“I never look like that when I get out of bed,” she grumbled.
She’d also purposefully ensured she was at least half an hour late. She wanted to make an entrance, wanted to get a collective response. And she’d gotten it. And it had been good, but five minutes later, everyone seemed to ignore her as usual.
She sipped her drink, listened to the rise and fall of conversation, and allowed her attention to roam about the bar while trying not to spend too much time staring at the door. Slowly, she became aware that although her group did an excellent job of ignoring her, quite a few other men were eyeing her up with interest.
One particular man in a dark business suit casually leaned against the bar opposite. His black hair and lean, tanned face reminded her slightly of Jake. Kim allowed herself to make eye contact, then smiled into his admiring gaze. He raised his glass to her, and she followed suit with her bottle. Around her, the conversation stalled. The guys all stared at her.
“What?” she asked.
“Jake will be here in a minute,” Dave said.
“So?”
Dave shook his head in exasperation. “Seems as apparently it’s out in the open now, I may as well tell you, along with warning the lot of us off touching you, Jake’s made it perfectly clear that if you come on these nights out, we’re expected to see that you don’t get into any trouble.”
“Trouble?” she queried, a frown forming between her eyes. “What sort of trouble?”
Dave nodded in the direction of the dark-haired man at the bar. “That sort of trouble.”
“I don’t believe this. Who does Jake think he is? My father?”
“I doubt that’s quite the role he has in mind,” Dave said wryly. “But you’d better talk to him about that.”
“I will,” she promised. “In the meantime, let me make it quite clear—you are now all relieved of babysitting duties.”
She put her drink on the bar and slowly and defiantly peeled off her jacket, exposing large amounts of naked flesh to the gawking group.
“Could you hold this for me a minute?” she asked nonchalantly, handing the jacket to Steve, whose stare was riveted on her bare midriff.
“Where are you going?” he asked suspiciously.
“The ladies’ room. Why? You want to come with me?”
He shook his head. Kim glanced around at the others. “Anybody? No? Well, I’ll see you all in a minute, and I promise to do my best to stay out of trouble. Honest.”
The route to the ladies’ took her right past the “trouble.” She peeked at him out of the corner of her eyes as she passed, gratified he was still paying attention. In the ladies’, she stared at herself in the mirror. A stranger stared back, her long hair loose and tousled around her face, her normally calm eyes stormy.
On her way back to the bar, she purposefully raised an eyebrow at her admirer, who tilted his glass again and indicated the empty seat next to him. Kim perched on the barstool and smiled. She risked a quick glance at her own group but ignored the black looks.
“Hi, I’m Tony.”
“Kim.”
“Can I get you a drink, Kim?”
“Sure. I’ll have a red wine.”
Tony gave the order, turned back to her, and made a slow inventory of her body. “Do you know,” he murmured, “that you are the sexiest thing I have ever seen?”
“Really?” Kim positively beamed at him and took a big swallow of her wine. It was nice to hear all her hard work was successful.
“Mmm. But tell me—those men over there—is one of them your boyfriend?”
Kim sniffed dismissively. “No. I work with them.”
“Well, they’re giving me some pretty strong looks. Especially that guy who just joined them. I wouldn’t like to think I was stepping on his toes.”
Kim glanced over and couldn’t prevent an involuntary spark of delight at seeing Jake had joined the group. His gaze flickered from her, to the man beside her, and back to her. He lifted his eyebrows in question before putting his drink on the bar and heading in their direction.
“Sorry,” Kim lied. “Thanks for the drink, Tony, but I’ll have to go. It’s my boss.”
She needed to talk to him about the babysitting thing. But more than that, she wanted to see his reaction to her makeover. Wanted to see the moment he realized that she so wasn’t his type.
And if that thought caused her a twinge of pain, then she would just have to get over it.
Chapter Eight
Holy shit.
She was like a wet dream, and if she didn’t get away from that guy any time soon, Jake would stomp over there, beat the shit out of him, toss her over his shoulder, and haul her away.
What the hell had she done to herself?