The Billionaire's Masquerade Page 0,12

bit, she might have a better understanding of how he worked. But that wasn’t to be, she knew. She’d have to approach him much more surreptitiously. Tonight was only an introduction, she told herself. Just a “meet, greet and get out of his way” event.

She twirled the glass of her white wine around in front of her, looking at the other patrons. They were all laughing and having a good time. It felt like everyone knew each other here. Sort of a “Cheers” type of environment. Which only made her feel even more awkward, since she didn’t know anyone.

When the doors opened up again, she looked in that direction, hoping to see an older, distinguished man with a frown or perhaps scowling eyes.

What she didn’t expect to see was Jack strolling casually through the doors. As soon as she saw him her mind screamed for her to hide. But there wasn’t any place to hide except under the table. As their kiss earlier today flashed through her mind, she actually considered hiding below the table as an option. She didn’t want to see him much less talk to him after that kiss. It had been too mind-blowing, too special. She wasn’t sure how to react to him now.

Unfortunately, the dratted man wasn’t going to let her hide. As soon as he saw her, he walked to her table. Not even waiting for an invitation, he picked up the chair on the opposite side of her table and sat down in it backwards, leaning his arms across the back. “So we meet again,” he said smoothly.

“Hey Jack!” someone from the bar called out. “The usual?”

“Sure!” he called back, not moving his eyes away from Rachel’s now-burning face.

“Were you able to accomplish your mission today?” he asked softly, his eyes surveying her pink features in the dim light of the bar.

She couldn’t hide her grimace. “No. I couldn’t find him anywhere,” she said, looking down at her wine glass. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

Jack’s heart lurched with her words. Had she somehow found out about his identity? Who would have told her? “What do you mean?” he asked, playing along just to hear what she might say.

“The man is a ghost,” Rachel said with a frustrated sigh. “I can’t imagine where he’s gone, but he hasn’t appeared in any of the places the locals said he might be.”

He smothered a chuckle and watched her pretty green eyes, fascinated by all the emotions that were surging in them for him to see. “Is that why you’re here?”

Rachel nodded, lifting her glass to her lips and taking a sip, then cringing as the foul tasting wine hit her taste buds. With him sitting in front of her, the flannel shirt pulled taught against those broad, muscular shoulders and his long, jeans-clad legs stretched out on either side of her own legs, she was flustered and trying to regroup so he wouldn’t know how powerfully he impacted her.

So with all of that hot, studly masculinity turning her mind to mush, it was no wonder she’d forgotten how bad the wine was. She’d made the decision after the first two or three sips that nothing could make this foul concoction taste better. Pushing the wine glass away, she tried to school her features into something less revealing, trying to hide both her reaction to the wine as well as to the man.

“Bad stuff, isn’t it?” Emerson laughed, seeing how she was trying to hide her reaction to the cheap wine. “Dennis focuses more on the local beers. Wines just aren’t his specialty.”

Dennis brought over a bottle of Emerson’s regular preference, a dark beer called Allagash Dubbel. “Dennis, could you bring over one of the Allagash Whites?” he suggested.

Dennis didn’t respond but simply turned around and headed back to the bar.

Since Jack took a long sip of the beer the bartender had just placed in front of him, Rachel was concerned that, whatever an ‘Allagash White’ was, it was intended for her. “What’s an Allagash White?” she asked, instantly on alert and wary. “I don’t do well with most beers,” she explained, trying very hard not to sound like a prissy woman, but she really didn’t like beer.

“You’ll like this one,” he argued. “Besides, it’s made by one of the local brewing companies in Portland. You should always support the locals, right?”

When Dennis plunked a beer bottle along with a frosted glass in front of her, Emerson almost chuckled. A frosted glass? No one else