CHAPTER SIX
“What is this place?” I asked her as we stood outside an actual hole in the wall. Well, not really. It had a door. But one that was so battered that it looked like it had survived an explosion and been welded back into place.
“You’ll see,” Vella said. “I think you’re really going to like it.”
Now I was concerned. She usually wasn’t a very good judge of things I would like.
We’d gone home after work and changed our outfits. She had insisted I wear something low cut and short, and I gave in. I did wear my coat, though, because November in New York was cold.
Vella had put on black pants, a black shirt, and black combat boots, and heavy eye makeup. She had a very “back off” thing going on, but she looked fantastic. I’d reminded her to wear a coat, but she’d ignored me. And predictably enough, within a few minutes of leaving the apartment, she was shivering, although she pretended she was fine.
I didn’t get it.
She had lent me a purple, clingy dress. It wasn’t the kind of thing I’d normally wear, and it surprised me that she actually owned something that wasn’t black.
She yanked on the busted door, and it creaked loudly as she got it open. We stepped inside and I gasped in surprise.
I had expected a tiny room, smoky air, and the general scent of desperation and resignation.
But the outside was deceptive. This bar had high ceilings, was brightly lit, and boasted several television screens all showing the same soccer game. The floors were polished, the countertop of the bar gleaming. There were a lot of people laughing, watching the game. It wasn’t overly crowded, but was definitely bustling. The most surprising thing was that it had a coat check—most bars in New York City didn’t. I gave them my coat. Vella took the ticket and stuck it into her back pocket. I was about to tell her that I could put it in my purse, but she was heading into the main area of the bar. I hurried behind her, tugging on the bottom of my dress.
“Are you going to tell me where we are?” I asked.
“This is a Monterran sports bar!” she announced, spreading her arms wide. “It’s the only place in New York that’s Monterra-themed, and I thought you could hang out here, get the vibe of the place, and use that as part of your research.”
“That’s ...” I trailed off, my mouth hanging open. “Incredibly thoughtful.”
I’d been mistaken. She could find things that I’d like.
“Don’t say that so loud,” she grumbled. “I don’t want anyone to hear you.”
“You don’t have to worry. The secret that you’re a nice person is safe with me,” I said.
She nodded, satisfied. “I also thought it would be the perfect place for you to meet someone. Maybe you’ll find your own ... What’s that king guy’s name again?”
“Nico.”
“Yes. Maybe there’s a Nico here,” she said, and it had me scanning the crowd of people gathered there with sudden interest.
The king of Monterra had a metric ton of paternal cousins who were also princes. They were most likely all in their home country, but some of them had to travel, right? What if one of them had come to New York and was here in this bar at this very moment?
And what would I do if I met an actual Monterran prince?
Honestly, I’d probably make some inarticulate sound and then pass out.
Vella said, “Okay, we need to divide and conquer. I’ll be over at the bar and you go sit at one of those tables.”
I felt my throat seizing. I put my hand on her arm. “Wait, you’re making me try and meet someone alone?” At the very least I had thought she’d be sitting next to me.
“I have faith in you. There, those people are leaving.” She ushered me over to a booth that hadn’t been cleaned yet. It was too big for one person, but Vella was determined.
“You should stay,” I told her, wanting to use her security blanket–ness to keep me feeling safe.
Vella shook her head. “Since I know you’re not going to approach anyone, someone will have to come over and talk to you. And sitting next to me will make you unapproachable.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
She gave me a pointed look. “We both know I’m very good at scaring men off. And the kind of guys who would be brave enough to say hi are not the type you’d be interested in.”
Vella was right about that. She and I had polar opposite tastes in men. She tended to like hipsters who cheated on her constantly because of their deeply held beliefs that monogamy was a social construct, while I was apparently drawn to men who were getting engaged to other women.
“Do a quick Wonder Woman spin,” she said.
“What?” My eyes darted around, making sure no one was watching us, because Vella was going to get her way. She usually did.
“Spin. It’ll give you a boost.”
I swallowed hard and then did as she requested, spinning a couple of times before settling back into place. No one seemed to have noticed and I didn’t hear any mocking laughter, so I figured I was safe.
