My gaze lands on an empty stool at the corner of the bar. It isn’t my favorite spot, but it’ll do.
Meeting the bartender’s gaze, he lifts the bottle of Maker’s Mark in his left hand and gives me a nod ‘hello.’
Maneuvering through high tops and various groups of Happy Hour Manhattanites, I make a beeline to my spot, only the second before I get there, some audacious little brunette in a black sweater steals the fucking thing right out from under me.
I TEXT LILLIE AND let her know I’ve made it to The Lowery before placing my phone away and taking a closer look around. I’d never heard of this place before, but apparently it’s all the rage ever since it appeared on some reality show earlier this year.
Maybe it’s the born-and-bred Californian in me, but I find it a little dark and dreary for my taste. The walls are covered in dark wood panels and the bar looks like it’s straight out of a 1940s-era hotel … but in an aged, no-one-has-bothered-to-touch-up-the-scratches kind of way.
It’s charming though.
I’ll give it that.
The bartender, a middle-aged man with gray at his temples and the kind of long lashes that women pay a lot of money for, approaches me. He doesn’t smile—typical New Yorker—and if I were being overly sensitive, I might even think he was annoyed that I’m sitting here.
His lips flatten. “What are we drinking?”
“Gin and tonic, please.” I cross my legs and check my phone. No response from Lillie yet.
I stopped by her office just after five, but she said she had a few spreadsheets to update and she’d meet me here as soon as she was finished.
The bartender tosses a paper coaster in front of me and turns to the back of the bar to grab a bottle of Bombay Sapphire. When he returns with my tumbler, his eyes lift over my shoulder for a brief moment.
On instinct and feeling a dark and ominous presence in my midst, I steal a quick glance from the corner of my eye.
Oh. Hell. No.
I turn my attention back to my drink as fast as humanly possible, my pulse quickening and my throat parching in an instant.
What are the odds that the jerk who ran into me and made me spill my coffee and also happens to be my future boss … would be standing behind me at this very bar, this very instant?
I should buy a lottery ticket today. Seems like the stars are in all kinds of alignment.
“Fifteen bucks,” the bartender says, pointing at my drink.
I dip into my purse, retrieving my shiny black debit card from the third slot on the left side of my wallet, when the warmth of someone’s palm rests on my shoulder.
“This one’s on me,” the jerk behind me says. He releases his hold on me, revealing a twenty-dollar bill folded between two fingers. “Assuming she’s willing to give up her seat.”
I swivel in my seat, facing him and trying to search for the perfect words for this pompous jackass despite the fact that I’m too professional to so much as think about using them.
“I’m so sorry,” I lie, batting my lashes and using the most saccharin tone I can muster. “I’m afraid this seat isn’t for sale.”
The indentation beneath his right cheekbone contracts, and the intensity of his gaze nearly makes me lose my train of thought.
He’s wearing a different shirt than before, swapping his Henley for a white v-neck t-shirt that hugs his muscled torso in all the right places.
Swallowing the lump in my throat that formed for reasons unknown, I straighten my shoulders and lift my chin.
I won’t let the fact that he’s extremely, unfairly, and undeniably attractive throw me off my game—none of which I realized after our incident this morning because the icy cold liquid dripping down my shirt had my mind focused on more pressing matters.
“Are we done here?” I lift a brow.
“No.” He smirks. “You’re still in my seat.”
Is he trying to be cute now? Taking things in a different direction since the twenty-dollar bill schtick didn’t work?
From the corner of my eye, I spot the flailing arms of a bubbly blonde, and when I maneuver my attention in that direction, I realize it’s Lillie. Her face is all smiles when she sees me, and she motions toward an empty booth.
Damn it.
I didn’t want to give into this ass. I really didn’t. I want to make it crystal clear that I’m not the sort to be walked all over (even if he doesn’t exactly know who I am yet).
But Lillie is waiting.
Grabbing my drink—which I’m absolutely making him pay for—I slide off the seat.
