You ever get pulled from your driving job to star in a commercial with a man too hot to pretend with?
Do you ever worry you’re getting in over your head? No, ma’am? Right. Just me again.
Thirty minutes later the car slowed. I looked out to see a restaurant with a line stretching down the block. Everyone waiting was dressed to the nines—cocktail dresses and suits and the kind of casual wealth that came from never having to check price tags.
My heart sank. I was wearing jeans, a sweater, and a hat covering my disaster hair. I looked like someone’s nanny, not someone who belonged at whatever exclusive establishment this was.
“I think there’s been a mistake,” I started to say, but the driver was already getting out and opening my door.
Another man in a suit appeared beside the car. “Miss Lavin? Please, come this way.”
“I’m not really dressed for this,” I murmured.
“You’re perfect. Come.”
He walked away and I had no choice but to follow. My face burned as we walked past the line of people waiting to get in. I could feel their eyes on me, judging me and wondering who the fuck is this bitch?
From how I was dressed, they probably thought I was there to fix a clogged toilet or fish a dead rodent from the walls. Surely, someone like me couldn’t be dining here this evening. I couldn’tblame them if they thought that. I was thinking the exact same thing.
The man led me through a discreet door, not the main entrance. That tracked. Trash through the back. I chuckled and shook my head, knowing I was getting dramatic. Dane had asked me to be there and that was all that mattered.
We walked into a space that made my breath catch. It was a large dining area with very few tables. Maybe ten in total, all perfectly spaced to give each group privacy. Each separate area felt intimate, romantic. The lighting was warm and golden, and there was a full bar along one wall where a bartender—or more likely a mixologist—was crafting something that looked more like art than a drink. He used herbs, a mystery powder, and what might have been a unicorn horn. Or maybe ginger. The bar area was dim.
This wasn’t just exclusive. This wasexclusiveexclusive. The kind of place that didn’t advertise because it wasn’t for regular people. You didn’t get to walk in unless you were someone or pretending to be someone’s girlfriend. Whether I belonged or not, I bet this place had a killer dessert menu.
There, at a corner table with a perfect view of the entire space, was Dane, looking like a delicious slice of rhubarb pie, begging to be devoured.
Hmm. I might be hungrier than I thought. Maybe I’ll get an appetizer too. Something light.
Dane was looking at his phone, swirling a glass of amber liquid. He looked completely at ease in this space in a way I absolutely did not, with his dark pants and white shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
Then he looked at me in the golden light.
Our eyes met across the restaurant and locked in, like neither of us could look away. Then his gaze traveled from my eyes to mycoat to my boots and back up again. The way he was looking at me made me feel like I was standing there naked.
He set down his phone and stood, and suddenly he was walking toward me, and I forgot how to breathe.
“Ina,” he said when he reached me, and his voice was softer than it had been on the phone. “You made it.”
“I told you I would.”
He gestured at my coat. “Let me take that.”
I let him help me out of my coat and hat, hyperaware of the way his fingers brushed my shoulders, the way he handed both items to the suited man who escorted me in.
Dane’s hand found the small of my back, just like in the commercial, and guided me through the restaurant. I was acutely aware of every eye on us, every whispered conversation that paused as we passed.
When we reached the table, he pulled out my chair, like a proper gentleman. I sank into it, feeling lightheaded. If it was a dream, I hoped I wouldn’t wake up any time soon.
Dane settled into his own chair across from me, and within seconds a server appeared with a glass of red wine and set it in front of me.
“I hope you like red,” Dane said, watching me over the rim of his whiskey glass. “If not, they have all kinds of drinks. It’s one of their specialties.”
I took a sip and it was like silk. “It’s amazing,” I managed. “Thank you.”
“Good.”
“So,” I said, taking another sip of wine for courage. It took real effort not to smack my lips. “This is the first date?”
