I tilt my head. “You looking for someone?”
She doesn’t answer that. Her eyes land on my tux, then my face, then they’re done with me. “A couple of people, but I’m late.”
“Seems to me you’re right on time,” I say. “Antonio.” I hold my hand out and wait.
With reluctance, she takes it. “Elsa.”
Her hand is cool in mine, grip firm. No fluttering fingers, no lingering squeeze.
“Elsa,” I repeat, letting the name sit on my tongue like I’m deciding whether it suits her. It does. It sounds sharp. It sounds like it doesn’t tolerate nonsense.
I keep holding her hand for a beat longer than necessary, not enough to be rude, enough to be noticed. “You have a talent for walking into a room and making everyone forget what they were saying.”
Her gaze snaps back to mine, flat and unimpressed. “That’s not a talent. That’s other people being easily distracted.”
I laugh, low, because that answer is better than a smile. “Fair. Then let me rephrase. You have a talent for not caring who’s watching.”
“I care,” she says, and it’s quick, almost automatic. Then she corrects herself with a tiny shift of her chin. “I just don’t perform.”
Something in my chest tightens, a little twinge of recognition. I let my hand fall away and angle my body so I’m not blocking her view of the room. No trap. No corner. Just presence.
“So you’re late,” I say, nodding toward the direction she’d been looking. “Do you want help finding your people?”
Her eyes take another sweep of the room. “If they were here, I’d have seen them by now. I’m not exactly short. Seems they left.”
“Seems they did,” I say, like it’s mildly funny and not a problem at all.
Her eyes cut back to mine. “It isn’t funny.”
“I know,” I answer, still smiling. “That’s why I’m smiling for both of us.”
A breath leaves her nose—almost a laugh, almost not. “You always talk like this?”
“Only when I’m trying to convince a beautiful stranger not to bolt.”
Her eyes narrow, but it isn’t anger. It’s assessment, like she’s deciding whether I’m harmless or simply well-practiced.
“Bold,” she says, deadpan. “You don’t even know me.”
“That’s the best part,” I reply. “If I knew you, I’d have to behave.”
Her lips press together, fighting something. Amusement, maybe. Or the urge to tell me to go away. “I don’t bolt,” she says. “I leave when I’m done.”
I tilt my head, conceding the correction as if it matters. “Then let me earn a few minutes before you’re done.”
She looks past me again, scanning the room with that same cool focus, then back to my face like she’s realized I’m not going to move unless she tells me to. “I’m not here for a few minutes,” she says. “I’m here because I have to be. And if there’s no reason for me to be here, I should leave.”
“I’m hurt that you don’t consider me a good reason to be here,” I say, hand drifting to my chest in a performance I don’t even bother to sell as sincere.
She watches me like she’s watching a man try to charm a bank teller into ignoring an overdraft. “You’ll live.”
“Probably,” I concede. “But since you’re trapped here anyway, you might as well get something useful out of it.”
Her brow lifts a fraction. “Useful.”
“Free drinks,” I say. “Good conversation. When’s the last time you actually had a good conversation?”
“And you consider yourself that good of a conversationalist?”