“Whatever it takes to get you out of my hair ...” I step aside, pretending I don’t notice nor care that he hasn’t taken his eyes off me once this entire time. He must think I’m one of those girls—the ones who can be bought and paid for, the ones who weaken at the knees when an attractive stranger lets his stare linger.
Nope. Not me in the slightest.
Taking a sip, I give Lillie a little wave and she secures the empty booth for us.
“Why do I feel like I’ve seen you before?” he asks when I start to walk away.
I stop, turning back toward him. “Wow.”
The seat remains unclaimed still. He hasn’t budged. He hasn’t stopped drinking me in with those dark brows knit together, wracking his brain and waiting for something to register.
“Seriously?” I ask. Releasing a grumbled breath, I place my tumbler on the bar and work the buttons of Lillie’s black cardigan, but only enough to expose a hint of the coffee stain on my white shirt. “Remember me now?”
Lillie rises slightly from her seat in the booth, waving me over, her face contorted. Funny. She didn’t strike me as an impatient sort.
Grabbing my drink, I don’t stick around and wait for Mr. Tall, Rude, and Handsome to respond. I spent all afternoon replaying that moment in my head, questioning if I really was at fault and overreacting at his snide comment, but now I know I was right. He’s just a prick. Plain and simple. And he doesn’t deserve another fraction of a second of my time.
I leave and weave through pockets of patrons, making my way to Lillie.
“Hey,” I say when I slide into the booth, taking the spot across from her. It’s warm in here now, and I wish I could peel this sweater off, but yeah …
Her smile has all but faded, her creamy complexion a lighter shade of pale.
Lillie’s hand reaches across the table, cupping mine. “Why were you throwing shade at Mr. Welles’ son? I thought you hadn’t met him yet?”
I wrinkle my nose and chuckle. “That wasn’t shade. That was me keeping my cool.”
Her blue eyes flick across the bar, toward the pompous, pedigreed man who just paid twenty bucks for my spot.
“Turns out he was the one who bumped into me this morning,” I say. “He left some money with Marta for my dry cleaning. Typical rich guy, right? Thinking they can wave cash at their problems and make them disappear.”
Her typical bubbly disposition is a concerning shade darker. “I don’t know, Aerin. I don’t know if I’d have done that. If he’s anything like Mr. Welles …”
She doesn’t finish her thought, not that she needs to.
My stomach drops.
No—it plummets.
Hard.
Fast.
I release the hold I have on my drink and push it away.
“Oh my god.” I hunch my shoulders, my fingers lifting to my temples. “I’m going to lose my job.”
“You never know. Maybe he’ll be cool about it?”
“I was a royal bitch to him.” Rubbing my lips together, I stare at my gin and tonic. But in my defense, he deserved it.
“Hi, ladies, what are we drinking?” A cocktail waitress in head-to-toe wash-worn black interrupts our little conversation, and I take a second to swallow a few deep breaths.
They don’t help.
“I’ll have a Lemon Drop. Thank you,” Lillie says, replacing her grave expression with a toothy grin.
“I’m good, thanks
.” I point to my barely-touched cocktail.
“Don’t turn around now, but he’s looking this way.” Lillie reaches for the laminated drink menu on the table and pretends to read through it.
“I’m so going to be fired tomorrow.” I reach for my glass. I’ve never been fired from anything in my life. “But you know what? It’s fine. I don’t want to work for someone like that anyway.”
I take a drink generous enough to wash down all those plans I’d made for that first paycheck. Looks as though my student loans are going to be sticking with me until the very end after all.
“Don’t think that way. You don’t know that,” Lillie says, though her voice lacks the confidence necessary to make me believe her. “There’s still a chance …”
“I appreciate your optimism, but I don’t think there’s any coming back from this. As soon as he realizes I’m his new concierge—”
“—wait, wait, wait. He doesn’t know?” Her pale pink manicured fingers splay against the table.