“Good luck!” she said. She made her way over to a barstool and waved the bartender down.
Not seeing another option, I sat in the booth, scooting over toward the middle. I felt silly sitting there by myself and a bit pathetic. The waitress came by, apologized for the messy table, and quickly started cleaning it.
“Are you from Monterra?” I asked, recognizing her accent.
“Sì,” she said. “Most of the waitstaff are. Many of the patrons, as well.”
That made me feel a little better because it was honestly exciting to be surrounded by so many Monterrans.
“What can I get you?” she asked.
“I’ll have a bottle of Heineken,” I told her.
She said she’d be right back and I surveyed the room. This booth was in a far corner, which was probably going to defeat Vella’s plans of a guy coming over to hit on me.
Although that was fine with me.
I watched Vella for a couple of minutes. She gave off a very do-not-speak-to-me vibe, but it didn’t keep men away. If anything, they seemed to take it as some kind of personal challenge, and to nobody’s surprise, there were two men vying to chat her up already.
It was probably why she assumed that she could stick me in this corner and men would be lining up to come over and speak to me. I wished she understood that for the rest of us, life did not work that way.
But to my great delight, someone did come over to meet me.
It was a big, beautiful, all-white dog, a breed I didn’t recognize. She climbed up onto the bench, coming over to sit next to me.
“Hello there,” I cooed at her, offering her my hand. She leaned her head forward, as if expecting a pet, and I happily obliged. Her tongue lolled out as I started scratching behind her ears.
She was wearing an ID tag.
“Basta,” I read. “Is that your name?” I asked, still petting her. I grabbed my phone with my free hand to look it up. It meant stop or enough in Italian. “Which means your owner is probably from Monterra and you are a particularly mischievous girl.”
She gave me the sweetest expression, as if that were the furthest thing from the truth, and I smiled at her.
“You know, I read once that scientists say dogs get a rush of oxytocin when they look at people, just like we get when we look at you,” I said as I continued to rub her ears. “That dogs think humans are adorable.”
Basta made a short grunting noise, like she agreed with me.
My phone beeped and I had a message from Vella.
Not a dog, a man! You had one job. Also, if you have to pee, hold it because the bathroom here is a human rights violation.
I had only a moment to wonder when she’d checked out the bathroom when I got another text from Adrian.
When will you be able to go to the jewelers to pick out a ring?
I texted back, Soon.
Another notification came in from Facebook. My stepmother had posted a picture of her kids and my dad.
Happy family! #blessed
My father had abandoned us when I was young and had gone through a long string of women before settling on my stepmother. They’d had four kids together in the last five years. I’d never met any of them, was never invited to holidays or events. I didn’t matter in my father’s life at all. The only acknowledgment I’d ever gotten from them was her accepting my friend request. He absolutely doted on his new kids, and it always made me feel like there was something I personally lacked because he’d never loved me the same way.
Those twisted, painful feelings returned, and I couldn’t help myself. I started to cry. Not huge, heaving sobs because that would have been humiliating to do in public. My throat felt tight from trying to stay quiet, and my eyes burned. I could feel my shoulders shaking and kept my head down.
Basta reached over to lick the tears on my cheeks, and I found myself putting my arms around her neck, hugging her tightly.
“Are you all right?”
I glanced up and saw the most handsome man I’d ever met in real life standing at the edge of the table.
My heart started to pound hard in my chest as I blinked my tears away. I had an immediate response—it was like steel striking against flint. I felt an undeniable spark when our eyes met.
It had been years since I’d felt that way.
He had dark hair, almost black, and light eyes. Most likely blue, but it was hard to tell in this lighting. I flashed to an early interview Kat had given, before the royal family had helped her refine her image, back when she would be completely honest and overshare. When the interviewer asked her what she’d thought the first time she’d met Nico, she said she had thought he looked like Superman’s hotter cousin. I completely understood the sentiment because the man in front of me blew both Nico and Superman out of the water.
