by Alexis Anne
Natalie frowned. “Just…think about it?”
I could think about it all I wanted, it wasn’t going to change my feelings on the subject, but for the sake of my daughter, I let her have a small victory. “I will,” I promised.
CHAPTER THREE
“You look like hell, Greg.”
I was out for drinks when I ran into Tyler Jones, a reporter I knew loosely through my friend, Eve. He was an asshole. The typical selfish prick you expect to see on air, feeding off the attention of everyone around him. So of course the moment he saw me, he kicked our conversation off with a putdown.
“And you still look like a rhinoceros had sex with a giraffe and gave birth to you.” He did. The man had the weirdest looking nose and his neck was way too long. Somehow neither of those features was obvious on camera, but in person…well, they were hard to ignore. Plus the man was only five foot eight—at most.
Tyler snorted and threw back the rest of his scotch. “Eloquent as always, Hamilton. Tell Eve I said hi.” Then he turned and stalked off before I had a chance to reply.
Thank fuck.
I wasn’t in the mood for small talk. I probably shouldn’t have gone out at all in the state I was in, but staying home alone, with nothing to do but stare out the window, was not an option.
Well, not a good one anyway.
I leaned into the bar and signaled Levi, the bartender. A moment later my glass of Knob Creek was refilled with a fresh slice of lime on top of the ice. The bar was five minutes from home—I could walk if I got too trashed. It wouldn’t be the first time and it wouldn’t be the last.
The smooth alcohol was the only thing that seemed to quiet my mind lately. For some reason it had gone into hyperactive overdrive in the last week or so. I wasn’t sleeping, I was barely eating, and exercising way too much considering how much I wasn’t sleeping or eating. I was restless and anxious, and for the life of me, no matter how much I listened to the thoughts rolling around in my head, I couldn’t seem to figure out what was wrong with me. Sometimes I simply gave up and had a couple of drinks to put me to sleep.
Well, that was a lie. I knew what was wrong with me. I just didn’t know why it was making my life such a living hell right now.
A laugh rolled across the bar. A deep, sultry, genuine laugh. The kind that turns everyone’s head and makes everyone smile. I glanced around looking for the source of the happiness when my eyes landed on her.
Blondes weren’t usually my type, but this woman was incredible. Her smile lit up her entire gorgeous face as she shook her head and closed her eyes, the laughter still bubbling out of her. Somehow that little action seemed wrong. Her eyes were too beautiful to ever be hidden from the world. A deep shade of blue that almost flirted with purple. She was wearing a sexy black cocktail dress that plunged down between her perfect breasts, revealing their round shape, but leaving everything else to the imagination.
And I was already imagining a lot.
I swallowed and took a drink. I shouldn’t be staring, but damn. How could I stop?
“Another?” Levi was standing with his eyebrow cocked and the bottle of Knob in his hands. I glanced down at my now empty glass. Fuck me. That woman had me so distracted I’d downed my drink without noticing.
She was a witch.
A sexy, distracting witch.
“Sure.” I set down my glass and turned my attention back to the woman across the bar. Maybe I didn’t need another drink, maybe I needed a distraction. The kind that left us both sweaty and exhausted at the end. There was no way I could have insomnia after an hour in bed with her.
I swallowed and cracked my neck as an inappropriate amount of desire made itself known in my body. I needed a plan before I walked over to her. Normal women were arm candy for events, or quick meaningless fucks to pass the time. But women like her, whoever she was, were a helluva lot more. They were mindfucks—sirens who consumed men mind, body, and soul. Being consumed by them was the purest form of pleasure that existed on Earth.
But it was also the most destructive.
I waited until the laughter died down and made my way around the bar to the sexy blonde in the black cocktail dress.
Chapter Four
“Why don’t we just go to the restaurant and have dessert?” I pleaded with Grace, my best friend (and current tyrant), as we stood outside the Time Lounge. The bouncer eyed us with a smile. He probably saw scenes like this all the time.
