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When I look back up, I find his eyes are still on me, and when she touches his cheek to get his attention, he still doesn’t shift his gaze. His eyes remained locked on me.
Her gaze follows his and lands on me.
Silas raises his glass in a toast from across the room.
I do the same, then take a sip just to have something to do.
The woman, who must be a model by the looks of her, and obviously his date, sneers. I turn back to the bar, and in the mirror, I see Silas’s sea-colored eyes, those eyes I memorized when I was a little girl, track to the man who is somehow obliviously still talking to me.
“Another round?” the man asks and without waiting for my reply, gestures to the bartender who sets new drinks in front of us.
“I got this,” I say, and this time when he insists on paying, I hand my card over to the bartender, who takes it. At least I won’t feel bad when I don’t talk to him.
In the mirror, Silas watches as I gulp down half my martini before the man knocks his elbow into my arm and the rest of it splashes on my silk dress, icy on my bare legs.
I gasp with the cold, shocked. The man sets his drink down and grabs a bunch of napkins off the bar.
“I’m so sorry!” he exclaims.
I take the napkins and slide off the stool to my feet. “It’s fine. It’s fine,” I say, pushing his hands away.
Probably better it landed on my lap than in my stomach, actually. I teeter on my heels.
“Where’s the bathroom?” I ask the bartender, who points. I thank him and head in that direction, making my way through the crowd. When I glance at Silas’s table, I see the satisfied grin on his date’s face, but Silas is gone.
I try to squeeze past everyone and remember every other time Silas has turned up at exactly the right moment, or the wrong moment depending on how you look at it. How embarrassing it was when he and his then-date came home to find me clinging to the edge of the pool, terrified to move. How humiliatingwhen he’d walked in on me and Ethan making out.
When I finally get to the ladies’ room, I am grateful no one is inside so I can just take a minute to grip the counter and close my eyes as the room spins.
It’s all of what is going on. My father’s trial, this new evidence that I know is going to change things, and on top of it, Ethan asking me to marry him tonight of all nights. That look on his face, like he got when he was a little kid, like he was celebrating. And I guess he was celebrating our would-be engagement even though I didn’t say yes. He just didn’t expect—and wouldn’t accept—no.
I should have pushed the ring away. Told him it wasn’t right, that it wasn’t fair to him.
I force a deep breath in, open my eyes, and run the tap to splash water on my face.
Before I get to, though, the door opens. I’m trying to fix my face when a male voice startles me, and I turn to find the man who was buying me drinks standing there.
“Hey, you okay? I feel awful,” he starts, coming inside.
“I’m fine. This is the ladies’ room. You shouldn’t be in here.” I don’t need this, and I don’t want it.
“Oh, no one cares.” His gaze moves to my dress with the giant spot on it, then down to my bare legs. “I’ll pay the cleaning fee. Here,” he says, coming over,standing too close. “Let me get your number, and you can let me know how much it is.”
“It’s fine. I can pay for my own dry cleaning.” As I say it, a voice in my head reminds me that no, I won’t be paying for it. Mr. Fox will. Not that I can’t, but I don’t. Sly Fox takes care of that like he takes care of everything else.
When the company’s assets were frozen, Mr. Fox had insisted on picking up the bill for my schooling, refusing to let me take out a loan. He called those lenders loan sharks. I promised to pay him back, but he has just waved it away any time I’ve mentioned it, and it’s gotten to the point it’s embarrassing to bring up anymore. It was doubly hard knowing some of Mr. Fox’s assets, too, were frozen since he was implicated in the embezzlement charges along with Dad. When Ethan told his father about my job interviews for part time work while I studied, Mr. Fox wouldn’t hear of it.
“It was my fault,” the man from the bar says, leaning against the counter.
I look up at him, at his flushed face, his eyes that aren’t quite focused. He’s drunk.
“Excuse me,” I say, and try to sidestep him when he grabs my arm.
“Really, I insist,” he continues, then brushes my hair back behind my ear. “You’re very pretty, you know that? Let’s get out of here. My hotel is around the corner.”
“I don’t think so,” I say and try to tug my arm free.
“Come on,” he says, backing me against the counter, trapping me there. I realize just how much bigger than me he is and how loud it is in the restaurant and how alone we are in here.
