years later. For Drew it was rum. For me, it’s tequila. But I want to punish myself in a way...or maybe I’m pushing myself. Pushing past old barriers and ideas of who I am, pushing past my discomfort.
I lick the back of my hand and shake some salt onto the wet spot. The little crystals cling to my skin like flecks of glitter. This is a bad idea.
A drink I hate with a man I shouldn’t be drinking with in a bar I wouldn’t usually set foot in.
I nudge the salt shaker toward Sebastian and watch as he repeats the ritual. Lick, shake. Now we’re going to swallow and suck.
“Ready?” I ask him with a saucy smile. I want to feel the effects of the alcohol. I’m ready to let it loosen me up and even me out.
“You bet.”
I pick up the shot and brace myself against the wave of nausea from the smell, but none comes. Maybe it’s a sign. I wait for Sebastian to pick his glass up and clink it against mine. The second after he does, I lick the salt from my hand and bring the glass to my lips, letting the fiery liquid go down the hatch in one go. As I wince, blindly reaching for a piece of lime, my hand brushes Sebastian’s. I’m still cringing when I snag a little piece of the citrus fruit and jam it into my mouth, almost choking on the sourness causing my lips to pucker.
“Well, that’s fucking awful,” he says, coughing.
I laugh. “Again?”
We work through the steps a second time—shake, lick, swallow, suck. Cringe, cringe, cringe.
The concentration of the alcohol is already working its magic, filling me with a warm buzzing burn and shooing my inhibitions away. Sebastian signals to the bartender and orders us something to enjoy a little slower. Two beers. Something, again, I don’t usually drink.
“Are you going to tell me now?” he asks while we wait.
The music pumps through the bar and a dancefloor off to the side is heaving with people. There’s no DJ in this place, just music playing over speakers. “I found out that your brother—”
“Stepbrother,” he corrects.
“Sorry, stepbrother, was only marrying me so your dad would take him more seriously as a contender for CEO of the family company.” I shake my head. “He was crowing about it to his groomsmen.”
“You overheard him, or someone told you?” He narrows his eyes. Maybe he doesn’t believe me. Honestly, I don’t care.
“I overheard him.” I try to ignore the stab in my chest as I remember it. The wound is little more than a day old and it hurts like hell. For his faults, I did love Mike. In the early days, he treated me like a princess. At one time we were...happy. I don’t know why it changed. “And as much as it hurt to walk away, there’s no way I’m going to enter into a loveless marriage as a bargaining chip to a business deal. I deserve more than that.”
“Getting married isn’t required to take over the family business, though. It doesn’t make sense.”
“I don’t think your father told Mike that. I think he just questioned his maturity, and in Mike’s mind, marriage equals maturity.” A look passes over Sebastian’s face, but in the flickering lights it’s difficult to decipher. “Anyway, I didn’t come out tonight to rehash all my bad life choices, okay? I want to drown my sorrows and forget it ever happened.”
Our fresh round of drinks appear and Sebastian waves my hand away when I try to pay, taking care of it with a tap of his credit card.
“We should have set up a tab,” I say. “I’m not going home anytime soon.”
He shoots me a look. “Let’s finish this drink and then I’ll take you somewhere more befitting a classy gal like yourself.”
“Ha!” I snort. “This is exactly where I belong tonight.”
He wrinkles his nose. “Nobody belongs here.”
The man is a snob. I should have guessed it from the way he’s dressed. The suede jacket, open-collared shirt and jeans might fool some people, but I catch the subtle designer logo on the zipper’s pull-tab and high-quality leather of his shoes.
“So, what do you do again?” I ask, sipping my beer. “I know you live in Sydney and work in technology, but that’s it.”
“I’m the CIO for a fintech company that provides startup capital for small businesses,” he says. “The company was created by a mate of mine from university and when they expanded, he asked