Kiss Me Like You Mean It

Chapter One Lee

Chapter One

Lee

I wonder if the designer who selected this crushed velvet, leopard-print bar stool imagined it would one day be occupied by an accountant having an existential crisis.

Probably not. A luxury, five-star casino in Las Vegas isn’t really an existential crisis sort of place. As far as I can tell the whole point of Vegas is to overstimulate you to the point where it’s impossible to worry about anything at all.

But, hey, I’ve always enjoyed a challenge.

‘Gin martini with a twist,’ Jake, the handsome bartender, says, setting the glass in front of me with a smile. ‘You sure I can’t get you anything to eat?’

I shake my head. It’s 5 p.m. on a Friday and I’m already regretting grabbing a drink at the bar, instead of heading up to my room, ordering room service and watching home improvement shows in my pyjamas. But I am under strict instructions to ‘live a little’ on my last night.

‘Just the drink, thanks.’ I slip some cash across the top of the bar, and he holds his hands up like I’ve pointed a gun at him.

‘No way,’ he says. ‘Boss’s orders. But anything you need tonight, you let me know.’

There’s something in the way he says this. Is it possible that this man is flirting with me? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves… the Americans do take their customer service very seriously. I sip my drink, eyeing him over the top of my glass as he spins a cocktail shaker with large, capable hands.

This bar is certainly not my normal habitat. Between the deep, claret red walls, the splashy modern art and the enormous chandelier that looms overhead, strung with over 300,000 sparkling crystals (I’ve seen the itemised invoice to prove it), there is absolutely nothing subtle about it.

A neon sign glows above the bar in a scrawl of red light: SINNERS WELCOME.

I wonder how they feel about neurotic rule-followers.

My eyes dart towards Jake again.

What if he was flirting with me? Would I ever have the guts to do something about it? Would flirting back count as ‘living a little’? And how, I ponder, tapping my fingers against my glass, would someone go about such a thing?

I pull out my phone and type How do you flirt with a bartender? into Google. The results are something of a minefield. The first two answers are be conversational, and be reserved.

See, this is why people are so hard.

I keep scrolling and there are suggestions of smiling, dropping compliments and a post about doing something anatomically improbable with your tongue and a cherry stem.

Taking a deep breath, I send Jake a smile across the bar. I have no idea if it seemed flirtatious, but he does come straight over.

‘Something I can get you, Lee?’

I’m not totally sure how to respond. How do you do reserved conversation? And I don’t have a cherry.

‘I like your name badge,’ I blurt.

Jake’s eyebrows lift. Okay. I will admit it wasn’t the sexiest compliment, but it was something, right?

‘Thank you,’ Jake replies after a moment.

‘Where did you get it?’ I ask breathlessly. Maybe the breathless thing is coming off as sexy? Either that or I sound like I’m about to have an asthma attack.

‘Um… it came with the uniform,’ he says. ‘But I can ask someone if you like?’

‘Sure,’ I nod, trying to look casual while my palms are sweating. ‘That would be great.’

He leans forward, his forearms resting on the bar. They’re good arms. ‘Anything for my favourite customer,’ he says with a wink.

A wink! And a lean! He is flirting! Or maybe bartenders in Vegas wink at people all the time? God, this is torture. I’m probably supposed to say something. Maybe he’s winking so that I can… what? Buy him a drink? Pick him up? Engage in a night of passionate lovemaking?

I need more gin as that thought settles.

A one night stand? I mean, it would be dramatically out of character for me, but then, I am in Las Vegas. Sin City. The place where people come to act out of character. I could be someone different here. I could be a little wild. Just for one night.

There’s only one thing to do. I grab a napkin and a pen from my bag and set about making a pros and cons list. I scrawl ‘One Night Stand?’ across the top, draw a line down the middle and in the ‘pros’ column I write:

Haven’t had sex for four months. Then I consider it for a moment, cross out four and write five.

I eye the words as I reach for my glass. It’s a pretty compelling argument actually.

‘Daisy? Is that you?’

I choke on my drink.

The familiar gravelly voice hits my system harder than the gin. There’s only one person in the whole world who calls me Daisy. And there’s no way he’s here.

Slowly, I spin around on my stool. My eyes are fixed on the floor, as I take a deep, steadying breath, so that the first thing I see is a pair of scuffed leather boots.

My heart is dancing an Irish jig in my chest.