The last thing I wanted to do was walk into a bar and have a drink, but with Natalie in New York for spring break, I’d agreed to get out and have fun with Grace.
“You promised, Marie.” Grace stuck her finger in my face. “All you do is work and take care of Natalie. You haven’t been out for drinks with me in months, and I know for a fact the only date you’ve been on all year was a business date. Get your butt in there or I’ll have Jorge drag you in by force.” She pointed at the bouncer.
Of course Grace knew the bouncer.
We were two sides of the same coin and I loved her to death. Except in this exact moment, I was seriously considering killing her.
“Fine. Thirty minutes and then I want to get to bed.”
“An hour,” Grace countered.
I glanced at the silver watch on my wrist. Was it really only ten? Teenage Marie was laughing at me wanting to get home to my pajamas and a book on a hot Thursday night without my kid. But seriously, the cocktail dress was too tight, the heels were too high, my makeup was too heavy, and the humidity was too thick. I could be in something comfortable right now.
Besides, seventeen-year-old Marie got knocked up while being wild and staying out too late. But then again, Grace was being a good friend by dragging me out of my usual routine; the least I could do was return the favor by making it worth her while.
Maybe I could be her wing-girl.
“Fine, an hour. Then you’re taking me home. And I get to pick what we do tomorrow night.”
Grace rolled her eyes. “You are far too much work. Why do I put up with you?”
I grinned. “Because you can’t live without me.”
“Oh, that’s right!” Then she turned and stuck her finger in my face again. “Wait, you have to pick something outside of the house or the deal is off.”
I shook my head and sighed. “Yes, Gracie. I swear we will go out tomorrow night.”
She nodded and turned, stalking toward Jorge, who leaned down from his immense height to peck Grace on the cheek. “Should I check her ID, or are you sneaking beautiful underage women in under my nose?”
I froze and eyed Jorge. “I don’t like cheesy lines, dude.”
The enormous man chuckled and held out his hand. “Normally I’m pretty good at my job, but you’re what I call a ‘blank’. There’s really no way to tell how old you actually are without seeing your ID.”
I pulled my driver’s license out of my clutch with a flourish. “And just how old do you think I am?”
Jorge gave me a once over, glanced at Grace, and then back at me. “If I had to guess, I’d say twenty-four, maybe twenty-five at most.”
If Jorge hadn’t looked so serious I would have laughed. “I’m thirty.”
I held up my ID and Jorge frowned. “Damn. You look good Miss Marie Bancroft. Have a nice evening.” He leaned down as I walked by. “And watch out for Gracie, she’s trouble.” He winked and I grinned. Yes, Gracie was enough trouble for all of us.
We were standing at the crowded bar, halfway through our first drinks when I saw him. Blondish hair mussed in a sexy, I-run-my-hands-through-it-all-day, kind of way. A light stubble on his strong jaw, tie loosened with a button undone, sleeves rolled, revealing tanned, muscular forearms with a bulging vein running up and around from his wrist to his elbow. His eyes were a soft blue, but they looked dark and haunted. His jaw was clenching and unclenching as he dismissed the douchey reporter from Channel 8 that I always hated talking to.
I tried desperately to place this sexy, brooding, expanse of man across the bar fro
m me, but I couldn’t. Something about this man called to me, though. I wasn’t sure if it was his looks or his mood, either way, it seemed to be radiating across the bar and into my skin. I could feel him even when I wasn’t looking at him. I wanted to know why he didn’t seem happy. He looked like so much more than a drink and a bad day. He was a mystery to me and mysteries were my kryptonite. I craved them. I wanted to unravel them and find out all their secrets.
Of course that was how I fell in love with Brandon and wound up with Natalie. He was dark and brooding and everything I needed to piss my parents off. I unwrapped his mysteries and found a selfish, egotistical, spoiled playboy underneath. His mystery wasn’t very exciting in the end, but it gave me the greatest gift I’d ever gotten—my daughter and a fresh start in life.
“Earth to Marie! Come in Marie!” Grace shook my arm, jolting me out of my thoughts.