“Are you all right?” he repeated, looking so sweetly concerned. My fizzy, overexcited brain registered that he rolled his R s the same way Monterrans did. It was faint, but there.
The still-functioning part of my mind reminded me that I had been sitting there not responding to his initial and repeated question for an uncomfortable length of time.
“Yes!” Whoops, needed to modulate my voice. I shouldn’t be shouting. “I’m okay. Well, okay-ish.”
I wondered if he was lost or something and needed directions. I couldn’t figure out why else he’d be talking to me right now.
So I was completely shocked when he asked, “May I join you?”
You can do anything you want to me . My hands flew up to my flushed cheeks, as I didn’t know if I had just thought that sentence or said it out loud.
“Yes.” I croaked the word out and cleared my throat and loudly repeated it. “Yes. Please.”
Given that he sat down instead of running screaming into the night, it seemed I’d managed to keep my thoughts about letting him have his way with me all to myself.
The waitress returned with my beer, handing it to me. “Ciao, what can I get you to ...”
Her voice trailed off when she looked up from her pad to make eye contact with him.
She put a hand over her chest and I completely understood her reaction.
“Drink?” she squeaked, as if she suddenly realized she hadn’t finished her question and was staring. Not that anyone would blame her. “What can I get you to drink?”
Some part of me felt relief because the fact that she was speaking to him meant I hadn’t hallucinated him and he was really sitting next to me, being impossibly handsome.
He smiled at her and asked, “What would you recommend?”
His voice sounded seductive, and I wondered if he was the kind of person who flirted with everybody and I wasn’t special. Deflating, but expected.
“Uh, everything. Everything’s good,” she said, leaning against the table and batting her lashes at him. I’d never seen anyone do that in real life. The detached part of my brain that wasn’t experiencing vivid jealousy wondered if he was going to respond to her.
Then my ovaries went up in flames when he ordered his drink in Italian. It was so sexy I wanted to faint like one of those sickly girls from Victorian times. She responded to him in Italian and I didn’t know what she was saying, but based on her body language and tone, I was guessing it was something like, “So, fellow sexy person, would you like to get out of here?”
But he shook his head and just said, “Grazie.”
That I understood. Thank you .
Was it a thanks but no thanks ?
It seemed to be, given that waitress’s look of disappointment as she left.
“I told her I’ll have what you’re having,” he said. I guessed there was more to it than that, but he didn’t elaborate and I didn’t ask for specifics. He went on, “But if someone had asked me to guess your favorite drink, I probably would have picked chardonnay.”
He didn’t need to know that my drink of choice was usually whatever was on sale at the bodega two blocks from my apartment. I found myself preening a bit that he thought I was more sophisticated than I actually was.
“I’m from a small town in Alabama, and drinking beer was the only thing to do there.”
His eyes crinkled in amusement, and heaven help me, I wanted to kiss those sexy little creases. “But you don’t have an accent.”
“I worked hard to get rid of it. It comes back out when I’m drunk or around other southerners.” I lifted my beer up, intending to take a drink because I definitely needed the liquid courage, but I hesitated because I didn’t want to risk getting sloppy. Not that I was ever going to see this incredibly hot man again, but when I looked back at this night as one of my fond yet unbelievable memories, I didn’t want my throwing up in a sewer grate to be part of it. I set the frosty bottle back down on the table. “When I started at my job, people would make fun of my accent, and it seemed like my superiors didn’t take me as seriously. I wanted to move up the ranks and thought that might be a way to do it.”
I briefly thought of who I had been at eighteen, how much more driven I’d been then, willing to eradicate my southern accent to get ahead. I wondered where that girl had gone.
He leaned toward me, looking at me like I was the most interesting woman in the entire world. “That’s a shame. You should be allowed to be yourself.”
His words were so innocent, the sort of thing one kind stranger would say to another, but it made me feel understood in a way that I hadn’t for a while. It was disconcerting.
Out of total nervousness I smiled at him and said, “Speaking of accents, I noticed yours, too. You’re Monterran, right? My roommate and I came here tonight specifically to meet someone from Monterra.”
“Why is that?” he asked, genuinely curious.
