AllFreeNovel
Share Us
~
I’d thought that I was ahead of the game. When he told me he wanted to take me to Crave, I’d pretended that it was a place that I frequented. The fact was, my weekends were spent with Netflix, popcorn, and wine, and if I happened to feel like being social and said yes to a night out, it was of the Applebee’s variety. The kind of place where putting on a nice shirt with your jeans was dressing up.
When I pulled up the review site for Crave I saw more dollar signs than I would ever spring for, along with pictures of tables with crisp white tablecloths and servers who didn’t have name tags pinned to their chests...or weary, forced smiles that told me they were definitely counting the minutes until the end of their shifts.
I took my phone back out, fighting the nerves that told me that this was insane. I didn’t go on dates with billionaires. It was easy to forget that Jason Cox was worth more money than I could even wrap my mind around. If he was the type that flashed his Rolex every time he had the opportunity and rode around in a limo and was always dressed in designer duds, specially tailored to his rock hard body, it would have been easy to turn him down. I didn’t need a chauffeur and bling and all the trappings that came with dating a wealthy guy. Heck, before I ran into him again, I would have said I didn’t need a guy at all. But since that smirk and those blue eyes had smoldered back into my life, I hadn’t been able to think about much else, plagued by what if’s.
What if he really was sorry?
What if I was making a big mistake and he was playing with me?
What if he kissed me, and like his mouth on my body, I measured every kiss that followed to his?
And what if no one else made me feel this fear, this candy coated excitement that I’d stumbled on something real?
I stared at my reflection, wondering what I’d gotten myself into. Dolled up, winged eyeliner and all. A blood red dress and a slender velvet choker around my neck. I even found an old pair of ankle boots to pull off the whole look. A look Tamara had coined, ‘Come fuck me’.
My cheeks bloomed even darker when I let myself hope. When I dared to admit to myself that our chemistry wasn’t in my head.
And as charming as he was, I’d been flirting too.
“Here we go!” My Uber driver chirped, pulling to the curb.
Panic flared in my chest and I didn’t want to believe that I was out of time. I needed a few more moments to psych myself up. To convince myself that I wasn’t making a terrible mistake.
It’s just dinner. It’s not like you’ve never had dinner before.
Which was true...but I’d never had dinner with a man that made me want to skip to ‘check please’ with one look. Who made me hungry for something that wasn’t on the menu.
I unchecked my seatbelt, all the naughty pangs that I felt going cold when I remembered the rest. How could I forget what he’d done, though? How he’d left me high and dry? Why would I believe that I’d be anything more than a fling to a man like him, a man who probably didn’t do anything without ulterior motive? A nice dinner=get in her pants, for instance.
“His jaw is gonna hit the floor when he sees you.” The driver read my nerves like an open book.
“Thanks,” I blushed, biting the bullet and climbing from the car. It was too late to turn back now, and despite all the questions, the unknown, and the evidence to support texting him to cancel, none of it compared to my curiosity. I wanted to see where this rabbit hole would lead. And the only way to keep my head afloat was to take my expectations down to zero. It was just dinner. Getting to know the man behind the jerk. And considering some of the 1 star ratings I saw were erroneous ones, with reviewers complaining because they couldn’t get a reservation, at least I’d get to enjoy a meal at a place that was booked solid for the next three months.
~
My fingers tingled as I gripped the doorknob, swallowed the last bit of my nerves, and took my first step into the unknown.
The pictures of Crave didn't do it justice. A restaurant that boasted an honest to God waitlist just to make a reservation should have oozed pretension. Women draped in ornate gold chairs with diamonds twinkling in their ears the size of grapes. Men with gleaming cufflinks that sparkled when they hit the light. But the people nestled around the tables in the room, teasing me with tantalizing aromas and peeks of what was to come had me feeling like I was overdressed. There were no dresses, no suits, no upturned noses that told me I was definitely playing dress up and sucked at it. Everyone was too busy stuffing their faces. But suddenly, I was very aware of the fact that I was wrapped in a dress that screamed seduction and intrigue and would have been charmingly edgy under the anticipated circumstances, but here, it was just charmingly slutty.
I futilely tugged up the V neck hemline of my dress, flashing my pearly whites at the wide eyed hostess who pretended like my breasts weren't on display. I should have brought a jacket. Or a turtleneck.
"Hi! I'm meeting-"
"Jason Cox?" she perked, giving me a wink like we were in on some secret that I wasn't yet privy to.
"Yes?" I said slowly, still pulling at my dress. I'd thought body con was a good idea, showing off every curve. I felt about as a two piece suit at Chucky Cheese.
She didn't give me a chance to ask how she'd taken the words right out of my mouth. "He's set up in the back, waiting for your arrival." She flicked her hazel eyes over my ensemble and her lips spread into an approving smile. "Nice dress."
I returned the smile with a peevish one of my own. "Thanks. How did you-"
"Know that you were here for Jason?!” she finished my sentence gleefully, like she was a contestant on a game show and she was so close to the prize that she could taste it. "Easy." She beckoned me to come closer and I obliged, shuffling forward nervously, grateful for the wooden stand between us because she looked like she would jump up and down like someone on The Price is Right at any moment. "He told me that I'd know it was you when you walked through the door because you'd be the most beautiful woman in the room."
Embarrassment scalded my cheeks but I tried to shrug it off, glad that my bangs were just long enough that they could hide the fact that I was flattered. Compliments from Jason Cox were supposed to be of the 'nice ass' variety.
The hostess could have definitely made me marinate in awkwardness, or ask me some questions that would make me turn even darker and/or make a quick escape, but she just grinned and beckoned for me to follow her.
