I leveled a glare at him that had zero heat in it. “Rude.”
He didn’t even react. “Another champagne?”
Squinting at the little board on the bar, I shook my head. “One of those elderflower and gin things.”
He moved with the quiet kind of confidence that didn’t ask for attention but somehow demanded it anyway.
Broad shoulders, long legs, the roll of muscle beneath his shirt as he crossed the lounge like he belonged to it, or more likely, the other way around.
I shifted in my seat as I tracked him, hyper aware of how short the stupid yellow sundress really was.
He leaned an elbow onto the counter, his posture easy and relaxed.
Gestured toward the bartender, all calm and unrehearsed confidence, and I couldn’t help but glare a little.
He was annoyingly composed.
Probably listened to alpha-male mantras like podcasts.
Probably did yoga and stock market investments at the same time on a lazy Tuesday.
It didn’t take him long. Barely two minutes had passed before he was walking back, highball glass in one hand and somethingdelicate in the other, like he somehow trusted I wasn’t going to break something else.
He handed it to me with a little nod. “Yourelderflower and gin thing,” he drawled.
My fingers just barely brushing against his.
I tried not to think about what that did to me so I glanced down at the glass instead.
It tasted exactly like what I needed to get through this conversation and however long it would take to actually get on board and lock myself in my private seat.
“So,” he said, sinking back into his seat with his glass of amber liquid in hand. “Flying solo on a couple's trip. That’s bold.”
“I didn’t say it was a couple's trip,” I shot back over the rim of my glass.
He shrugged. “You said Amalfi. You saidex. And I’m pretty sure you said you kept the vacation, so I made a logical leap.”
I narrowed my eyes at him and dodged the conversation entirely. “You heading to Italy for business or pleasure?”
I hated the word as soon as it came out.
Pleasure.
His head tilted left and right, weighing it up.
“Bit of both. Mostly business,” he said, leaning forward a little and dropping his voice before continuing, “but I won’t lie and say I don’t enjoy the pleasure part more.”
I snorted into my glass. “Christ.”
The confidence in him was annoyingly overwhelming.
Not arrogance, though he was definitely cocky, but he moved and spoke like he’d earned the right to say what he wanted.
Like the world had bent enough times for him that he didn’t feel a need to fake it.
Subject change.
Now. Before he says something else.
