He’s about to tip back the last of his Scotch when a hand lands, featherlight, against his shoulder, and an undeniably female voice says, “Is this seat taken?”
Malcolm looks up.
The first thing he sees is her hair. A sunny shade of blonde he assumes—wrongly, as it turns out—is both natural and permanent. Of course, later when she asks him what he noticed first, he’ll lie and say it was her eyes—that’s what women want to hear—even though the truth is that her eyes, pretty as they are, registered last, after her perfect breasts, the way her black dress hugged her waist, and the fact that she smelled like French vanilla.
But now he gestures at the stool beside him and says, “All yours.”
As she peers around for a bartender, he puts her at twenty-five, maybe a youthful thirty. Younger than he is—thank god for that—but not as young as the college students that sometimes flirt with him. The ones that hang on his salt-and-pepper looks (gray strikes the Buchanan men early) and romanticize the age gap in a way that he, admittedly, does little to dissuade.
When it’s clear that the hotel bartender has retired for the night, she flashes Malcolm a smirk and, much to his surprise and delight, leans across the vacant counter and liberates a bottle of red wine and a glass from the other side.
“Don’t tell,” she says, opening the bottle between her knees, in case anyone else is looking. But it is just the two of them.
“I wouldn’t dare.”
She fills her glass and raises it toward him, and he tries to think of something to say, a flirtatious barb or clever toast, but finds himself at a loss for words. A bad thing, for a writer, but it’s late, and he’s one sheet shy of drunk, and in the end, it doesn’t matter.
Sienna beats him to it.
“To secret keepers,” she says, clinking her wineglass against his tumbler. They both take a sip, but as she sets her glass down, her gaze flicks toward his pen.
“Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
Malcolm glances down at the notebook. The last thing he’s written, more than an hour ago, isLike Bond, but cop?So, safe to say, she isn’t interrupting much. He flips the notebook shut. “That’s all right,” he says. “I think I’m finished for the night.”
She settles into her seat. “I’m Sienna.”
“Malcolm,” he says. “Malcolm Buchanan.”
“I know.”
Two small words, and yet, somehow, they are the two sexiest ones anyone has ever said. She blushes and looks down into her glass of wine, adding, “I saw your talk.”
His hope falters. Ah, yes, his talk. On the legacy of British crime. There was a decent crowd, but Malcolm quickly learned that it had very little to do with him, and far more to do with the next two speakers, an agent and an editor. The audience was packed full of hopeful writers, hungry for secrets, shortcuts, anything but the grim truth: When it comes to writing, revising, selling books, there is no way out but through.
“You’re a writer, then?” he asks.
He would have preferred simply an adoring fan, but still. She knows his name.
Sienna bites her lip and wavers. “I write... sometimes,” she says, in that nervous way so many do, when they are starting out, after they’ve put in the time and before they’ve gotten anything out. Whenever writers demur, he wants to shake them, to sayHow can you expect anyone to take you seriously when you won’t show them how?
Instead, he looks her in the eyes, holding her gaze as he says, “If you write, then you’re a writer. Simple as that.”
She smiles. “Then yes, I guess I’m a writer?” Her cheeks blush pinker, and she takes a larger sip of wine.
“No.” Malcolm is getting frustrated. “It’s not a question. Say it like it’s true.”
She straightens on her stool and lifts her chin. “I’m a writer.”
Malcolm smiles. “Good girl.”
Light kindles behind her eyes. They really are quite lovely. A layered blue, like... like... Malcolm fumbles. Description has never been his forte. He usually lets the action and the dialogue speak for him. It’s crime, after all, not poetry.Maybe that’s why your books aren’t selling, hisses a snide voice in his head that sounds like Harry. But he doubts that’s the reason.
She rests an elbow on the counter as Malcolm eyes the last dregs of whisky in his glass. The bottle glints on the far side of the counter, and he finds himself wishing it were in reach. “I read your last book,” she says.
In a moment of rare self-deprecation, Malcolm says, “I fear you might be the only one.” He hates the words as soon as they are out. He had a mentor once who liked to say “Never let them see you sweat.” But Sienna only laughs. A sweet, bright sound.
“Well?” he asks, turning to face her. “Did you like it?”
