"My, oh, my…" I shook my head from side to side, trying to appear to be enthusiastic. "What an entrance!"
"Hello, Naomi. Nice to meet you." His voice sounded calm and radically different from the one I heard as he made his way up the stairs.
"Hello, Benny Segal." I smiled at him.
"So, how are you surviving this hectic evening?"
"I think I'm just starting to enjoy it, but you seem to be surviving without any difficulty."
"What makes you think that?"
"The announcer voice I heard... It was... Well, it didn’t give me the impression that you're in any kind of predicament."
"Did you like him?"
"Who, the announcer?"
"Yes. Did you like him, or the guy who did his voiceover?"
"To be honest, not so much." I chose to tell him the truth and waited to see his response. "He sounded full of himself, arrogant, and disgusting."
"Well, in that case, I'll tell him I won't be needing his services for the rest of the night."
"Yeah. Please do." I giggled.
"You see? He's my second personality. When I'm nervous, I go to him, but now that I've met you and I see how sweet you are, I'm calm and can just be me."
"Is that it? From now on, it's just you and me?"
"Unless you make me nervous again."
His comment had me laughing. "I'd like to try that out if you don’t mind."
"What do you mean? Are you going to put the pressure on me now?"
"Well, I'll just say that you shouldn't be too calm, Benny Segal. It's important to remember that you're one of nine men I'll be meeting tonight, so…" I smiled, mischievously at him.
"And now, ladies and gentlemen..." Again, he took on that announcer's voice. "Benny Segal will go into the apartment, so he can relax again and breathe a sigh of relief, while Naomi Sloan stays put and thinks carefully about what she's done."
Benny slammed the door behind him, leaving me feeling very cheerful.
I didn’t like the excessive self-confidence he expressed, yet I certainly liked the openness in which he talked about the discomfort he felt.
"Hello? Is anyone coming up?" I asked when I heard no further footsteps, and I wondered if I was wrong in counting the number of men who passed by me into my apartment. "Is anyone else coming up now?"
"Someone's already here." The sweet face, of a man I knew very well, appeared at the top of the stairs.
"I'm sorry. I didn’t hear your shoes clicking."
"How about the next time you set out to produce such a project, you ask to put a bell on your men's necks." He approached me and reached out his hand for a squeeze.
"No bell necessary. I just didn’t imagine anyone showing up for a cocktail party in sneakers. Everyone else is in designer shoes, you know?"
"I guess they... Forget it. It doesn't matter." he bit his upper lip.
"What? What did you want to say?"
"I wanted to say hi, my name is Roy Horowitz."
"I know your name, Roy Horowitz. I know you." I laughed out loud. "I recognized you the second you came up the stairs. I'm just waiting to see if this is a joke, or did you really come here for me."
"I came here for you, Naomi."
"Why would the CEO and owner of a huge public relations office like yours have trouble finding love?"
"Probably, for the same reason a stunning, intelligent supermodel who loves cooking is having trouble finding love."
"But you know, while a veterinarian from New Jersey doesn't have direct access to me, you do. If you wanted to get to know me, why didn't you send a message through my agent?"
"Because that's not how I want to get to know my future wife."
"I actually agree with you," I looked down and sighed.
"I don’t see the romance in agents talking to agents, Naomi. I want to be standing in front of my future wife like this, full of excitement. I want to look her in the eyes and feel awkward and embarrassed..." He placed his fingers on my chin and raised it until his gaze stared right into my heart, which almost skipped a beat. "I want to see the thrill in her eyes, and I want to tell her how long I’ve waited for an opportunity to learn everything there is to know about her."
"Everything?" My voice cracked for a moment, and I cleared my throat.
"Everything." He said, and without wasting another second, he leaned closer and pressed his lips to mine for a long-overdue kiss.
His palms were placed on my neck as they guided the movements of my head. His lips gently stroked mine, and I wanted time to stand still.
My whole body relaxed in his arms, and at that second, all I thought about was kicking everyone out of my apartment so I could devour him on the cocktail party floor.
"Naomi Sloan," Roy whispered into my ear just as our lips parted. "I’ve waited far too long for the right way to meet you." He rubbed his cheek along my neck and went on whispering, sending shivers deep into my core. "I'll go through any route you'll ask me to and pass any tests you'll set along the way. I’ll play along with this project of yours, but you should know right now that I'll be the one to be there, waiting for you, at the end of it."
"Um... I..." My voice broke again, and I giggled in a loss for words.
Somehow, I found the strength to break away from his addictive touch, and I released a very confused moan as I closed my apartment door behind him.
Nick definitely kept the very best of them for last, yet where the hell did this one come from? He wasn’t on the list of twenty-five finalists, though he became the most interesting one of all. Roy was the tenth man who came to fight for my heart, and he left me with shaking knees.
Oh boy… What if I reached a decision before we even took off?
Chapter 12
"Umm… I… Did that really just happen?"
"Oh my god, Nick!" I tried to catch my breath.
"Roy? You kissed Roy Horowitz?"
"No, wait. Let's get things straight. He kissed me, and in any case, I sure as hell don’t remember him on our twenty-five final candidate list!"
"Oh, I'm pleading guilty in regards to that allegation, yet I have to say, Naomi," Nick pulled me closer to him for a well-needed hug, "It doesn’t look like you're upset with me too badly. I took the liberty of inviting him, since I had no doubt he'd match your taste."
"He tastes like strawberries." We laughed for several minutes before we broke away from our hug and entered my apartment with our arms crossed one in the other.
As soon as the door opened, all the men stopped doing whatever it was they were doing, and silence fell. I finally realized the true meaning of the phrase, all eyes on us, as ten gorgeous men froze and looked at Nick and me.
Lia lowered the volume of the music so that it would play in the background, and Nick led me straight to the center of my living room.
"Hello everyone," Nick began, once again adopting that annoying TV host tone of voice. "First, I'd like to praise each and every one of you for choosing to put yourself in this very challenging situation and for being here tonight."