“Not courtesy,” said Haven glumly. “I wish.”
“This doesn’t seem so bad. ‘One of New York’s most desirable!’ You go, girl.”
“Read the rest.”
“‘Webster could use some image rehab. His pop band broke up nearly a decade ago after Webster brawled with bandmate Pete Sovereign, and Webster has a DUI and a sex-video scandal under his belt (no pun intended). But is Hoyt the best woman to remake this bad boy? She had to be bailed out recently by Rendezvous Dating’s Elisa Henderson when a Caribbean dating–boot camp weekend with Celine Carr went awry. Can these two screwups get it right this time?’”
“Okay,” Elisa said. “That’s maybe not quite as good. But not catastrophic.”
“My job is to make other people look good,” Haven said. “If I can’t manage my own image, where am I? Last year, Karen Folger went from being the toast of the town to not being able to get a client for love or money after she slept with Rich Demillieu, and he wasn’t even technically her client. I can’t afford to do something that self-destructive. And we are obviously being watched incredibly closely.”
“But not forever, right? You guys can pull off this tour. You can both have your successes. And then, when it’s over, you can have each other in every flavor of the Kama Sutra.”
“I don’t know if that’s what I want.” Then Haven corrected herself. “I know that’s not what I want. He’s a mess, Lise. So not my type. I’d just be using him for sex, but it would never work in real life. I need—”
“You think you need,” Elisa interjected.
“I know I need a guy who can live in my world. And this would always be a weird power thing. I’d be forever telling him what to wear and what to say and how to be so I wouldn’t feel uncomfortable out in public with him. It wouldn’t be fair to him and it wouldn’t be fun for me. You’ve seen couples like that.”
“I have,” Elisa admitted. “And you’ve got a point. That’s an ugly dynamic.”
“I think too highly of him to put him in that predicament.”
“I’ve got two warring halves in my brain,” Elisa began. “One wants to say, ‘Haven, that kind of attraction doesn’t come along every day,’ and the other wants to say, ‘You’re dead right.’ Because if I heard another client say what you just said to me, about how you know from day one you’d be trying to remake him—I don’t know, I just don’t like Pygmalion scenarios, you know? I always hated My Fair Lady—I never thought there was anything remotely romantic about it. Even Cinderella makes me uncomfortable. I think people should take each other as they are, and if they can’t—well, as much as I hate to say it, you’re right, it probably isn’t meant to be.”
Haven felt a faint whisper of disappointment. Had there been a part of her hoping that Elisa would talk her into Mark? That was just silly, right? Everything, all logic, screamed that he was wrong for her.
Even if he wouldn’t hate having to dress to live in her world, he wasn’t the kind of guy who could ever be happy there. Mark needed to be with someone like him, whose work was about emotion and meaning. He needed a woman who had unplumbed depths.
In reality, it wouldn’t take long for the hot sex to burn itself out. What had happened in her office was a fluke. Life wasn’t like that, all hot and messy—it couldn’t be. Her life couldn’t be. And once Mark realized that the inner Haven didn’t hold an infinite wellspring of passion, it would be all disappointment for both of them.