“How?”
“Go out with me. Nobody knows who we are here. I’m just a businessman from Boston and you’re the saucy serving wench who struck my fancy.”
The surprised laughter bubbled up before she could stop it. “Serving wench? Buddy, if I strike you, it ain’t gonna be in your fancy.”
“Dinner. Someplace nice.”
He was serious. After the very public humiliation she’d caused him, followed by five years of radio silence, he was inviting her on a date? “Sam, that’s just…not a good idea.”
He crossed his arms and gave her a look meant to intimidate grown men into caving to his terms, but it hadn’t worked when her father gave it and it didn’t work now.
“Now, Sam, don’t tell me you’ve been pining for me this whole time.” The lines of his face hardened, making her think she might have actually hurt him. “Look, I—”
“Dinner with me or your friends find out you’re a fraud.”
He said it so coldly she knew he meant it. “Don’t you think blackmail’s beneath you?”
“Nothing’s beneath me when I want something.”
A shiver tickled her spine as his gaze bored into hers, making it very clear she was the thing he wanted. And she realized, with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, that part of her was thrilled to be forced into having dinner with him. Not that she’d let him know that. “When?”
“Soon. On a night you don’t work late.”
She didn’t want him to know when she worked late and when she didn’t. But she also didn’t want him talking to her co-workers. Or Kevin. “Maybe.”
He smiled—no, smirked, the bastard—and went out the door, leaving her confused, off-kilter and maybe just a little excited.
Chapter Six
The first thing Kevin saw the following night when he finally escaped the paperwork hell that was his office was Beth. She was sitting at the quiet end of the bar where nobody liked to sit because you had to crane your neck to see the television, picking at the last of her fries.
She looked beat. “Hey, you.”
When she looked up at him, he saw he was right. The exhaustion showed in her eyes the most. “Hey. What’s the secret to your cheeseburgers?”
“It’s a secret.”
That got a smile. “I could have eaten at the restaurant but I was serving a cheeseburger and thinking to myself it didn’t look anywhere near as good as a Jasper’s cheeseburger and…here I am. This big, empty space on my plate is where the burger sat for about five seconds.”
“How was work?”
“Slow.” She shrugged, but he could see how it was weighing on her. “They keep telling me it picks up as we get closer to Christmas shopping time. We’ll see.”
“You want a refill on your soda?”
“No thanks. I’m exhausted. Need to get my check and head upstairs.”
“What check?”
“For my cheeseburger. The bill?”
Leaning his elbows on the edge of the counter, he shook his head. “We’re not taking your money.”
He hadn’t expected the way her mouth got all tight and her cheeks flushed red. “I can pay for my dinner, Kevin.”
“I know you can, but you’re feeding my kid. I’m not charging my own child to eat. What kind of father would I be?” He gave her his best Kowalski grin—the one with the sparkling eyes and the dimples. “You can come in here and get your fabulous, one-of-a-kind Jasper’s cheeseburger every night.”
She was about to argue with him—he could see it on her face—but Randy happened by and tossed a napkin next to Kevin. Even in the dim lighting the bright magenta lipstick kiss shone like a beacon. Dammit.
Beth was not only stubborn, but she was fast and she snatched it up before he could. “I have whipped cream and cherry lube…want to make a sundae?”
Even though the words weren’t hers, hearing them come out of Beth’s mouth triggered a craving for ice cream so strong his mouth watered. Other parts of his body reacted, too, and he was very thankful he was standing on the other side of the bar.
“I never call them,” he told her.
“Them? You get these a lot?”
He gestured over his shoulder. “There’s a basket. I get a few.”
She tossed the napkin at him with a snort of disgust. “A basket. Of course you save them.”
“Paulie and the rest of the staff get a kick out of reading them. I’ve never called a napkin kisser and you can go look in the office and in my apartment and you won’t find a single phone number written in lipstick on a napkin.”
She looked doubtful, not that he could blame her. “When was your last serious relationship, and I don’t mean with the women who kiss your napkins?”
And there it was. The only thing he didn’t like talking about and there was no way to get out of it. More privacy would have been nice, but at least nobody was close enough to eavesdrop. “My last serious relationship would have been my marriage.”
She doodled in the condensation on her glass. “You were married?”