David held up his empty shot glass. “I might take off in a few minutes. Good luck. Let me know how it goes, eh?”
“Doubtful it will go in that direction.” Not that Ken would complain… but this wasn’t about romantic intentions. This was business. Yes. Business. That’s what Lana had come for, after all. Ken would have to honor that. Now, if she ended up moving to New York and still had a favorable impression of him? Ken wouldn’t say no to a date then.
He slipped into the space between Lana’s barstool and the empty one beside her. Ken’s glass lightly touched the bar. He pointed to her empty martini glass the moment she sat back in surprise at his immediate presence.
“Can I get you another one?” Ken flagged down the bartender. Lana popped the olive out of her mouth and tossed it into a crinkled napkin marked with the hotel’s logo. “Or are you one and done tonight, Ms. Losers?”
Ken leaned against the bar. This made him a good two heads shorter than miss prim and proper Lana Losers, but what did he care? All the men in Ken’s family were average height. They would never sweep into a room and tower over everyone else. Men who relied on that trick of genetics were only fooling themselves, anyway. Ken knew that not everyone took him seriously. Lana hadn’t. The way she had looked at him when they first met was so dismissive until he introduced himself as the Kenneth Andrews. That got her attention right quick.
“I can get my own, thank you.” Lana did not open her body language, but she also did not shut herself off to him. Is that a good thing? That’s a good thing, right? Ken was not intimidated by independent women who knew what they were about and what they wanted. (Let alone had high standards. A woman of Lana’s background, who had gone on to become a bit of a big deal in her own right? She had high standards.) He would, however, be quite disappointed if she shut him down before giving him a chance to talk shop with her. “Now, if you need a refill of your own drink, Mr. Andrews…”
Oh, he liked her.
Ken often found himself in a unique position. Whereas most of his peers only accepted one kind of woman into their lives, he appreciated a wide variety. Most of those same peers would have no idea that he was as likely to head down to the local BDSM scene and pick himself up a date to torment as he was to pick one up to torment him. Men in both the kink and professional worlds were expected to be Doms through and through if they had even the smallest drop of alpha in them. The business world particularly demanded it. That’s so boring, though. Most of those same men would probably lose their minds to know that Ken would be open to Roger Prescott flirting with him. Well, if he were my type. He wasn’t. Lana, on the other hand…
She was his type. Not only her stone cold beauty, but her fiery attitude as well. How much of this personality was a self-defense mechanism? How much of it was her true self? Ken was curious to find out.
Assuming Lana would let him in first.
“I’m still working on mine.” He kept a respectful distance as he faced her and drank more of his highball. “Thank you, though.”
Likewise, Lana spared him a few curious glances. “What can I do for you, Mr. Andrews? Did you come over to talk business or pleasure? Because I’m only in the mood for one.”
Ah, yes. Ken had suspected as much. Lana was not here by herself to be flirted with. She was relaxing. Networking, as Ken had used as an excuse to come talk to her. That was fine. Not much fun, but fine. Besides, if she was going to come work for him in the coming months, Ken needed to make sure all his HR ducks were lined up in their proper rows. What do I want most from this woman? For her to make me money? Or to pleasure me? One type of relationship was much more lucrative than the other.
“Then pardon me for interrupting, Ms. Losers. If you don’t want to talk business, say so.”
She scoffed. A long, intricate blond curl bounced in front of her face. While her roots were a darker shade of blond, Ken had no reason to believe that she was anything but all natural from head to toe. That only made her more intriguing in a world full of plastic surgery and fake platinum blondes who were convinced that nobody would buy properties from them unless they looked a certain way. Besides, Lana was from the Losers clan. Everyone knew that brood was as vane as a wicked stepmother from a fairy tale. Even more intriguing.