Chapter 3
They were seated in a booth. The wine was the color of dark cherries. Sinead had already recognized a popular actor as they made their way to their seats.
Not Charlie Hunnam and not as hot as David, so it really didn’t matter. Still, it was like being in another world.
She shared a crappy two-bedroom with her father, who she sort of loved and sort of hated. She commuted nearly forty minutes to work every day to be a cop in a mostly suburban area, where the most excitement she’d had in the last month had been answering a call of a house alarm gone off.
Now she was here, dressed to fit in at the best restaurant in San Francisco, with the man who had the face of an angel, but who was clearly more devil.
The waiter brought a plate of food they hadn’t ordered, and Sinead looked at David who was studying it.
“Do they use mental telepathy to simply decide what to serve you?”
“I put a request in to let the chef prepare our meal. It’s always best to simply go with the flow. You get the best that way.”
“And you’re a man who always gets the best?”
He smiled. “I always want the best. Frankly, I don’t understand people who don’t. Why have the second best? Or something that’s just okay? We’re on this earth for what I’m learning is a ridiculously short amount of time. Why not try to enjoy it to the utmost?” He took what appeared to be a small toasted baguette topped with something dark and round and popped it into his mouth.
Sinead waited for his reaction, which was to close his eyes and groan softly. A sound that went straight between her legs.
When he opened his eyes again he smiled. “The best. Now your turn.”
Sinead looked at the appetizer. Or was it anamuse bouche? She wasn’t so classless she didn’t know the difference between the two. Still, she had absolutely no idea what was on the piece of toast.
“Don’t be squeamish.”
“I’m not.”
Truly she didn’t know if she was or not. She’d never had the opportunity to know if she could handle haute cuisine, which rarely served things she was used to, like… chicken.
Deciding this night was all about taking risks, she reached for the bite-sized morsel on the plate and popped it into her mouth. An explosion of flavors burst in her mouth and she didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing, until she finally decided it was a good thing.
She smiled. “Yum.”
“Yum, she says. I’m certain the chef will be pleased.”
Sinead reached for the wine and took a sip, and the combination of the two was even more interesting.
“Tell me what you do,” she said as a way to distract herself from watching him eat. In her life she’d never thought watching a man consume food would be sexy. That was until she met him.
“What I do?”
“For work. I mean why are you here? I assume it’s business.”
“Some, yes. I have an interest in a little startup that I thought I would pop over and check up on, and I have some legal matters I need to take care of.”
“You’re not talking like… Google?”
He chuckled. “No. Something far less ambitious I’m afraid. Although perhaps in the future. One never knows. Mostly I’m here because I wanted to run away.”
“What did you want to run away from?”
“Home. Isn’t that what all people want to run away from?”
Sinead didn’t say anything to that. Too many memories would cloud her princess-for-a-day date and she didn’t want them intruding. Instead she waited for him to explain.
Leaning forward, he reached for his wine glass, looking more at it than her. “As I said earlier I’m rather a known commodity back in London. The circle of people I mingle with is fairly small, and I started to feel like… none of them were real. Just bodies with money. Looking for the next thing to buy, the next thing to get high with, the next method of maintaining their youth and beauty. I started to feel like maybe I wasn’t real anymore either. Like I was playing this part, but I had long ago lost who I was as a person. I didn’t care for the feeling. A lucky coincidence my mate rang and needed a place to stay after his holiday—and I thought two birds, one stone. I could check on my interests here and maybe take a break from being myself.”