“Sorry about that.”
“Were you daydreaming about Brandon? Do you think Natalie will pull another Parent Trap and try to get you guys to fall in love and live happily ever after?” Grace said all of this in a silly, sing-song voice with a ridiculous grin on her face. She knew better than anyone how little I loved my ex. We tolerated each other from a distance and made a nice family for Natalie, but love was the furthest thing from either of our minds.
A giggle started that I couldn’t seem to stop. “Oh, God. Me and Brandon. Could you imagine what that would look like?”
Grace started giggling, too. “Would he dare to move to Tampa?”
I busted out with a full belly laugh. I couldn’t help myself. The thought of Brandon living in a town like this? It was so far from possible that imagining it was ridiculous. I pictured him frowning every time he walked outside into a wall of humidity, and the laughter kept rolling out of me. Then I pictured him frowning and pulling his eyebrows together as Natalie suggested a boat ride. The thought of Brandon in anything but his two thousand dollar suits walking the streets of Paris was simply impossible.
“Nope, we’d have to move to Paris to be with him. He could never come down and spend time with the little people.” That made Grace laugh harder and I knew she was imagining the same things as me.
Thinking of Brandon anywhere but in his office, leading his family company as CEO of Calais Athletics, was like imagining the Pope in swim trunks.
“Don’t you want to give up this little dream of running the Tampa branch of Bancroft Sports and run off to be taken care of by your prince charming?” Grace downed the rest of her drink and slammed it on the bar. “I’m hitting the ladies. Get me another?”
I nodded and swirled the last of my drink. As I stared at the quickly melting ice, I couldn’t help but think back on my fourteen years with Brandon. We were only lovers for a very short while, but we’d struck up a unique friendship. He was one of the few people in my life who truly understood the pressures of growing up in a powerful family—the need to step out from the shadow and pursue my own dreams. So while he was an annoying thorn in my side, he could also be a good friend at times.
Running the southern branch of my family’s company wasn’t entirely a dream come true, but it gave me the separation and freedom I needed. Plus, I had a fairly large amount of job security. Brandon was my rebellion, not my knight in shining armor. I’d never met a man I wanted to fill that role, and I wasn’t sure I ever would.
I didn’t want to be saved. I just wanted to be understood. And if that meant never falling in love or getting married, I was fine with that. There was so much more to life than falling in love.
But then I looked up in time to see the sexy man from the other side of the bar. He was rounding the corner and coming straight for me. His gorgeous blue eyes were locked onto mine and I felt the entire world fall away. One glance and this dark man had taken all the air from my lungs.
Who was he? And why was he coming to talk to me?
“Greg Hamilton.” He said it almost curtly, thrusting his hand out.
I looked down and cocked my head to the side. This was an interesting turn of events. “Marie,” I replied simply. My last name tended to give me away more often than not, and I had a feeling I didn’t want to be exposed to this man in that way.
I shook his hand and I tried my hardest to not get lost in his blue eyes, because damn, they were intense. It felt like he could see beneath my skin and into my soul. They were even more penetrating up close than they were from across the bar.
“I just wanted to come over and tell you that you have the best laugh I’ve ever heard in my life.”
Was that a line? Because if it was, it was one of the oddest ones I’d ever received. “Thank you?”
Greg shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t hear laughs like that very often, and yours was particularly beautiful. I just thought you should know.”
My laugh was beautiful. Not me. Not my dress or my hair. Not even my body. “Well thank you very much. Can I get you a drink? I was about to order us some fresh ones.”
Greg looked down at his mostly full glass. “No, I’m fine, but thank you.”
I leaned my hip into the bar and signaled the bartender. He held up a finger, letting me know he’d be over in a moment. I turned back to Greg. “So is that really the only reason you came over?”
He chuckled and took a drink, a wry smile pulling at one side of his lips. “Look sweetheart, you’re a beautiful woman, I don’t think you need me to tell you that. Or maybe that’s what you prefer?”
