Chapter 2 Hannah
Hannah
“You better make that Manhattan perfect.” The crisp instruction came from the other side of the bar. Great, another pretentious bro who wanted to mansplain cocktails, even though I’d been mixing them since I was underage. Hell, I started working at this bar under the table before I got my period.
If Donnelly’s had been open, I’d pretend I couldn’t hear him over the crowd always filling the barstools, but Uncle Mike had asked me to come in early for some unexpected event, so I was restocking before dinner service.
I turned slowly to see a thirty-something guy whose dark hair was so heavily styled, the cast looked like a Lego helmet.
He wore a quarter-zip sweater over his button down and tie—expensive materials but trying to seem casual, like he’d googled “how poor people dress upstate,” then, after seeing the initial results, added, “no flannel allowed.”
“I know how to make a Manhattan,” I grumbled.
“I didn’t mean to imply…” From behind his glasses, his brown eyes met mine, blinking twice before his pale cheeks flushed a soft rose.
He lifted his chin to the redheaded woman pacing on the stage as the piano technician tightened another string.
I’d just approached her to ask if she needed a drink, because she looked like she could use something to take the edge off.
“She ordered a bourbon Manhattan, right? But when she gets nervous, she forgets that she prefers dry vermouth.”
Oh. He meant ‘perfect,’ as in a 50-50 mix of sweet and dry vermouth, not an indictment on my mixology skills.
Still, I wasn’t thrilled about this bougie Wall Street type correcting a woman’s drink order.
Especially when that woman was Victoria Blackstone, a woman infamous for her exacting standards—and cutting remarks when people failed to meet them.
I crossed my arms. “And you expect me to override her request?”
“I understand if you’d prefer not to,” his gaze dipped to my chest to read my nametag, lingering on my cleavage for an admirably short millisecond, “Hannah. But for six years, I’ve managed every detail of her life.
” He tipped the stylus of his rollerball pen at the newly delivered piano.
“When she told me yesterday to procure a piano, I knew she’d want a Steinway but would settle for a Yamaha.
I knew she’d want a grand piano for the sound quality, but since your bar has limited stage space, I talked her into an upright.
” He wiped a speck of dust off the bar then put down a slate-gray notebook with corners softened by use.
“And I know that she ordered a bourbon Manhattan, but she won’t finish it if you only use sweet vermouth. ”
I bristled with annoyance… and something else it took a moment to pinpoint: jealousy. How would it feel to have somebody know my preferences that intimately, to take care of me without needing to be asked?
Then again, based on last month’s Forbes article listing her net worth, Victoria probably paid him handsomely to know everything… and clean up her messes. Just like all the corporate executives I’d worked for who thought the rules didn’t apply to them.
I nodded at the notebook. “Does your checklist include ‘correct a woman’s request’?”
His cheeks flushed again, highlighting a constellation of freckles.
He tugged the ribbon bookmark, allowing the notebook to lay flush against the bar, and spun it around so I could read.
The extensive list was in impossibly neat handwriting: sourcing the piano, confirming delivery, booking a piano tuner. He tapped a checklist item:
? Order perfect bourbon Manhattan, Deadline: 4pm
I glanced at the clock: 3:48. “You’re early.”
“You weren't a part of my plan,” he said with a soft smile, reaching into his pocket. “Tell you what. Start a tab, make them both, I’ll drink what she doesn’t.”
He slid a matte black Amex across the bar. The partners in my old accounting firm waved this card around when courting clients to prove they could spend big… but instead of watching for my reaction, he turned his attention back to his notebook. Guess I wasn’t important enough to impress.
I ran a thumb over his name: Connor McNamara. Sounded familiar, but working at a bar named Donnelly’s, I’d run thousands of Irish-adjacent cards through the system, and the McCarthys and O’Connors and Sullivans all blended together.
When I hesitated, he passed over a California driver’s license. He was thirty-two, a few years younger than me. His photo had fewer worry lines, but his hair was still perfectly coiffed, his smile just as tightly wound.
I pulled down two coupe glasses and reached for the vermouth. “Going to micromanage my brand choices?”
“If I were micromanaging, I would have ordered it with Four Roses, stirred, up, with a Luxardo cherry,” he said as he watched me pour. “But you already expected all that, didn’t you?”
He snapped the notebook shut, slid the pen into the loop, and waved over his boss.
I strained the Manhattans and rubbed my palms on my black pants, drying the condensation from the shaker—because they definitely weren’t clammy because I was meeting one of my idols.
