Shattered (Anderson Special Ops #4) - Melody Anne Page 0,20
she was on the date and having a good time, she might as well enjoy herself. She didn’t take enough time to do just that.
Amira loved to work. It was her driving passion in life, the thing that put a smile on her lips. There was nothing wrong with feeling that way. Since she was so infatuated with work, she didn’t have a whole heck of a lot of fun. If nothing else, hanging out with Smoke would bring some fun into her life.
Did that mean she’d want to see him again after it was all over? He’d come in from out of nowhere and now that she knew him, she had a feeling it was going to be very difficult not to know the man.
Before she could step back inside the bar, a family came around the corner, a man with his arm around whom Amira assumed was his wife, and their three children who circled them as they ate ice-cream and talked nonstop. The father threw back his head and laughed at something the littlest girl said, then the mother looked up at her husband with pure adoration.
A small pang shot through Amira. She’d given up on the idea of a family long ago. She believed a person could either choose family or a career, and she’d made her choice long ago. She didn’t think she could work as much as she wanted and still have children. Her parents had done that, but they also hadn’t been the ones to raise her — the nannies had. She didn’t want to have children only to have them raised by someone else. For Amira, it was better to not have a family at all.
Amira quickly swept those thoughts from her brain as the couple passed. She firmed her shoulders, knowing she’d been gone too long. She stepped back inside the bar, feeling the rhythm of the smooth jazz slide straight through her as the live band did a saxophone solo. It was loud, yet intimate. The bar was dim, making it difficult to see too far ahead. Smoke had certainly chosen a prime spot for romance.
As Amira moved forward, brushing past people who either smiled at her or acted as if she wasn’t there, she realized this was where she wanted to be in that moment. She needed to socialize once in a while, and if she had a few drinks and then a few dances, she’d probably feel better about everything in her life. She vowed to let go a little more often so she wouldn’t be so flustered by a man the next time someone like Smoke showed up in front of her.
Someone bumped into Amira and she nearly fell over. He apologized and held out a hand to steady her. She laughed it off, then moved past him as the crowd parted. Amira stopped, her breath caught in her throat, her eyes going wide as she gazed at the scene before her — and then she tried to figure out how she felt about it.
Smoke was no longer alone as he sat at the bar where Amira had been ten minutes earlier. That had been fast.
When Amira realized jealously was flowing through her, she was shocked. She couldn’t ever, not once in her life, remember feeling that emotion. She’d never been so attracted to someone that she’d feared losing them. She certainly had never been in love with anyone. If you weren’t all that attracted, and you weren’t in love, there was no reason to feel such a messy emotion as jealousy. She knew, intellectually, that jealousy was a selfish emotion, but it sure was a strong one.
She had a right to feel the emotion now, didn’t she? Yes, she did, because he was supposed to be on a date with her. She’d only been gone for a few minutes — ten at the most. So, for him to replace her in the blink of an eye was ridiculous.
A very smuttily dressed woman was practically sitting in Smoke’s lap. Her red dress inched a little higher when she lifted her four-inch heel to the rung of his stool and brushed her leg against his. Her painted red nail brushed something from his chest, then stayed there. She was blonde, her hair cascading down her back with perfectly teased curls tickling her jaw. She was made up with more product than a circus clown, and her fake laugh echoed through the bar. Amira felt her claws coming out.