The photographer deleted the photo.
The woman released his wrist, straightened, and turned.
Miley Torres. Her auburn hair pulled back in a ponytail. Casual clothes, jeans and a jacket. She’d been here already. Waiting for our meeting, probably. She looked at me across the lounge with those hazel eyes and her lips parted slightly when she took in the state of me, the water on my shirt, the dripping collar, the general indignity of it all.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine. You look drunk and wet.”
I wiped my jaw with the back of my hand. “I’m not drunk.”
“You smell like alcohol. No one has ever admitted to being drunk.”
She was close now. Close enough that I could see the concern in her expression, genuine and unguarded. It made me want to do something I couldn’t identify. “Can you walk?”
“I can walk.”
“Where’s your driver?”
I shrugged, watching her. The way her lips shaped around the words when she asked if I was alright. The line of her neck when she swallowed, a nervous habit I’d noticed at the resort. She was close enough that I caught the scent again.
I blamed the bourbon. It had been a long time since I’d been this close to a woman who smelled this good and wasn’t trying to sell me something.
“You can’t drive like this,” she said.
I reached into my pocket and tossed her my keys. They sailed through the air and she caught them reflexively, then stared at them like I’d thrown her a live grenade.
“What am I supposed to do with these?”
“Drive.”
“Drive what?”
“The car. My car. It’s in the lot.”
“I’m not driving your car. I don’t even know what kind of car it is. What if it’s one of those fast-moving sports cars?”
“It’s a sports car.”
“That’s not helping!”
“My house isn’t far.” I was already moving toward the back exit, and I could feel her following because Miley Torres was apparently constitutionally incapable of not helping someone, even when that someone was making unreasonable demands while covered in sparkling water. “Twenty minutes. Maybe less.”
She stood in the parking lot holding my keys, looking at my car, looking at me and back at my car. I could see the argument forming behind her eyes.
“Fine,” she said. “But if I crash this car, that’s on you.”
I couldn't help chuckling at her innocent, nervous expression. “Noted.”
She got in the driver’s seat. I got in the back, leaning against the leather. I let out a breath and rubbed the back of my neck where the water had soaked through.
She adjusted the mirrors—then the seat—then the mirrors again. The GPS already showed the way home. She started the engine and sat there for a second, hands on the wheel, collecting herself.
“You should be grateful I’m not a kidnapper,” she muttered, pulling out of the lot.
“You’re too kind and too beautiful to be a kidnapper.”
