“Why would I need to go to the bar? They have table service.”
Violet exhaled loudly. “I said find a reason. It doesn’t matter what it is. Just go to the bar and order an unusual drink.” She paused, her mouth slightly open as if she were midway through a word. “A French 75.”
“That’s a cocktail?” It sounded more like a paint color or a dog breed.
“A French 75 is the cocktail. How do you live in New York City and not know these things?” she asked. “It’s not on the menu, which makes you look cool and sophisticated. And it’s a talking point.”
“So, I go to the bar, order the drink. And then what? I ask him to fuck me?”
“Shhh, this is a nice place,” Violet said giggling. “Just go over, stand close to him. Be open to it. Maybe glance sideways at him. In that dress, it’s all you’ll have to do.”
I glanced down at my dress. It was my red one. I’d worn it for work. It couldn’t be that sexy.
“Maybe after I finish my drink.”
Violet rolled her eyes. “Maybe my ass. You’ll never do it.”
I kept being told what I wouldn’t do. What I wasn’t. By Marcus, by recruitment consultants who’d said I’d never be a finance director after working in treasury, by my brother who said I’d never move to the city.
Well fuck it.
I’d done all those things. I could walk up to a bar and order a damn drink.
“Two French 75s coming right up.” I slid out of the booth and didn’t glance back to see if I’d shocked Violet. I didn’t want to lose my nerve. It wasn’t like I had to talk to the guy at the bar. If anything, it would be better if I didn’t. I could prove to Violet that picking up a man wasn’t as easy as she thought it was.
My red patent heels clipped on the wooden parquet floor, out of sync with the heartbeat pounding in my chest. The guy Violet had pointed out was sitting at the corner of the bar, so rather than slide in next to him, I went to the corner, that way I could check to make sure it wasn’t just his profile that was handsome.
I placed my hands flat on the shiny mahogany, deliberately not looking to my right. The barman wasn’t behind the bar.
“I think he went out back for a second,” the handsome guy said with an accent I couldn’t place. I glanced over. Nope, his profile wasn’t the only thing handsome about him. As soon as I looked at him, it was as if my eyes were glued to his. He grinned. “Hi.”
I sucked in a breath and smiled, curling my fingers under my hands and squeezing my nails into my palms. “Hi.” His eyes, a deep chocolate brown, watched me as if I was the only thing in the room.
“Ryder,” he said.
“Oh. Scarlett.” I nodded, still smiling. “My name that is. I mean, my name is Scarlett.”
Get it the fuck together, Scarlett. He’s just a man.
Except, he wasn’t just anything. He certainly didn’t look like any man I’d ever met. He looked like a movie star. Even sitting down, I could tell he was tall—taller than Marcus who stood at five eleven. His skin was tan and his hair a shiny chestnut brown. One large hand gripped his glass and the other stroked down his jaw.
He raised his eyebrows. “Scarlett? As in O’Hara?”
“No, as in King.”
The corners of his lips curled up into a half smile and he nodded. “Scarlett King. I like that.”
I like that, I repeated in my head, trying to sound like he did. And then I got it. He was British.
His full, pouting lips.
His almost smile.
His accent.
Wow.
If either Peter or Andrew had been like this guy, I wasn’t sure I would have been able to stop myself from sleeping with them, whatever my concerns. But they weren’t. They hadn’t made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Hadn’t gotten me to push my shoulders back and my chest forward. Hadn’t made me think about what they’d look like naked.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” a man said to my left. I tried to turn my gaze back to the bartender, but Ryder had captured it.
“Scarlett and her friend over there would like a drink. Put it on my bill,” Ryder said.
“That’s a bit risky. What if I said I was ordering a bottle of Cristal?” I asked.
“I’d say they don’t offer it here but the twenty-o-one Krug is excellent. And put it on my bill.”
I didn’t know how to reply.
“Martin. The Krug,” Ryder said to the barman. He sounded so authoritative. Perhaps it was just the way each word he said was a little clipped because of his accent.
Shit. I didn’t want to look like one of those girls that was just after the most expensive drinks she could get. “Oh, no! You don’t have—I really just came over for a couple cocktails. The same again if you don’t mind,” I told the barman. I’d forgotten the name that Violet had given me.
“You’re turning down Krug?” Ryder asked with a frown.
“Yeah, this way, I can talk to you without you thinking you bought your time.”
Ryder raised his eyebrows. “Now that I can live with. So where shall we start?”
Shit, I had no idea what came next. I’d only gotten as far as ordering a cocktail when talking it through with Violet. He tilted his head slightly and I waited for him to decide. “Tell me what you’re discussing so conspiratorially about over there with your friend,” he said. “You looked like two girls who didn’t want to be interrupted.”
Weren’t we supposed to start with the basics? What I did for work? Did I live in New York? Something in the way he looked at me told me this guy wanted my soul straight out the gate.
“You first,” I said. “Why are you here? Drowning your sorrows? Bad breakup? Lost a trillion dollars?”
He chuckled. “Nothing like that,” he said, taking a sip of his drink. “Trying to keep myself awake so I wake up tomorrow without jet lag. I flew in from London earlier today.”
London. Interesting.
“You’re here on business?” I asked, leaning against the barstool, letting myself relax a little.
“I’m based here and my business is here too. You live in the city?”
I nodded. “So you were just visiting London?”
“Yeah, my grandfather had a fall and so I flew back to check on him.”
I rolled my eyes. What a cheeseball. “You were visiting your sick grandfather?” I stood up and looked to see if our cocktails were ready. “Does any girl believe it when you tell them that?”
He laughed. “You’re right. That sounded like a line. But it’s true. Luckily he’s fine and you haven’t hurt my feelings.” I didn’t know if he was playing with me.
“Well, if your grandfather is sick, then I’m sorry.”
His eyes seemed to sparkle as he watched me, giving me lots of time to finish what I was thinking. “Thank you,” he said finally. “If I was wanting to be cheesy, I’d ask you to tell me something about yourself that no one else knows.”