I hadn’t had a man pay this much attention to me, well, ever, and I started to gush. “I have this birthday party I have to plan that’s based on your culture and I’ve never actually spoken to somebody from Monterra before and it feels like divine intervention that you’re here and you just made my whole night.”
As if my mouth were a horse, my brain pulled at the reins to get it to slow down. When I was nervous like this, I either babbled or clammed up completely, and right now both of those reactions were bad. I told myself to try to act like someone who had actually spoken to another human being.
“I’m glad I’m here to help. I see you met my favorite girl, Basta.”
Oh my, I had completely forgotten about the dog curled up on my left side. That spoke to the power of his hotness, because I never forgot about adorable furry friends.
“Is she yours?”
He nodded. “She is.”
“What kind of dog is she?”
“A Spinone Italiano.”
“I’ve never heard of that breed before. She is one beautiful dog, though.” Basta put her head in my lap so that I would keep scratching her ears.
“She knows it, too. Do you have a pet? Are you a dog or a cat person?”
“I’m an everything person. I’d pet an alligator if the little jerk wouldn’t try to bite my hand off.”
He laughed, and it was the most glorious thing I’d ever heard. I actually got chills from it.
“No wonder Basta came over to say hello. She must have sensed that. She’s been starved for attention lately. She just got out of quarantine and I didn’t want to leave her home tonight. Fortunately, they’re dog friendly here.”
“Quarantine?” I repeated, wondering if she’d been sick.
“I just moved to New York.”
A newbie. “Well, I’ve been here for four years, so if you need a tour guide, just let me know and I’ll be happy to help.” I’d also be happy to bear his children, but I figured I should leave that part out.
“Thank you, I’ll remember that. I’m Max, by the way.”
He offered me his hand and I hesitated for a moment before shaking it—given how I was reacting to him just from our proximity to each other, I didn’t know what would happen if we touched. Realizing that I was going to make this more awkward than it needed to be, I took his hand. When we made contact, his warm palm against mine, it was like static electricity times ten thousand. Like he was a live wire, sending volts directly into every nerve ending in my body. All the cells in my body lit up at his touch.
I quickly pulled back because my inclination was to sit there and keep his hand in my possession all night long, which he might object to, and he’d probably be so unreasonable as to want said hand returned to him.
And it shouldn’t have made me giddy that I knew his name. “Max? Is that short for Maximus or Massimo?” I couldn’t think of any other Italian names that might have Max as a nickname.
“I don’t know you well enough to share that information with you,” he said with the sexiest wink that had my stomach doing somersaults.
“Do I at least get your last name?”
He hesitated for a moment before he said, “Colby.”
Max Colby. If I were still in middle school, I would be writing his name in my notebook over and over again. Mrs. Max Colby. Everly Colby. Max and Everly.
Colby didn’t sound like an Italian surname, but thanks to the research Vella had done this afternoon out of boredom, I now knew that people from all over Europe immigrated to Monterra.
“And you are?” he prompted.
Why was I so awkward? “Everly Aprile.”
“Like the month?”
“Yes, but it has an E on the end.”
“I suppose you’re fortunate that your parents didn’t name you March,” he teased.
“Oh, I don’t think you can make fun of anyone else’s name, Mr. Cheese.” I was rewarded with another laugh, and even if the conversation ended at this very moment, I would consider the night a complete success.
“Everly Aprile,” he repeated, and I felt a little lightheaded at the way his accent caressed my name. “I like the alliteration.”
Technically it started with two different vowels, but I wasn’t going to correct the sexy man. “It kind of makes me sound like a superhero, right?”
“Are you?”
Ha. “Not quite.”
“You seem to me like the kind of woman who has a secret superpower.”
While I wished that were true, he could not have been more off base. “Do you mean besides making the worst possible decisions in my personal life and the ability to whip up the world’s most perfect grilled cheese?”
He grinned, and that “I’m about to faint” feeling was back. “What about your power to put men under your spell?”
I couldn’t help but laugh before I said, “I think I’d know by now if that was true.”
He seemed to move even closer to me. “It might be truer than you think.”