Victoria Blackstone was a New York icon—the youngest woman ever to own a Fortune 100 company. Ice queen CEO, sharp as steel.
She approached wearing the resting bitch face I’d seen plastered on the cover of Forbes and Business Insider. Her silver eyes narrowed at me like a snake sighting a mouse, and I repressed a shiver down my spine. No kidding Connor’s checklist was so precise; I bet she demanded perfection.
Eyes blazing, she snapped, “What if the piano isn't tuned in time?”
Connor didn’t flinch. “Hovering won’t speed him up. Now sit. Relax.” He tapped the stool beside him. “You’ve been playing piano since you were three, you won’t forget in the next,” he glanced at his watch, which had more faces than Big Ben, “one hour, 48 minutes.”
I caught the moment when Victoria’s gaze landed on the two Manhattans. Her lip twitched, expression shifting from annoyed to amused. She perched on the barstool he’d indicated and rubbed her brow. “I forgot about the vermouth thing, didn’t I?”
“Hannah wanted to honor your request, so I asked her to make both. I hope she has time for a taste test before the bar opens,” Connor said with a conspiratorial wink.
I didn’t have time, actually. I should have been refilling the ice, restocking the mixers, preparing the garnishes. But I could hustle harder once the bar opened to make up for lost time. I was too intrigued watching this bitch whisperer work his magic.
“Here’s the classic Manhattan you requested,” I said as I slid it over, hoping she’d prefer that one just to prove him wrong. She took a sip with a tiny upnod. “And the perfect one he ordered.”
She sipped, then let out a relieved exhale. “Goddamn, this is excellent,” she lifted the glass to me, then turned to him. “Can we put her on payroll?”
“I’ll look into it,” he said, and I prepared myself for the ‘See, I was right’ gloating that came so naturally to men like him, but he just opened his notebook to playfully jot down her request.
Victoria placed the glass down on the bar, sloshing it slightly over the edge. “Oh shit,” she said, holding up a trembling hand as I grabbed a rag and quickly mopped it up. Whatever this event was, it had Victoria Blackstone shaking, and Connor managing her nerves with the precision of a surgeon.
When Connor reached for the classic Manhattan glass, Victoria protested, “Don't drink that, Connor. You don’t even like bourbon. Order what you want.”
His expression went blank before he glanced around the Irish pub’s predictable decor. “Guinness, I guess.”
“Connor McNamara, don’t be a stereotype,” Victoria nudged his shoulder. “Come on, order a cocktail. You have no idea how good she is.”
His brow furrowed, and I realized he didn’t know what he liked. The man knew his boss’ perfect drink down to the cherry brand… but couldn’t name his own favorite.
“Can I guess?” I asked.
Victoria perked up. “Yes, please. Take my mind off…” She gestured loosely at the stage, where the technician seemed to be wrapping up. “Talk me through it.”
I inspected the guy who seemed to always be doing the inspections. “I might have gone Old Fashioned, but bourbon’s out,” I told Victoria. “But he’s more complex than a vodka soda. I might do a martini, classic with a lemon twist so he can disinfect the counter in a pinch—”
Victoria barked out a laugh.
Connor’s mouth tilted in a wry smile. “Well, cleanliness is next to godliness.”
“—but I don’t want to lump him in with all the James Bond bros.”
“Agreed,” Victoria said. “What kind of heathen shakes a martini?”
I laughed in agreement. “It has to be gin. You know where you stand with gin.”
It’s a control freak’s liquor of choice, I thought as I reached for three bottles—Hendricks, Martini & Rossi, Campari—and Victoria’s lip rose in silent approval. Connor’s brow lifted as I stirred and strained it into a lowball with a single square of clear ice. Orange twist, not wedge.
He sipped, his tongue sliding out to catch a drop along the rim. “Bitter, but…” Another sip, this one came faster. “Floral?” Then: a small exhale. “That’s… wow. What is it?”
“Negroni,” I said proudly.
He sipped it again, his lip tilting in a grin. “Not too bitter, not too weak. Just right, Goldilocks."
The light filtered in from the front door with the early happy hour patrons. Victoria lifted her perfect Manhattan and slid off her stool, heading towards the kitchen to hide out for her big reveal.
Connor picked up his glass and followed. But before he disappeared into the kitchen, he looked over his shoulder at me, and my heart did a weird dip-and-catch thing.
Then he was out of sight, and I blew out a breath.
No one had looked at me like that since…
Well. Since before everything fell apart.