“I don’t know you,” she said, cocking her head and smiling at him. “Yet. Looks like we’ve already found something to talk about.”
“I don’t get to many concerts anymore. Working too many nights.” He reduced another lime to wedges, his rhythm hypnotic, easy, automatic. She’d always been a sucker for hands. Not smooth, manicured, executive hands, but workingman’s hands, the skin rough with scrapes and gouges and calluses. It made for such an erotic contrast, strong and tough, yet tightly controlled.
“Where did you get the idea to open Eye Candy?”
The question snapped her out of her fantasies. “I’ve wanted to own my own business for a long time,” she said, giving him the short version of her views on business and community involvement. “As for opening a nightclub … my dad’s a pastor, which is a labor of love, so my brother and I were on our own for college tuition.” She scraped a dozen cut lemons into a tub and reached for more. “The summer before college I helped a girlfriend serve at a society wedding at the Metropolitan Club. The guy with the liquor contract for the Met also owned a club. He said he liked my work ethic, although in hindsight maybe my work ethic was icing on the cake.”
Chad smiled like he knew where this was going.
“He told me I could make two hundred a night in tips, working for him. I knew my parents would go through the roof if I did, and when I saw the uniform I almost didn’t take the shift because the skirt was straight out of a French maid costume and came with fishnet tights and four-inch heels. But I gave it a shot, and he was right. My first night three different men, all old enough to be my father, gave me a twenty for a buck-fifty beer and told me to keep the change. I told myself it was a fluke, that there was no way a man would tip me twenty dollars to watch me bring him a beer, but it happened the next night, and the next night, and the next…”
A huff of laughter as he worked. “Sheltered much?”
“Not after a week at Platinum. I put myself through college with those tips. Eventually I ended up running private parties, including networking events at the Met, and along the way I discovered that I’m good at this. That’s when I first got the idea to open Eye Candy. The real money’s in the liquor, not the tips.”
“What did your parents think about that?”
It wasn’t their first fight over her life choices. It wasn’t the last either. “Imagine what you’d think a pastor and his wife would think of their daughter working as a cocktail waitress, then take that to a factor of ten.”
Despite his careful attention to the garnishes he was prepping, he seemed to be listening with his entire body. “Tips that good must have come in handy when it came time to buy this place,” he said, still focused on the rapidly diminishing pile of limes.
“They did.” So did a degree in finance with a minor in math, and some savvy insider investment advice given along with a ten from some of Lancaster’s leading investment bankers when she brought them a cognac with a smile. They thought she was cute, in her little skirts and frilly tights, asking questions about the stock market and investment strategies, like an East Side girl could make something of herself.
This East Side girl would, and she’d bring the East Side with her when she did.
“Done?” he asked when she set down her knife. At her nod he gathered the empty boxes and took them to the storeroom while she dumped the final lemon slices into the last plastic tub and distributed them to each section of the bar. A moment later Chad reappeared. He slid her a look under thick reddish lashes as he took in her casual position, braced against the bar. “Taking a break?” he asked as he washed his hands.
“Getting help with prep certainly frees up some time,” she answered.
“Any time,” he said.
She reached for an orange, rolled it between her palms, then dug her blunt-cut fingernails into the rind, peeling away chunks to expose the juicy fruit underneath. The tangy scent rose into the charged air between them, mixing with the musky heat rising from his skin while he washed fruit residue from his hands. Eve realized he’d cut the stinging lemons without a wince or a complaint.
“This is a tough neighborhood. How did you decide to buy this building?”
“A good friend offered me the building for the right price. You know, usually I can’t get a word in edgewise with guys. Tell me something about you.”
“Nothing interesting about me, boss.”
“You’re working this tall, dark, and mysterious thing pretty hard,” she said. “Conversation goes both ways. Why bartending?”
He shrugged. “Desk jobs expect you to be there at eight a.m., caffeinated and ready to work. I’m not a morning person,” he said as he crossed the small distance between them and braced his hip on the counter.