When the waiter arrives at my table with a double nip of whiskey, I nudge my head to the front of the restaurant. “Can you see who Cormack is talking with?” I hand her a folded up hundred-dollar bill, wordlessly requesting discretion.
“Certainly, sir.” Her formal salutation exposes her natural submissiveness. She doesn’t seem the type who’d fully embrace the BDSM lifestyle, but she’s so eager to please, nothing would be off-limits in the bedroom.
Regretfully for her, I’m not interested in discovering how far I could push things with her. She’s attractive. There’s just nothing extraordinary about her.
Weeks ago, I would have overlooked the fact there’s no chemistry between us. I may have even relished it. Now, I’m eager for something more than a mundane mutual attraction.
I nurse my half-consumed whiskey instead of finishing it when the waiter arrives back at my table. Her screwed-up nose divulges Cormack is liaising with a woman, much less the jealousy in her eyes. “Mr. McGregor is speaking with the maître d.”
My lips purse with shock. April, the lead maître d of this restaurant, has impressive qualities, but Cormack could have bedded her months ago if desired, so why wait until he found a purpose for the air in his lungs to announce an interest in her?
I discover it isn’t just my businesses under the pump the past couple of months when the waitress adds with a sneer, “He’s attempting to have two women seated. We are fully booked out.”
The way she says ‘we’ equally annoys and pleases me. We’re not a ‘we,’ but I’m glad she values her position in my empire enough to class it as her own. A restaurant’s brand gets customers through the door, but it’s the staff who keeps them coming back.
“Have them seated at the bar until a table becomes available.” The waitress isn’t shocked by my suggestion. If clients are desperate to dine here even with the menu being priced out of most people’s reach, I’m more than willing to cater to them. Furthermore, the tables are booked for two hours at a time. Despite this establishment bringing in high-profile guests, it’s rare for someone to dine that long. “If a space doesn’t become available by the time my table is ready, gift it to them. Cormack and I can take our meals to go.”
“It appears as if that won’t be necessary.” The waitress peers at me with pleading eyes before she shifts them in the direction Cormack walked only moments ago. He’s returning to our holding table with additional guests. Two guests I know very well.
“Isabelle,” I greet, my voice somewhat raspy from seeing her for the first time in weeks. With Hugo no longer on her tail and Hunter’s time occupied with matters concerning my brother, I’ve not laid eyes on her in the flesh in over six weeks. Not only is my hooded gaze relishing the feast, so is my acute sense of smell. She smells delicious.
“Hi,” Isabelle replies sheepishly.
Even with my mood not knowing which way to swing, I can’t deny she looks ravishing enough to eat. Her tight pencil-pleated skirt exposes a runner’s body can also be seductive, and her shimmering shirt that’s scarcely containing the generous swell of her breasts enhances the mischievous twinkle in her rich, chocolate eyes.
My jaw gains an involuntary tick when it dawns on me how many hungry, lust-filled eyes are also drinking in her seductive allure. Fortunately for me, the spasms are hardly noticeable since Isabelle’s eyes are devoted to one man—me. After giving her a couple of seconds to take in my black dress pants and dark gray business shirt rolled up at the sleeves, I slide out of the booth to greet her with the ascendancy of a man who has no qualms warning others to stay away. Past conflicts haven’t been resolved. I’m just not a man who sits back and watches the woman he’s fascinated with be gawked at as if she’s a buffet waiting to be ravished.
When I hold out my hand in offering, Isabelle slips hers into mine. Instead of shaking it as presumed, I raise the stakes of her informal greeting by placing a kiss on the edge of her palm. The shuddering breath she sucks in from my briefest touch should announce she’s off-limits, but in case it doesn’t, I dart my narrowed gaze between the numerous pairs of eyes watching Isabelle’s every move, smirking when my glare loses her many wanton stares.
