I made it a point to go out to dinner alone often. Some might think it odd, but I was a single woman who loved all the amazing food New Orleans had to offer, and not just out of a take-out container. Tonight, I settled on oysters.
Slipping into Royal House, my favorite oyster bar in the city, which happened to be conveniently located near my gallery, I asked the ma?tre d’ for a table for one. There was no shame in it. I didn’t care that most everyone else was paired off or in large groups. Okay, so I did have a tiny twinge of longing to be one half of a couple occasionally—especially, like tonight, when I needed a distraction.
As a hostess led me through the restaurant, I saw a familiar face at the next table over. Detective Hennessy.
I lowered myself into my chair and nodded at him.
“Ms. Noble,” he said. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“Detective.” His presence didn’t surprise me. He worked out of the precinct in the Quarter, and I’d seen him more than once on the street.
He gestured to the empty seat across from him. “Care to join me? Oysters would go down better across from a beautiful woman.”
His compliment stunned me into an awkward silence, and I couldn’t come up with an excuse quickly enough to decline gracefully. Although, did I really want to decline? Maybe he was the distraction I needed tonight.
“Um, sure, I guess. That’d be fine.”
My even more awkward acceptance of his invitation hung between us as I stood and moved to his table. Things swirled further down the path of awkwardness when he rose to pull out my chair and seated me in it. How did I go from intending to eat oysters and distract myself to feeling like I was sort of on a date?
“You didn’t call today and I haven’t heard a thing about the wreck, so I’m assuming you found your employee?” he asked.
Crap. So much for forgetting for even a few minutes.
Rix’s warning played through my mind. No cops. But I was also a terrible liar. Yet technically, the detective’s question was whether I’d found Trinity, and I knew where she was now. It just wasn’t where either she or I wanted her to be.
I decided to say as little as possible, and went with a nod.
Where was a server when I needed one to order a drink? I glanced over my shoulder, but didn’t see one in the vicinity. Time to change the subject.
“So, is this one of your usual haunts?” I asked.
Hennessy smiled and leaned back in his chair, lifting his glass to his lips. He studied me for a moment before answering. “It’s close, the food’s damn good, and I like the atmosphere. Especially tonight.”
“Why tonight?” I smiled back, relaxing into my own chair.
“Isn’t it obvious, Valentina?”
My cheeks heated when I realized I’d walked right into that one. That’s when it occurred to me what was different about tonight. He wasn’t treating me like a victim. He wasn’t handling me with kid gloves the way he had during every interview and subsequent meeting. Hennessy was treating me like a woman he was interested in.
The realization shifted everything in my head, and the distraction I’d so desperately needed presented itself. In a moment, I went from sitting across the table from a cop to ordering a drink with a man. A man who I could acknowledge was incredibly attractive. Around six feet tall, solidly built, with muscles that you couldn’t get sitting behind a desk all day, and short, messy blondish-brown hair that used to be buzzed when I’d first met him. Before I would have said his most striking feature was his bright green eyes, but tonight I was shocked to see tattoos winding up his forearms and disappearing under his rolled-up shirtsleeves. How had I never noticed those before?
And when did I start seeing men as men again and not potential monsters?
I’d been hyperaware of Rix as well, and couldn’t help comparing the men in my mind. Rix’s skin was a few shades darker and also marked with ink, his eyes silver and intense, and then there was the fact that he’d given me his word that he’d get Trinity home safe.
Yanking myself away from the thoughts of Rix, I refocused on Hennessy across the table. He did make for a heck of a distraction. And I still have no idea what his first name is.
Grabbing my napkin and shaking it out, I waited for a break in our conversation about what type of oysters we planned to order.
“I feel stupid asking this question after so long, but what exactly is your first name? I can’t believe I don’t know it. I’m assuming it’s not Detective.”
Hennessy laughed, the sound deep and rich and . . . sexy, if I was being honest. When he finished, he smiled at me and answered, “Rhett. My mother has always been a junkie for the classics.”
Rhett Hennessy. Yep, it was a good name.
“Do you have siblings?”
Rhett nodded and the ease in his features vanished. “Two brothers, one older and one younger. I had another brother, the oldest of all of us, but he was killed in the line of duty last year. He was on the force too.”