling kids. Next to them a couple of teenagers, seemingly joined at the hip, were clutching each other’s hands, oblivious.
    Now he’d started noticing, there were couples everywhere he looked. Damn Carrie and her coupledom flag waving. And they all seemed to be supporting each other. Supporting? Was that what couples did? The whole relationship thing was so far off his radar, he really wouldn’t know. Not a place he planned on exploring any time soon. Probably not ever. He snorted loudly, at the thought of what he’d let himself in for with this darned dating challenge. He tried to rationalise the fact it was freaking him out. It had already caused him to wreck one car for chrissakes.
    Realistically, it shouldn’t bother him. He needed to chill, take it in his stride. But a month in, he still hadn’t come across a suitable woman. He was a man who moved mountains, literally, on a daily basis. Jeez, what could be so difficult about a few dates? It was easy stuff. But he needed to tackle it, before he crashed any more cars. Okay, he had cars coming out of his ears, but not for wasting like that. But first he had to find a woman who was up to the task.
    His eyes snagged on Millie again.
    No. Absoloutely not. Definitely not her.
    Except she was objectionable enough to satisfy Carrie’s criteria – a million miles from being compliant. And totally not what he’d ever go for in real life. A girl with riotous hair, and tattoos – one tattoo on her leg, he assumed there would be more – who majored in sticking and gluing. He bit back a broad grin. Cassie would be gob-smacked and it would damn well serve her right. He already knew what fun it would be.
    Shame then, it didn’t seem right to go there.
    Big shame, seeing as he’d pretty much racked up one date already, given they’d been here four hours. He couldn’t think when he’d last spent that long with a woman. Women didn’t particularly cross his path, other than at the wealth-dripping social occasions he attended, when he literally had to fight them off, and usually ended up taking his pick for a hot after-party liaison. It was all very well to talk about finding a suitable woman for the challenge as if women were ten a penny, but in his daily life they weren’t. Women were pretty damned scarce in the working stratosphere he moved in, and suitable women were even scarcer. Where the heck was he going to find one? He couldn’t fail the challenge before he’d even begun, because he couldn’t find a woman.
    ‘Sorry … ’ Millie had opened her eyes with a start and fixed him a grey-green gaze that sliced straight through his protective shell. ‘But you don’t smell like you work in a quarry.’
    Hands in the air, he’d been over-zealous with the body spray this morning, and now she’d caught him out.
    ‘A bit of a random comment for a Monday lunchtime. Where did that come from?’ Not that he gave a damn, but more time to tailor his answer would come in handy.
    Why was he still clinging to the pretence of being a quarry worker anyway? He could tell her something a whole lot closer to the truth without letting on to her that he was the CEO. But if he did that, he’d eliminate her from his challenge field at a stroke.
    ‘Caught a waft/making conversation/passing time. You choose.’ She threw him a smile he assumed was accidental. ‘Anything rather than go insane with boredom.’
    Something about that smile made him decide his answer. ‘And probably I