The Best of Winter Renshaw - An 8 Book Collection - Winter Renshaw Page 0,206

girl from this morning.”

“Yeah.” I rub my palm along my five o’clock shadow. “Yeah, that’s her. Never would’ve pegged her for a stalker.”

“Is she stalking you though? She hasn’t even looked over here. I don’t think she’s even scanned the room. And she’s with someone,” Allison says, always my squeaky voice of reason.

“That’s what they do,” I say. “The good stalkers are so good they don’t look like they’re stalking.”

“Hmm.” She isn’t buying it.

The bartender finally approaches, and I feel like I haven’t seen him in years. I order a whiskey sour and a lemon drop martini for Allison because on her best of days, she’s a little ray of sunshine, and she could use something uplifting at this point.

“I should probably stop after this,” she says when he returns with her martini glass.

“The night is young, Al,” I say, eyes focused across the bar to where Ayla seems to be elbow deep in some kind of fascinating conversation.

Allison’s right. Ayla hasn’t so much as glanced in this direction. Not once. Not even for a fraction of a splinter of a second.

There’s a restlessness stirring inside me. I can’t sit here and pretend she isn’t over there. I can’t sit here and pretend like her taste isn’t still on my tongue and that her perfume hasn’t been on my skin all day or that I haven’t been replaying our morning fuck session over and over in my head. I even stroked it while thinking of her this afternoon when my cock wouldn’t stop throbbing every time I passed the kitchen island.

“Are you going to say hi?” Allison interrupts my dirty, dirty mind.

I bite my lower lip, giving it good pause. “Probably not.”

“Why not?”

Oh, Allison. So young. So naïve. She has no idea how this works.

“If I say hi to her ...” I let my sentence dissolve. I can’t explain this to Allison. She’s been my PA for three years now, and we’ve never once discussed my sex life. Besides, I’m not sure I can give her a PG-13 rundown of the way this works. If I stop what I’m doing and say hi to Ayla, then that would mean we’re officially acquaintances, and I don’t want to be her acquaintance. I want to be some random guy she fucked on some random weekday. “It’s complicated, Allison.”

I take a drink of my whiskey, letting my eyes linger in Ayla’s direction. Her friend is quite animated, swooshing her arms through the air when she talks and widening her eyes. It must be exhausting listening to her tell a story, but there’s Ayla, tuned in like a champ.

God bless her.

Allison swivels in her seat, facing me as she licks sugar off the rim of her martini glass. “This is really good, by the way.”

“Glad you like it.”

I steal a quick glance over Allison’s shoulder because apparently I’m incapable of restraining myself tonight, only this time I’m met with two sets of curious eyes.

I’ve been spotted.

Ayla shifts in her seat, her eyes moving to the back of Allison’s head, then to me, then the drink in her hand. Her friend gives me a dirty look.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

It’s not like I’m dating Ayla. And it’s not like I’m here with some chick despite the fact that that’s exactly what it looks like.

“Boss, I’m going to use the ladies’ room,” Allison squeaks, hopping down from the seat. “Be right back.”

Ayla and her friend watch Allison leave, and then Ayla angles her body so I can’t see her face anymore. Is she pissed? And more importantly, why does it bother me?

Exhaling, I take another sip of whiskey and gather my composure. I have nothing to prove, and I don’t owe her a damn thing, but I wouldn’t mind walking out of here tonight with the same amount of integrity I showed up with.

I’m not a man whore. Maybe I was a few years back, when I was a rookie in the NHL and a multi-million-dollar contract landed in my lap, making me feel like the king of the world for a good six months.

But not anymore.

I decide to finish my drink and go say hello. It’s the proper thing to do now that I’ve been spotted.

I’m working on my last sip when there’s a sharp tap on my right shoulder.

“You going to say hello, or you just going to sit here like you didn’t just totally eye fuck me while your date is in the ladies’ room?” Ayla asks.

I hate that she beat me to it.

Once again,