Chapter 2
ISLA
It’s a good thing I didn’t finish the lemon drop the gorgeous bartender made me, because I’m feeling a little wobbly when I slide off the stool and follow the friendly server leading me to my table.
I leave the martini on the bar, knowing I need some food and some water and a break from vodka.
The two of us have never gotten along all that well, and I have a scar on my right arm to prove it. Ah, sorority days.
The hostess stops and places menus on the table. “Here you are.”
The table is on the terrace, overlooking the ocean.
It’s also set for two.
“I only need one place setting,” I tell her politely.
“The reservation is for two,” she says, giving me a puzzled look.
“There must be some kind of mistake. It’s just me. Party of one.”
Forever, I think bitterly, but I keep that part to myself.
“No mistake,” says a deep voice behind me.
One I recognize before I even turn around. Him. The bartender. Alessio.
“Thank you, Kayla,” he adds. “I’ll take it from here.”
“Of course,” the hostess says with a warm smile and a nod. “Enjoy your dinner.”
Before I can object, she’s gone, leaving me staring at the bartender who’s no longer behind the bar. I’m confused. I mean, I did see him walk away a few minutes ago. Not that I was watching him or anything.
Okay, I was watching him. So what?
“Aren’t you on shift?” I blurt.
I swear, he’s smoldering. His blue gaze is intense. He’s not smiling. Just incinerating my panties from a foot away with one hot look.
“No.”
“Oh.” I’m more confused than before. “Okay.”
He reaches for the chair nearest me, and I take note of the tattoos on his sexy hands. “Have a seat.”
A bit high-handed, but I guess I’m having dinner with a hot bartender. Things could be worse, considering the luck I’ve had recently.
“Thanks.” I sit, feeling wary.
I don’t need him to pull out a chair for me. Or have dinner with me. The last thing I want or need is an island hookup when I have my bestie’s wedding to worry about. But I’m not mad that he’s wrangled this table for me. Not mad he’s apparently joining me either.
He moves around the table, and I catch a hint of his cologne on the night’s sea-tinged air.
He sits in the chair opposite me, still exuding that raw, magnetic energy that makes me feel things I shouldn’t.
He’s so alarmingly, aggressively beautiful and alive.
It feels a bit dangerous, like I’m sticking my hand into the enclosure of a beast of prey at the zoo.
Alessio slides a menu in my direction. “If we’re going to have dinner together, I should probably know your name.”
“Isla.” I take the menu and slant a meaningful look in his direction. “So, is this something you do often?”
“Have dinner with a beautiful woman?”
My ovaries flutter. But this is a standard fuckboy tactic—flattery. I may be a little tipsy and a whole lot rusty at the dating game, but I’m not falling for it.
“Ha.” I start perusing the entrées. “I was referring to inviting yourself to dinner with a stranger, actually.”
“Ouch.” He presses a tatted hand over his heart. “Inviting myself? That one hurt.”
I raise a brow. “I did say a private table with a menu, not a private table for two.”
He’s totally unaffected by my dig. “I’m good at reading between the lines.”
He hasn’t even picked up his menu. He’s just watching me with that intense azure stare like the only thing he wants for dinner is me.
My pulse kicks up. “Is that so?”
We’re flirting. I think. It feels surprisingly good. I’m not even sure I know how to do whatever it is I’m currently doing with Alessio after spending most of my adult years in a committed relationship with one man.
I was with Christian for over five years.
It hits me now, the full weight of what I gave him, what I lost. Almost all my undergrad years, the time everyone else spends dating, flirting at parties, and hooking up.
Then postgrad years too. Stupid, wasted years of loyalty and faithfulness for a man who threw it away.
“Yeah. That’s so. It’s one of my many talents.”
I decide on the gnocchi and spare him another glance, keeping the menu up like it’s a shield. “So, what are they? Your talents, I mean.”
Before he can answer me, a server arrives at our table, ready to take our drink orders. I stick with water. Alessio does the same and then asks me if I like margherita pizza.
“I do.”
He nods at the server. “We’ll have the margherita pizza to start.”
The server takes the rest of our order. I get the gnocchi because I’m starving, and Alessio goes for the filet mignon. She promises to return soon before leaving us alone again.
“You won’t be disappointed by this margherita pizza,” he tells me. “The burrata is fresh, and so are the tomatoes and basil. It’s an experience. Just trust me.”
I’m not big on trust these days. In fact, my trusting anyone with a dick is probably not going to happen any time this century. But since we’re talking food, I don’t offer an objection.