My smirk increases when Isabelle yanks her hand out of my grasp a couple of seconds later. Someone should tell her you can’t shudder as she did, then act disinterested. That will only increase the odds of a malicious chase. While Isabelle peers at her hand, dumbfounded by the zap that scorched her skin when my lips touched her hand, I shift on my feet to face Cormack and Harlow. Something more than chance is at play here, and when I find out what it is, there will be hell to pay.
“I’m from the bakery.” While staring straight at me, Harlow’s eyes fill with pleading. She’s terrified I’m about to foil her ruse that we’ve met more than once. “The bakery you left your card at for Izzy.” When she peers at me with massive, begging eyes, I’m tempted to let her burn at the stake. Alas, the whiskey I downed at the start of our evening has me mixing things up. A change is as good as a holiday, and I’ve not had one of them since… ever.
“Ah. The card that’s yet to be utilized.” When I accept Harlow’s offer of a handshake, Isabelle’s deep exhale dries the sweat on my nape. Her wariness is as apparent as mine. Even knowing her for weeks won’t stop me from saying that she was fretful my previous meetings with Harlow were personal instead of business-related. Cormack glides his hand over the booth, acting ignorant to the scorn I’m directing his way. “Please join us.”
I do not mean to sound showy, but regular Ravenshoe patrons don’t stumble onto my restaurant by accident. Marketing for an establishment of this caliber is solely via word of mouth. The prestigiousness of the clientele is high, which means advertising is unnecessary. The high-priced menu we purposely leaked with the hope it would lessen the number of unpaying patrons usually puts off the people who stumble onto online advertising. Furthermore, there are more price-appropriate restaurants Isabelle and Harlow could have chosen to dine at tonight, so I’m skeptical in believing their arrival is coincidental.
With her wide eyes bouncing between Isabelle and me, Harlow slides into the spare space next to Cormack, leaving Isabelle no other option but to sit with me. My nostrils flare for the second time when she slips past me to take her seat. She’s wearing the same brand of perfume she wore the day we met. It’s an addictive, lush fragrance that adds a touch of riskiness to her already copious allure.
“Fuck, you smell good,” I mutter before I can stop myself, my ability to maintain control null and void when she’s in my presence.
Is that why Cormack did this? Is he aware Isabelle could quite possibly be the only person capable of stopping me from falling into the depressive, rancorous cycle I’d give anything to skip when important events in Ophelia’s life narrow close? Usually, I fall into the bed with the first woman with a remote similarity to Ophelia. Today, I’m sitting across from one with comparable features but who couldn’t be more unique if she tried.
After signaling to the waiter for another glass of whiskey, I slip into the booth next to Isabelle. Her chest rises and falls in rhythm to mine, and her nerves are just as palpable. On instinct, I endeavor to soothe her. Every fine hair on her arm bristles to attention when I drag my index finger along her forearm. I smirk, loving how receptive she is to my touch before striving to keep my focus away from that very thing. “How do you know Cormack?”
Just like when she was in the throes of a panic attack, my voice relaxes the deep groove between her dark brows. “Who?” she replies, her one word breathless.
I point to Cormack as if he and Harlow aren’t eyeballing our exchange. “Cormack.”
Isabelle smiles before embarrassment clouds her impressive eyes. “I don’t know him. He just offered for us to be seated with him when we couldn’t get a table.”
Frustrated by the unsolicited need in her voice, she scoots to the far end of the bench seat, freeing her arm from my meekest touch. Forever inclined to place pressure on boundaries I shouldn’t be anywhere near, I fill the space she forced between us, but I keep my hands to myself. It’s no easy feat. My hands itch to touch her, but that isn’t something I should be considering at all, much less today.
Isabelle acts oblivious to the fire burning through her from my closeness while asking, “How do you know Cormack?”
With the whiskey in my veins doubling my wish to show her I’m an honest, upstanding member of society, I gift her an invitation into my inner circle without the scrutiny other invitees have never forgone. “We met in college. He was my roommate slash manager.”
A ragged gasp escapes Isabelle’s luscious lips as her eyes snap to mine. “Manager?”