I let my gaze travel up, over the jeans, over the hard, muscular body, the broad shoulders in the battered leather jacket. It feels like everything has slowed down, like time is stretching out between us as I take him in, cataloguing every feature.

The firm jaw, darkened by a day or two of scruff; the laughing mouth, with the tiny scar above his top lip; the deadly pair of cheekbones that he inherited from his professionally attractive mother; the suntanned skin of someone who is permanently outdoors; the carelessly tousled dark curls, longer than the last time I saw him; and the gleam of gold from the tiny hoop in his ear.

I register all of it in rapid, high-definition snapshots, before my eyes meet his – dark, crinkled at the corners as he looks at me, surprised and delighted.

‘Nico,’ I manage, his name little more than a whisper.

I wonder then if this is a mirage, the way a man who’s dying of thirst in the desert might hallucinate a shady oasis with clear, running water.

I just see Nico.

Yeah, that tracks.

‘Lee!’ he exclaims. ‘What the fuck are you doing in Vegas?’

Before I can answer, he’s hauling me off the bar stool, and wrapping his arms around me, wrapping his whole body around me, and my cheek is pressed against the soft leather of his jacket.

Not a mirage then. Mirages don’t smell this good. They don’t feel this good, this strong and safe and thrilling at the same time. All of my muscles relax as I melt into him. I think I might… moan? Please, please, please let that sound have been in my head.

Then his hands are on my shoulders and he pulls back from me, holding me steady. Which is good, because the combination of gin and Nico is a potent one and my knees are a bit shaky.

‘You’re here?’ I say, and even though I’m ninety-nine per cent certain I haven’t hallucinated him, the words still sound like a question.

‘For work,’ he confirms. ‘You look great.’

I glance down and try not to wince. I’m wearing black, high-waisted trousers and a white silk blouse done all the way up to my throat.

God, couldn’t I even loosen a couple of buttons?

I was in the middle of flirting – or attempting to flirt – with a handsome bartender.

At the very least, I should have been flashing some clavicle.

In fact, why didn’t I get changed before heading to the bar?

I almost laugh out loud at that thought, one that implies I have a suitcase full of seductive ensembles to choose from, rather than what I actually packed: four variations on this outfit and a pair of pyjamas.

And not sexy pyjamas either, but stretched out, comfy ones covered in pictures of little pineapples wearing sunglasses.

All of this runs through my head, but when I open my mouth, what comes out is a slightly croaky, ‘Thanks, so do you.’

‘So,’ he lifts a brow, ‘don’t keep me in suspense. What’s a nice girl like you doing drinking alone in a bar in Las Vegas?’

‘Oh,’ I wave my hand in a dismissive gesture, ‘I’m here for work, too.’

Nico nods. ‘Is there a convention or something?’ He glances around the bar as if he expects to see an army of calculator-wielding accountants.

‘No—’ I start, but he’s already pulled out the seat next to mine, and he’s leaning over, trying to catch Jake’s attention.

My stomach lurches when I spot the napkin with my barely started pros and cons list on it next to his elbow, and I think I pull a muscle snatching it away and stuffing it in my pocket.

The bartender makes his way over, and when he looks at me, his smile has dimmed. I can’t blame him – most men take one glance at Nico and know they can’t compete, even if in this case any competition would be purely theoretical.

I might have been in love with Nico since I was five years old, but if you ask him he’ll tell you I’m the little sister he never had. It is, in fact, the great tragedy of my life: hopelessly pining over Nico Hart, my brother’s best friend, for twenty-six years and counting.

‘What are you drinking?’ Nico asks me.

‘I’ll have another martini, please, Jake,’ I say. ‘And a bottle of Corona with lime if you have it. Would you add it to my tab?’

‘Of course, Lee,’ he smiles.

When I turn back to Nico, he’s grinning. ‘Well, well, well,’ he says. ‘I didn’t realise I was going to be cramping your style. Do you want me to leave?’

‘No!’ I blurt, way too earnestly. ‘You’re not cramping anything.’

We’re interrupted when Jake places our drinks in front of us, and I watch him leave without a single pang of regret. Nico appearing is like a message from the universe: stay in your lane, Ophelia Turner-Jones. No wild one night stands for you.

Nico holds his bottle towards me in a silent toast and I tap it with my glass.

‘Thanks for the drink,’ he says. ‘And for remembering my order.’