“Sounds delicious.” And it does. My stomach growls.
But this whole scenario is awkward.
I force a smile, aware that I’m wearing a nerdy tee and soft linen pants that are wrinkled from travel and that I’m not anywhere near this man’s league.
My hair is scraped into a bun, I don’t have any makeup on, and if I look the way I feel, I resemble something that’s been wadded up and thrown in a trash can.
Maybe he’s taking pity on me.
Ugh. How embarrassing. That’s the last thing I want. Does the hotel have professional hot guys they pay to be nice to sad, lonely women who have just been emotionally steamrolled by cheating exes?
“Tell me what you’re thinking.”
He’s staring into my soul. It sounds like a cliché, but it’s the only way I can explain what he’s doing. Seeing me. No one has ever looked at me the way this man does, and I’m not going to lie. It’s every bit as intoxicating as the lemon drop was.
“Is this part of your job?” I ask.
He grins, clearly amused. “No.”
“Then why do you want to have dinner with a complete stranger?”
“You look like you could use some company.”
I glance down. “Is it my shirt?”
“Of course not.” He pauses. “English teacher?”
“This isn’t a date,” I inform him, not really wanting to talk about myself or my profession.
Because Christian was very much a part of that, and I’m not opening up that Pandora’s box of shit.
Alessio shrugs. “I never said it was.”
Now I feel stupid. Of course it’s not a date. Did I think a smoldering sex god like Alessio would want to date a wrinkled, dejected, unemployed former creative writing professor? If I did, I blame it on the vodka. And lack of sleep.
“I just meant that I don’t really want to talk about myself,” I elaborate.
Our server returns with our drinks, and I chug my water as politely as possible, desperate to hydrate.
“Suits me fine,” he says smoothly. “I don’t really want to talk about myself either. Let’s talk about tonight instead.”
Tonight.
My clit pulses to life even though there is no reason for it other than the fact that I’m sitting at a table with the sexiest man I’ve ever seen.
Great. Apparently traveling on three hours of sleep makes me into a sex-craving fiend. Odd, because I did travel quite a bit with Christian, and I don’t recall ever feeling this way.
“Are you off for the rest of the night?” I ask, tracing the condensation on my cool glass.
“I was never on.”
“And yet you were tending bar.”
He gives me a smug look. “You’re breaking the rules, Ms. Bronte.”
It takes me a second to realize what he’s talking about. One, we aren’t supposed to be discussing ourselves. Two, he’s mistaken Jane Austen for Emily Bronte.
“It’s Jane Austen.”
“I thought you said your name was Isla.”
Everything makes perfect sense. He’s gorgeous, but he’s also not the brightest bulb in the box. I try to stifle my disappointment, but it’s as acute as finding out Santa Claus isn’t real when you’re a kid.
Damn.
“I did,” I tell him gently. “I was talking about my shirt, which has Jane Austen on it. Emily Bronte was actually born after Jane Austen’s death. She wrote Wuthering Heights. Jane Austen is most famous for Pride and Prejudice, among other titles. Anyway, you were mixing the two of them up.”
By the time I finish my explanation, I’m uncomfortably aware that I’m letting my nerd show.
Not that it matters. I’m not trying to impress Alessio.
I’m here to be maid of honor to my bestie.
Not to hook up with a sexy stranger who can’t tell the difference between two of the most famous women writers in history.
A small smile curves his lips, like he finds me entertaining. “Are we talking about what you do, Jane Eyre?”
“No,” I deny instantly. “We’re not.”
Because I’m not talking about Christian, about the creative writing position I no longer have, about anything personal.
And then, belatedly, it occurs to me that he’s called me by a new name. One that’s also wrong.
I frown at him. “Jane Eyre isn’t an author. It’s the title of a book by—”
“Charlotte Bronte,” he cuts in. “Just checking to see if you were paying attention.”
I have the sudden, strange impression that he’s been fucking with me all along. That there’s intelligence shimmering in the depths of those ocean-blue eyes. And something else too.
We stare at each other for a beat, and I didn’t know eye contact could be foreplay, but I’m so turned on right now, and it has nothing to do with the lemon drop I left behind at the bar.
I have a sudden mental image of excusing myself to the bathroom and Alessio following me in.
He’d come up behind me, yank down my slacks and panties, and slide his dick into me from behind while I held on to the sink and anyone could come barging through the door and see us.
He’d kiss my neck and watch in the mirror as he fucked me.