Read Falling for Free Online

her to realize how empty that was. Every man she dated inevitably ended up having a long list of other women he was taking out on the side. She had never heard of the word
exclusive
in terms of dating. Apparently, it was an American thing. Emma had always presumed that if, after around four or five dates, you liked each other and you ended up in bed together, you were “going out.”Who would ever imagine that a person would be doing the same with someone else, or indeed, a number of someone elses? Well, everyone in New York, it seemed. Everyone but her.
    It never felt like an even playing field. For every man Emma was interested in, there were at least three tall, skinny, leggy model-types who flung their Keratin’d hair around and smiled their perfect, white-toothed piranha smiles while elbowing Emma out of the way.
    She couldn’t compete with such high-maintenance gorgeousness, nor did she want to. At work, she put on her uniform—the designer uniform that all the female bankers were expected to wear: the Givenchy, the Dior, the Jimmy Choos, the Manolo Blahniks. She blew out her hair and expertly applied makeup every morning before leaving her apartment for work. But as soon as she got home she tore everything off and slipped into jeans and a T-shirt, scrubbing her face, pulling her hair back into a messy bun. On the weekends she let her curls burst free.
    But every time she went out for dinner with one of the men she had met when she was done up for work, or at a client meeting, she knew she had to maintain the image or they would lose interest. After a while, she didn’t want to pretend anymore. After a while, it just seemed easier to
not
date. And even though all of her work colleagues thought she was crazy moving out to the suburbs as a single, childless woman—
Westport! But you’re not married! You’re never going to meet anyone in Westport! What are you going to do in Westport?
—she knew she stood a better chance of meeting a real person there, someone who wasn’t obsessed with a perfect trophy girlfriend hanging off his arm. More than that, she realized that in the life she wanted to live, meeting a man just wasn’t the most important thing.
    There were other things that Emma wanted to accomplish, things other than a picture-perfect relationship that may have been hollowbeneath all the flash and charm. A business of her own that fueled her creativity. A peaceful life. She dreamed of sitting in her own garden surrounded by hydrangeas, sipping a glass of wine and breathing in the salty air; going for daily walks along the beach; renting a kayak and taking it out on the water. She wanted to be living her life, finding friends, and if someone happened to come along whom she found interesting, then great. She wasn’t going to go looking for him.
    She was perfectly happy building a new life by herself.
    In fact, the last thing she needed was a man to complicate things. Although, with a couple of drinks under her belt, there was nothing wrong with the tiniest bit of flirting. Was there?
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    Later in the evening, a girl comes into the Hen and Emma sees every man in the bar appraise her as she sashays through the crowd with a very plain friend. She walks right through the crowd, stopping several stools down from where Emma and Sophie are sitting.
    â€œDom!” She leans over the bar, pulls Dominic in with a proprietorial hand around the back of his neck, and gives him a long kiss on the lips.
    â€œWow.” Sophie leans toward Emma with a frown. “That’s the girlfriend? How disappointing.”
    She is pretty, Emma thinks, pretty beneath all the makeup. Her hair is very blond, and very hair-sprayed. Her eyelashes are false, her T-shirt tight and low-cut. She’s sexy as hell.
    â€œWhy? She’s a bombshell,” says Emma.
    â€œShe looks like she just walked out of Ruby’s Two.”
    â€œWhat the hell