Arrogant Bastard - Julie Capulet Page 0,15
are some people I want you to meet.
Wow. Maybe I’m more tired than I realized. Maybe Josie and her situation are messing with my head more than I knew.
Meditation helps. I count to ten in my mind. I smile at a customer. I take an order.
By the time things start to slow down it’s after midnight. I unload the last tray of glasses, using a clean dishtowel to polish the champagne flutes as I slide them back into the wine rack that hangs over the end of the bar.
“Is your shift over yet?”
I look up into a pair of ocean-blue eyes. “You’re back.”
“I like this place,” he says. “It’s got a good vibe to it.”
“Thanks.” But I refuse to be flattered by his cool charm. He’s good, I’ve already acknowledged that. And I know better than to mess with the likes of him. He’ll eat me for breakfast until all that’s left is a bleached pile of bones.
Another chilling memory flutters through the recesses of my psyche.
Stop. Please. Please stop.
Come on, I saw you watching me. I could have any girl here tonight but I chose you. Consider yourself lucky.
Shit. Why is this happening? Why now?
“The view isn’t bad, either,” he adds as he continues to watch me. Mischief sparkles in his night-lit eyes.
He’s sexy as hell. And if I don’t keep my distance there’s a very real chance I’ll go with this.
Because I want to be whole again. I want to have fun and go wild and not have it turn into something that breaks your goddamn heart.
With him, it would be wild, you can just tell. It would be the wildest thing in the world.
Can I handle wild, is the question.
He’s so muscular. Big. Heavy. Powerful enough to—
Damn it. I thought I was over all this stuff. “If that’s a pick-up line, it should have died in the nineties.”
He smiles at my reply. The humidity has made his hair curl lightly around his ears where it touches his collar, taking the edge off his businessman vibe. The shadow of his stubble is visible on his square jaw and his eyes are the color of stolen aquamarines. If you dressed him up differently, he could be a renegade gypsy king. There’s something exotic about him.
How many women would this man have clocked up over the course of his sex life? I can’t help wondering. A hundred? Several hundred? A thousand?
Has he ever done things they didn’t want him to do?
“Ready for that drink yet?” He’s wearing a different shirt. A navy blue polo shirt, which makes the color of his eyes even more striking. He probably keeps an extra in his bag for all those glasses of wine that get thrown in his face. He must have checked into his hotel and come back for a nightcap. “When does the night shift take over?”
Jimmy walks through the door. “Here he is now.” We tend to get a steady stream of visitors into the small hours of the morning, especially on holidays. A lot of people drink their way through Thanksgiving and Christmas, for whatever reason. I get it. It’s something I’m tempted to do myself. My father will be happily ensconced in his Westchester McMansion with his new family, his better family, the one he didn’t walk out on and who were willing turn a blind eye to his extracurricular activities. My mother will be misery-pounding apple martinis with her old, ugly sugar daddy.
I wonder what this guy’s reason is. What he’s running from or trying to avoid. “No family get-together back in Connecticut to rush home to?” I say blithely, serving him another Jack Daniels on ice and pouring myself a rum and Coke. I will take a risk again one day, but not today. There’s enough upheaval in my immediately future to deal with already. One drink before bed then I’ll head upstairs and see how Josie is doing.
“Chicago, actually,” he says. “And no.” He takes a sip of his drink, watching me in that relaxed, confident, hyper-alert way. “What about you? Not heading home to Iowa this year?”
I meet his gaze. “Wow, you really did listen in to our—clearly not that it matters to you—private conversation.”
He barely shrugs, non-repentantly. His perfect mouth quirks. “As I said, I was innocently enjoying a drink and couldn’t help but overhear. Sounds like you’ve got a small problem.”
I’m tired. I’m scared of what might happen over the next few weeks. I’m not in the mood for his playful scorn. His