Oh…this dude had an attitude on him. And for some reason, I liked that. “Actually I can’t stand it when men say bullshit like that. I was just trying to figure out what your game is. One minute you’re pissing off Tyler Jones and looking like you’d rather eat nails than be in this bar, and the next you’re over here smiling and telling me my laugh is beautiful.”
I couldn’t decide if Greg was a genuinely interesting mystery or just another half-drunk jackass bored and looking for a quick fuck (or a fight) on a Thursday night.
He took a step toward me. Even in my three-inch heels he had a couple of inches on me, which wasn’t saying a whole lot, I wasn’t exactly tall, but I had to look up to see into his eyes. “I have a policy to always tell people when I admire something about them. Life is too short to keep shit like that to ourselves.”
Oh, that was very interesting. Greg Hamilton had a history, of that I was sure. People only tended to throw around lines like “life is too short” when they knew first hand just how fragile life could be. “That’s a very sound policy. For the record, you have the most amazing eyes I’ve ever seen.”
Those baby blues widened and then darkened. Hot didn’t begin to cover it.
“And, just for the record, you do have a beautiful body.”
For some reason, that made me blush. His gaze flicked to my cheeks and neck, and then he took a step back, as if realizing he’d embarrassed me and felt bad. But having him step away made me sad. There was something about having him close that I very much enjoyed. His presence was immense. The closer he got, the more intensely I felt it. The air was charged and his scent—some sort of manly Old Spice-type musk—was everywhere.
It was like a little taste of heaven and I wanted it back.
He cleared his throat. “Sorry.”
“Why are you sorry for telling me that? I thought it was your policy to always tell someone when you admire something about them. Unless you were lying?”
He frowned and cocked an eyebrow. I had a feeling this was a typical expression for Greg. The lines on his brow creased and deepened as if this was the normal position for his skin. “No, I wasn’t lying. But you turned red.” He waved his glass in a circle over my face.
I smiled. This man was a very interesting enigma. “So?”
“So I felt bad.”
“Why did you feel bad for complimenting my body?”
He looked at me like I was crazy. “I just…” he ran his hand through his hair, messing it into a totally different configuration. A totally tuggable one
at that. “I just didn’t want you to think I was that kind of guy.”
“And what kind of guy is that?” I knew I was being difficult, but Greg was making it so much fun.
“The kind of guy who picks up women in bars.”
“That’s not the kind of guy you are? You’ve never picked up a woman in a bar before?”
I was absolutely positive that Greg had picked up his fair share of women over the years. He wasn’t exactly young, but he wasn’t old either. My guess was mid-to-late thirties. A wonderful age for men. They were still young enough to have fun, but old enough to have learned from their mistakes.
He glared at me. “Fuck. Yes, I occasionally meet women in bars.”
“Then why don’t you want me to think you were trying to pick me up?”
Greg looked completely exasperated by me. His brows were furrowed, he was frowning, and his glass was almost empty now.
“What can I get you?” The bartender had finally made his way back down to me.
“Another white wine and a whiskey and tonic.”
“The Glenlivet?”
“Please.”
The bartender looked over my shoulder. “Another Knob for you?”
When I looked back at Greg I realized he was staring at me. “What?”
“Nothing,” he replied quickly. “And I’m fine, thanks.” The bartender nodded and got busy making our drinks.
Whatever Greg was thinking, it was not nothing. I didn’t know what it was…but I sure wanted to find out. “So Greg Hamilton, drinker of Knob Creek and occasional picker-upper of women in bars, what are you doing over here talking to me?”
He swallowed and shook his head. “I think I might be getting picked up by you.” A huge grin split his face, lighting up his eyes.
I looked Greg up and down before meeting his eyes again. Was I picking him up? I hadn’t done anything that ill-advised in years, and yet…I kinda wanted to see what would happen. I bit my lip while I debated, and Greg’s eyes narrowed. Oh, this was nice. I had an effect on this man. “I haven’t decided yet,” I finally said.
