found herself smiling in return. “You’re really not mad?”
“It’s a shirt. No big deal.” He offered her his hand. “I’m Rhys, by the way.”
“Charlie,” she said, shaking his hand. His fingers were long and strong, the nails beautifully manicured.
“Short for Charlotte?”
She nodded. “But I’ve always been Charlie.”
He was still holding her hand. She knew she should pull it free, but she was too busy staring into his face.
“Why don’t you join me and my friends.”
She glanced over his shoulder and realized that their whole interaction was being witnessed by a group of eight people.
She threw them a self-conscious smile. “I can’t. I’m having friend with my dinner,” she said. Then she registered what she’d said. “I mean, I’m having dinner with my friend.”
His eyes crinkled at the corners as his smile deepened. Normally she’d be embarrassed by her gaucheness, but there was something about the way he looked at her that short-circuited all her usual responses.
“Right. He’s probably going to come after me with an elephant gun if I hold you up much longer, huh?”
“It’s a she. And she’s probably thinking I’ve twisted my ankle in these shoes. Which I almost did.”
“Then I’ll let you go,” he said, his fingers sliding from hers. “But maybe I’ll see you later. We’re going to be here awhile.”
She had no idea what to say to the blatant invitation in his eyes. She’d never had a man look at her like that in her life. Although she could definitely get used to it, especially if they all had intense dark eyes and olive skin and broad, strong chests.
“Um. Maybe.” She took a step backward. “Sorry about your shirt. Again.”
“Forget about it. I already have.”
She nodded and smiled and finally forced herself to walk away from the magnetic pull of his regard.
“Wow,” she whispered to herself as she wove through the crowd.
So that was what it was like to be the absolute focus of a handsome, devastating man’s attention. Heady, a little overwhelming and a lot exciting.
She glanced over her shoulder as she stepped down into the reception area. Her eyes met his and she realized he’d been watching her walk away. As though he couldn’t take his eyes off her.
She lifted her hand and gave him the smallest of finger waves. He nodded his head slightly in acknowledgment. The urge to walk back and take him up on his offer of a drink was almost impossible to ignore.
Um, hello? Remember Gina? Earth calling Charlie…
Charlie forced herself to keep moving. The more distance she put between herself and Rhys-the-super-hot, the more sane she felt. For a moment there, she’d bought into Gina’s fantasy of who she was. Which was plain crazy.
“There you are,” Gina said as Charlie returned to the table. “I was about to send out a Saint Bernard with a little barrel of whiskey strapped to his neck. What happened to you?”
“I nearly broke my ankle in these shoes of yours, for starters,” Charlie said. “Plus, I gave some poor guy a bath in his own wine.”
“No way!”
“Way.”
Gina pressed her fingers to her mouth to stop herself from laughing.
“Go ahead and laugh,” Charlie said resignedly.
“Give me your tally first. How many men looked at you?”
Charlie turned her head and gazed along the length of the restaurant. She could see the bar from here, but not Rhys’s dark head. “Um, I’m not sure. I lost count,” she said distractedly.
“You lost count. I rest my case.”
The waiter arrived with their meals before Charlie could respond. She used the interruption to change the subject.
The champagne kept flowing as they ate, although Charlie was old enough and wise enough not to drink too much. Still, there was no denying that she was feeling very relaxed by the time she and Gina had polished off a dessert platter.
“Okay. Where to next?” Gina said as she licked the last smear of chocolate sauce off her spoon.
Charlie let her gaze slide to the bar again. Was Rhys still there? And if he was, would he still want to buy her a drink? Or had he already met some other non-wine-spilling woman who knew how to respond when a handsome man looked at her with approval?
“What about a drink at the bar?” she heard herself say.
Gina shrugged. “Sure, babe. It’s your night. Let’s go.”
What are you doing? What do you think is going to happen if you go to the bar? Have you forgotten who you are?
She hadn’t. Not really. She’d always been a realist, pragmatic and practical to her bones. But thanks to copious quantities of good champagne and her borrowed clothes, she was buzzing with a sense of possibility tonight. As Gina had said earlier, this was the first day of the rest of her life.
Everything was in flux—including, maybe, her sense of who she was. Because hadn’t Gina proven to her that maybe her sense of self was a little outdated or skewed? Hadn’t Rhys-the-sexy looked at her as though she was a morsel he wanted to devour? Hadn’t nearly two dozen men eyed her with masculine approval when she’d walked past?
You’ve been drinking. You should walk out of here right now and go home and eat some crackers and drink a whole lot of water.
The voice was probably right. It had saved her from making a lot of bad decisions in her life, that voice. But she didn’t want to listen tonight. She wanted more of the feeling she’d experienced when she’d caught Rhys tracking her every move with his dark, heated gaze. For that precious handful of seconds she had felt powerful and knowing and invincible and incredibly sexy.
It might be an illusion—maybe even a delusion—but she wanted more of it. Even if it meant she was setting herself up to fail spectacularly.
RHYS TOOK A PULL from his beer, an ear tuned to the debate Greg was having with Brett, one of their engineers, while his gaze roamed the crowded bar.
She hadn’t come back. He’d been hoping she would, but it had been more than an hour since the mysterious and sexy Charlie had sashayed her way to her table. Which probably meant he should put her out of his mind.
Easier said than done. It had been a long time since he’d felt such an instant attraction to a woman. Certainly a woman he’d met in a bar. He’d done his fair share of hound-dogging in his early twenties, but it had been years since he’d prowled a bar in the hope of meeting someone. Not that that was what he was doing tonight, of course—they were here to celebrate. But there was no denying the instinctive, primal pull he’d felt when staring into Charlie’s cinnamon-brown eyes. An attraction that had only intensified when he checked out the rest of her.
He’d never had a “type” of woman he was attracted to—he preferred to think of himself as an equal-opportunity admirer of the opposite sex—but there was something about Charlie’s lithe, willowy body that really worked for him. Especially in that clingy, sexy top and pants she was wearing.
Give it up, man. She’s gone home.
He gave the bar one last scan before focusing fully on Greg and Brett. Something caught the very edge of his vision and he did a double take—and grinned.
She was standing at the bar with a short, blonde woman. He watched as they had an intense discussion that involved the other woman pushing