CHARLIE
“Oh. My. God.” Mia’s arm looped through mine the moment we cleared the hotel doors, her voice dropping to an excited whisper. “Tell me everything!”
“It’s nothing, he’s just some guy,” I said, though we both knew that was a lie. I fought the urge to look back as we walked toward the parking lot.
“Just some guy?” Mia’s incredulous tone made a passing valet glance our way. “Charlie, that was not ‘just some guy.’ That was sex on a stick in a custom suit who couldn’t take his eyes off you.”
“He saved me from a roofied drink. I was being polite.”
“Polite doesn’t explain why you agreed to dinner tomorrow.”
I rolled my eyes. “We’re meeting in a public place to talk about underwater engineering. It’s practically a business meeting.”
“Right. And I’m the Queen of England.” She squeezed my arm. “Did you see how he looked at you? Or how he basically told Jason to get lost?”
She was so right. And I had loved it. Why, I had no idea. But Asher putting his shoulders back, frowning at Jason—shivers ran up my spine at the memory.
And God, the man was gorgeous. Even thinking about him now made my pulse quicken. What I kept coming back to wasn’t the obvious things—the jaw, the suit, the way the room had quietly reorganized itself around him. It was his hands. Still on the bar while everything else about him was controlled stillness, and then moving when he talked, once, a single decisive gesture when he’d described what he built. I’d noticed that. I wished I hadn’t.
Jason had definitely gotten the message that he was outclassed.
I couldn’t help it—I glanced back at the hotel entrance. Through the glass doors, I could see Asher still standing there, watching me. Our eyes met. I turned away first.
“So, tall, dark, and loaded didn’t give you his last name, huh?” Mia dug through her purse for her keys.
“No. Just Asher.”
“Mysterious.” Mia waggled her eyebrows. “Very sexy spy-movie vibe.”
“You think everything’s sexy.” I leaned against her car while she unlocked it.
Mia’s voice turned serious. “When was the last time you felt enough of a spark with someone to even consider a date?”
I sighed. “That’s not the point.”
“It’s exactly the point. You spend all your time in that lab. You barely even leave to sleep.” She reached over and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “You deserve one nice dinner with a hot guy who actually understands what you do for a living.”
“We’ll see if he actually understands it tomorrow night.” I shrugged. “For all I know, he builds bird houses and was just humoring me.”
Mia laughed. “Bird houses? That man builds empires, not bird houses.”
“How would you know?”
“I plan events for a living, Charlie. I’ve seen power like that before. Trust me—he’s someone.”
She gave me a quick hug. “Wear the navy dress. The one with the buttons.”
I rolled my eyes but waved as she drove off, then headed to my cranky Toyota, hoping it would cooperate and not decide to die on me.
The drive home was mostly uneventful, except for a dark sedan that sat on my bumper through three lights and two turns. When I took a deliberate detour down a side street lined with strip malls, it followed. My heart rate spiked. I was reaching for my phone when the sedan’s blinker came on and it veered right at the next intersection. False alarm. Probably. But it wasn’t the first time I’d felt watched lately—last week, a man had been staring at me from across the street when I left the lab, and my keys had turned up under my desk when I’d left them on the hook. I shook it off and kept driving.
My apartment was exactly as I’d left it—books stacked on the coffee table, half-empty mug of yesterday’s coffee by the sink, and a folded pile of laundry on the sofa I hadn’t had time to put away. I showered, nuked leftover Thai food, and ate standing at the counter while Mia’s texts rolled in.
Mia: So? Are you going tomorrow or chickening out?
Charlie: I don’t know. Is it crazy that I’m actually thinking about it?
Mia: It’s crazy that you’re QUESTIONING it. Wear the navy dress. THE BUTTONS, CHARLIE.
