“Okay.” She set it down on the table by her plate. “Are you sure you’re not James Bond or something?” She joked casually, though her alarm bells were ringing from that business card.
“No, I’m not James Bond.” He gave a lopsided grin, adorable and sexy as hell – almost diffusing her alarms. “Though like James Bond, my work does keep me traveling. I rarely get to go home to Morocco and when I do, it is with great relief. And you?” He queried, sipping his wine. “You were born in Morocco but you live here – Seattle? And you work as a bartender?”
“Yes.” Layla nodded vaguely, keeping her information as clean of personal details as possible with a man she knew nothing about. “My father was from here, Seattle. Bartending is temporary.”
“Wasfrom here?” His gaze was piercing and Layla balked. Damn, he didn’t miss much.
“My parents are dead. They passed two years ago. It’s a long story.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” But he didn’t give her the usual sappy gaze that most people did when hearing her family was gone. Instead, he cocked his head, watching her with that same intense intelligence in his hot aqua gaze. “You say bartending is temporary. Is there something else that occupies your mind?”
It was a strange way of asking what she wanted to do for a living, but Layla decided it merited a response. “My PhD is in International Studies.”
“Ah. Recently graduated?” He queried again. “Any employment prospects?”
“I’m exploring my options.” Layla lifted a dark eyebrow at him, swirling her wine and getting peeved at his pushing.
“Bullshit.” He gave a low chuckle, those arresting eyes pinning her as a dark smile lifted his lips. “Now you’re the one who’s giving me the run around. Let me guess. You were the shining star of your program, top of your class. Witty, argumentative, opinionated. Dissertation to die for. Gave a speech at graduation. And then you got passed over for that big position – maybe with the United Nations, maybe some consulate – and you’re fuming, pissed. Wondering what your life has been for as you tread water and tend bar. Up to your eyeballs in student debt while barely managing to scrape by with a house full of roommates and no family to fall back on in the scalding competition of Seattle’s urban housing market. How close am I?”
Layla’s cheeks were positively crimson. She could feel them burning her face off as she set her wineglass down, staring at him. Other than the part about having given a speech at graduation, which she had missed after finding out she’d not gotten the position with the United Nations in Paris, he was spot-on.
Scary spot-on.
“How the hell?” She whispered, furious – while also relearning how to breathe.
“It’s part of my job to read people, and a natural gift.” His aqua gaze was penetrating; relentless but also calm. “Too many graduates find themselves in your situation. Excellent credentials, over-achieving, talented, stepping out into a flooded job market that doesn’t want them. A cutthroat world of too much skill and too many people, plus overwhelming expenses and debt. But what if there was another way?”
“Excuseme?” Layla narrowed her eyes, the conversation entirely too personal for her liking now. She crossed her arms, sitting back in her chair and setting her jaw, making him see her rage. “Are you trying to sell me timeshares or something?”
“Not at all!” He laughed, his oceanic eyes sparkling, his own ease with the conversation warring with Layla’s tension. “I’m trying to say there’s a whole world out there that you areperfectlysuited for. A life that could earn you everything you want, based on the credentials you have. If you’re willing.”
“Willing to do what?” Layla darkened, eyeballing him with fury coursing through her veins as she guessed where this was going. “Sleep with you?”
“No.” He smiled and actually blinked a little, his gaze almost embarrassed. “No, gods no.”
“Then what?” Layla’s brows furrowed. He was clearly buttering her up to something, but she still couldn’t place what it was. But that sketchy business card and his cagey dancing around the exact nature of his hotel chain was working her hackles up.
“I’d like to invite you to come work for my hotel.”
He watched her with a level directness, gauging Layla’s reaction. She blinked at him, feeling absolutely hostile even though he was still hot as hell. “Is this some kind of fluff-and-buff Dubai prostitution ring? Because if it is, you are going to get a drink your face and you’ll see my pretty ass walking out that door, stat.” She nodded to the tall glass doors at the front of the restaurant. “My life sucks, but it doesn’t suck as bad as that. No fucking thank you.”
He sat back, watching her, something mysterious settling about him as he sipped his wine. Layla realized he’d hesitated when she asked if it was prostitution. She shook her head, an incredulous look taking her face as a deep fury raged through her chest with an intense heat like she might burn from the inside out. Lifting her napkin from her lap, Layla slapped it to the table and pushed up out of her chair.
She was two steps into ditching his ass and this whole damn cluster-fuck, when he reached out, snagging her wrist. An intense sensation shivered all the way through Layla’s body and it was all she could do to not throw her head back in ecstasy at his touch. Her body shuddered, flaring with passion so hard it left her breath heaving as a small sound escaped her lips. Heat flushed Layla’s face; both from embarrassment and from her response.
She wanted him; bad. As his fingertips brushed the inside of her wrist where the cuff had burned her, she felt a thrill sear up her arm – deep into her chest and down into her groin. Like molten gold had been poured through her veins, it was ecstatic, and a breath left Layla’s lips as she stared at him, incredulous. His aqua eyes flared, the gold in them bright as a shudder passed through him also.
Whatever was happening between them wasn’t just her, and as Layla turned to face him he rose from his seat, his fingers still at her wrist. Smoothing a circle on her inner wrist with his thumb, he gazed down, Layla staring up into his incredible molten eyes. They were so hot they could have burned the Sahara, a match to his searing touch at her wrist, and she realized they were breathing together – sharing breath, matching each other sip for sip.
“No.” He spoke at last, something intense in his visage. “It’s not prostitution.”
“You hesitated.” Layla breathed, feeling his closeness, wanting it and not knowing what the hell was going on.
“I did.” He nodded, something dire in his gaze. “Please sit, and I’ll explain.”
Layla was one step from bolting or two steps from retaking her seat. The solid heat of his nearness pressed her like a hand, stroking an amazing, shivering sensation through her. It was so strong she shuddered again, her eyelashes fluttering involuntarily. Though she flushed with embarrassment that he had such an effect on her, she saw an answering tremor wrack him.
And an answering flutter of his own black-lashed eyes.
