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She nodded. “Indeed.” Another too-long pause. “It was getting crazy in there,” she said finally. “The noise was starting to give me a headache. I needed to get away for a minute, too.” She took a deep breath and Quin had to force his eyes away from the rise and fall of her chest. “Get some air. At least before the mystery guy who just bought us a bottle sidled over expecting our attention.”
“Why did you think I’d do that?”
“Men don’t anonymously drop that kind of cash without expecting something in return.”
She was describing a well-used move in his arsenal. See a group of beautiful women, send over a bottle and take a seat a few minutes later. It worked every time. “Maybe men are just trying to be nice,” he offered.
She scoffed. “I know men. When it’s after midnight in a nightclub, there are nonice men.There are just ulterior motives. And ninety-eight percent of the time, it’s sex.”
Quin laughed. “Maybe you’re right. But you know me. You know that I’m a nice guy.”
Celia pursed her lips. “You weren’t always,” she told him.
“Ouch,” he said. “That hurt.”
“It’s not true?”
He remembered the last time they’d spoken, and he nodded. “You’ve got me there. Maybe I wasn’t always such a nice guy.”
She looked over her shoulder. “I guess I should get back to my friends,” she said. “Thanks for the rum.” She walked away.
Quin wasn’t ready to say goodbye to her yet. In desperation, he called out to her. “Celia, wait!”
She turned. “Yeah?”
“Why don’t you let me buy you a drink? We can talk.”
“I think you’ve already bought me a couple.” She gestured to the bottle of rum in the center of the VIP table.
He waved it off. “That was just to distract your friends so I could eventually come talk to you—just like you suspected.”
“So I was right—there is no nice without ulterior motives.”
“What can I say?”
“You’re still a smooth one, aren’t you?”
Looking at her, he felt anything but smooth. He felt like a desperate teenager, trying not to make a fool of himself in front of a gorgeous, sophisticated woman. She shook her long, brown hair over her shoulder and crossed her arms. “Fine,” she said, relenting. “One drink.”
Relief washed over Quin. “Great. Another one of those?” he asked, pointing to her near-empty glass, grateful that he would have the chance to talk to Celia again. She nodded.
This was his chance to make it right with her. To apologize for that night. Hopefully it would go better than their last conversation, which still stuck with him eight years later. She’d confessed her love...but he’d rejected her. And not well. He’d turned her down in a way that a typical twenty-two-year-old dumbass would have. He’d hoped she would at least hear the apology he’d practiced every day since then.
