In Mary’s experience, men who wore wingtips were a lost cause. Not to mention men who wore wingtips to go along with their perfect hair, perfect tie and mean eyes. Wingtip shoes were some sort of inscrutable, masculine symbol, she was sure of it. Members of the wingtip club probably communicated with one another in secret, smirky eyebrow lifts, effortlessly transmitting information about the women in their general vicinity. She hadn’t figured out the why of it; she simply knew it to be true. Men in wingtips were not compatible with Mary Trace.

She opened her eyes, ignored his coldly befuddled assessment of her behavior and flipped up one side of the tablecloth. Mary let out a gusting breath of relief. There they were, size-twelve glossy ocher wingtips, recently polished. Thank God. Now she didn’t have to worry about whether or not she was doing the right thing when she carefully folded her napkin and set it aside. The wingtips were a clear sign from the heavens that it was time for Mary to get the hell out of Dodge.

Still obviously befuddled, John stood when she did. The only point in his favor so far.

“Thank you for meeting me,” Mary said and meant it. The jerk could have stood her up, but he hadn’t. “But this is not going to work out.”

His eyebrows aggressively furrowed, changing his face from that judgmental smirk for the first time since she’d sat down. Now he just looked plain old mean. She paused for a moment, expecting him to say something. Anything. But nada, zilch, goose egg. His lips just pressed into a thin line as he glared at her.

“Have a nice night.” She reached for her purse.

“You’re just leaving,” he said flatly, his eyebrows still in that aggressive V over his cold eyes.

She straightened her purse over her shoulder.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he murmured, animating for the first time by tossing his large hands in the air. “What a freaking waste of time.”

A waste of time because she wasn’t going to sleep with him? Apparently, he’d gotten all dolled up, schlepped his way across town, and now he expected a cookie. Her cookie, to be exact. After he’d straight-up called her old.

She sucked in a deep breath and stepped closer to him, not wanting to cause a scene by raising her voice. He stiffened and pulled back from her as if age were contagious.

She didn’t want to be rude, but she’d stopped allowing herself to be bullied about a decade ago. Social niceties be damned. Mary tossed her hair back over her shoulders. “I’m not going to say anything to Estrella about this, don’t worry. But she was wrong. You are not a nice boy.”

John blinked at her, his face quirking up into an expression that told Mary that he thought she was a prize idiot.