I shake my head. “Nope.”
The waitress returns with Lillie’s sunshine-yellow cocktail, complete with curly zests of lemon hooked on the rim, and Lillie hands her a twenty.
“Seriously though, I’m sure you’ll be fine. It’s just a little misunderstanding,” Lillie says.
If Lillie were a drink, she’d absolutely be a Lemon Drop. Cheerful. Bright. Sanguine. I imagine her orbit is so positive, she only attracts good things in her life. That explains why she’s always smiling.
I should take a page from her book. I bet it’d be lifechanging. Then again, she reminds me too much of my mother in the way that she’s almost too sweet and very much living in her own little world where nothing bad ever happens.
I’m too much of a realist to ever set foot in that kind of a La La Land.
“He just looked over here again.” She takes a sip, keeping her gaze trained straight ahead. “Now I’m super curious. What did you say to him over there? You were giving him major side eye.”
“Just that I’d give him the seat if it meant getting him out of my hair,” I say, chin tucked. “And when he told me I looked familiar, I showed him the stain on my shirt and then I walked away.”
It sounds so much nicer when I say it out loud, but in that moment, I was all scowls and boiling blood and I’m one hundred percent sure he felt the irritability emanating off me like radiation fallout.
“That’s not so bad,” Lillie assures me. “Maybe you should go introduce yourself? Properly? Maybe you can have a good laugh about this whole thing and it’ll blow over?”
My back is to Calder, but I can’t help notice every time a woman walks by, her gaze is immediately drawn in his direction. It’s insane. Every eye is pulled to him like magnets, every observant girl holding her head higher, her shoulders straighter, and adding a sway to her walk the second she sees him.
If they only knew his beauty is strictly skin-deep. All his desirable qualities come to a screeching halt from there.
I suppose it couldn’t hurt to introduce myself. I mean, as far as I know, he hasn’t even accepted his father’s offer yet. We might not ever work together. But if we do, if I can slap a little soothing balm overtop of this thing before it starts to bruise and turn even uglier, I might be able to salvage this job and thwart any potential damage to my professional reputation.
Grabbing my drink, I take a sip. “You’re right. I should go over there and clear this up.”
Lillie smiles. Of course. And gives me a thumbs’ up.
Clearing my throat, I slide out of the booth, gin and tonic in hand, and weave through the human obstacle course that leads back to the bar. And like some kind of otherworldly, divine intervention, the gentleman sitting beside Calder gets up and leaves.
Stealing the empty spot, I sit my drink down and immediately feel the weight of Calder’s glare.
“I knew you’d be back,” he says, his long fingers curled around a glass of some amber-colored liquor.
“Excuse me?” It takes everything I have not to let my jaw hit the bar top.
“I wasn’t flirting with you.” He takes a sip, his eyes diverting away from me and pointing to the back of the bar.
“I … didn’t think you were flirting with me.”
The side of his mouth lifts. “Right.”
“Trust me, you’re the furthest thing from my type. And even if you were my type ...” I swallow the rest of my words, reminding myself this man, this royal prick, is supposed to be my boss.
Calder turns to me, his shoulders angled. I think he might actually have been listening to me? I think he wants to hear what I was going to say.
“You’re exactly my type,” he deadpans.
If I had just taken a drink, I’d be spitting it all over myself right now. That’s so not what I expected him to say, so out of the left field.
“I beg your pardon?” I ask, second-guessing whether or not I heard him correctly.
“I said … you’re exactly my type.”
His dark eyes hold me prisoner. I couldn’t move if I wanted to, and I’m not sure why. This isn’t me at all.
None of this is me.
“Unfortunately, you’re also just a snack,” he says, reaching for his tumbler. “And I’m not hungry.”
Calder turns away.
My breath grows hot in my nostrils, and I sense the tremble growing in my hands.
This man.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” I say, waiting until I have his full attention again. “I’m a five-course meal at a restaurant you’d never be allowed to so much as set foot in. And by the way … I’m also your new PA.”
I walk away before he has a chance to respond.
I’m so going to be fired tomorrow.
WHAT.
The fuck.
Was that?
She’s the woman my father hired? The girl who spilled her coffee down her shirt after bumping into me in the hall?
That’s fucking golden. I can’t even be mad right now.
It makes perfect sense.
He brought on an assistant who happens to have all of the qualities he thinks I lack. She’s civil, tactful, punctual, classy as fuck.
I bet he thinks she’s going to be a good influence on me, like she can fucking domesticate me and turn me into a Corporate American civil servant.
Poor thing. She doesn’t realize she stepped inside the lion’s ring with nothing but a flimsy whip and a barstool. I’m not that easily tamed.
Regardless, I don’t know her name, but already I’m impressed. She’s not afraid to stand up for herself. I like that. If she’d given me a chance to explain, I’d have told her that’s what I meant when I said she was exactly my type.
I’m not a moron. I know she didn’t think I was flirting with her. I know she didn’t come back over because she wanted me. Quite the opposite. I saw the contention in that caramel-brown gaze of hers.
I also sensed a very raw, very real mutual attraction brewing—and that’s why I called it like it was and referred to her as a snack.
It was for the best.
I didn’t come here tonight to get laid. I’ve got bigger, more important things on my mind.
I watch the pretty little brunette with the black sweater grab her bag from her booth and storm out of the bar, her blonde friend in tow, and I toss back the rest of my Hennessy in one swallow.
Slapping some cash on the table, I take off and head back home, this time opting to walk.
Fresh air.
Deep thoughts.
A strong drink coursing through my veins.
If I’m lucky, these things plus a good night’s sleep will work together, helping me come to terms with what I’ve got to do in the morning.
Making my way through a crosswalk, I pass one of those sickeningly sweet couples walking hand-in-hand with that new-in-love look in their shiny eyes.
That kind of thing has never appealed to me, and if I’m being honest, a long-term relationship baked in exclusivi
ty seems like a prison sentence. Who the hell wants someone they have to report to? Someone who has to know where they are at all times? Someone who expects them to be there when they call? Someone who has access to every aspect of their life?
It’s Bridgeforth Academy all over again, only the relationship version.
Pass.
I slide my hands in my pockets, keep my head down, and mind my own business the rest of the walk home. Along the way, I pass a group of teenage tourists in matching red t-shirts emblazoned with their school logo, a middle-aged couple bickering about which Broadway show is least likely to be sold out, and a long-haired kid blazing past on a skateboard, a flannel shirt tied around his waist as he simultaneously composes a text message.
That’s the thing about New York.
You’re only ever as alone as you want to be.
When I finally reach my building, I climb the stairs to the third floor and lose myself in the quiet and solitude of my self-imposed sanctuary.
It’s dark now, and my apartment is bathed in blackness. I kick off my shoes and head back to my room to peel off my clothes and climb into an unmade bed.
It’s early still, not quite eight o’clock, so I grab the remote off my nightstand and tune the TV to ESPN.
The female broadcaster on the left side of the screen is new and when the camera pans to her, I catch a glimpse of her caramel-brown eyes—just like that girl at the bar tonight.
My new PA.
I roll my eyes at the thought of sending someone to do my menial errands like I’m some kind of important. How fucking full of yourself do you have to be that you can’t be bothered to get your own coffee?
I’ll have to tell my father “thanks but no thanks” on the girl. Aside from the fact that we didn’t exactly hit it off and she’s probably going to want to slap me across the face next time she sees me, I can’t focus on learning the ins and outs of WellesTech with some sex-on-legs PA coming in and out of my office, rubbing her scent everywhere.
The world is full of enough distractions as it is.
Wanting to fuck my assistant when I’m trying to learn how to run a billion-dollar conglomerate should be the least of my concerns.
P.S. I Dare You (PS Series Book 3) Page 5
