I blinked slowly, my awareness moving from stoned-as-shit Peter, to Walsh, to Gray, to Kieran. “Here’s a crazy idea,” I offered. “Instead of leering at this woman from your ivory tower, why don’t you go down there and talk to her?”
Kieran snickered, his reaction so fast that I nearly caught whiplash from it. “Yeah? If it’s so simple, you do it, Davis.”
My breath sharpened on an inhale and I clutched my hand around my beer, wishing that Kieran didn’t know how to push my buttons so easily. My brother was born for this though, and Machiavelli himself could eat his heart out. His smirk said it all: I was a coward and he knew it. We all knew it. Even Gray, who didn’t invest energy into belittling people, was holding back a smile upon hearing Kieran’s challenge.
“Fuck off, Kieran,” Peter remarked before hopping up to his feet. “He can do it. Right, Davis?” His hand clapped down on my shoulder, too powerful for a guy with that much THC in his bloodstream. “You’re good.”
I tried to make eye contact with Peter, but his eyes were so glazed that it wasn’t possible. Instead, he squeezed my shoulder again before wandering back to his seat on the couch.
“Five hundred dollars says you can’t go down there and convince her to come up here,” Kieran tossed out, the challenge making his tone brighten dangerously. The flashing lights from the dancefloor below caught the contours of his face and illuminated his sharp features with each pulse, making him look devilish. He probably knew it; he probably loved it.
I refused to indulge him. My brother never passed on a chance to make a bet. He lived for them. Any opportunity he got, he gamely wagered our father’s money on anything and everything.
“Money doesn’t matter to me,” I replied honestly, “and I’m not here to entertain you.”
“Entertain yourself then,” Gray chimed in, raising a shoulder as if it were so simple. “Go talk to her.”
There was a resolute tinge in my friend’s expression that sang of earnestness. A nonchalance that surrounded Gray. I knew where it came from: Gray was the heir apparent to the company that our fathers ran. Davenport-Ridgeway: the world’s most valuable holding company. It was a storied force of business and wealth that had defined and altered the corporate world for better or for worse. It was our namesake. One day, Gray’s destiny would be to run that company—and as a result, the world had been presented to him on a silver platter. There was a cost to it though: a weight he bore that none of the rest of us did, even though nearly all of us, save Walsh, shared the same last names. Davenport or Ridgeway. Telling me to entertain myself was the most subtle act of rebellion Gray could muster: Do something crazy for once, Davis.
“Fuck it. Fine,” I declared before I downed the rest of my beer—which was a mistake because I was a novice chugger. Immediately, the carbonation sat in my throat, threatening to bubble back up and really humiliate me. By some miracle I steeled myself, like a Ridgeway always does, and I grabbed another beer from the bucket on our table before heading towards the stairs.
As soon as my hand hit the cold, black railing, I knew that this was a horrible idea. Like, catastrophic. Like Napoleon leading campaigns across Russia in the winter. The familiar unsteadiness was starting to rise up in my legs and my grip began to feel tenuous. What the hell was I doing?
I was the last guy she wanted to come down these stairs. She probably wanted my brother with his perfectly engineered figure, or Walsh with his polished old-Hollywood looks, or Gray with his freakishly attractive, tormented, almost Bruce-Wayne-y face that even I had to admit was downright impressive. Hell, even Peter would have been better because the kid practically radiated carefree confidence. But tough shit. Tonight, this girl was getting me. That was going to piss her off beyond all recognition.
My feet hit the landing on the first floor and I wiped my palms on the sides of my pants as I took a deep breath. This was such a bad idea. This woman had already rejected a cocktail from my brother, a prodigiously handsome son of a billionaire. Why would she give the time of day to the oversized and clumsy version of that guy?
She wouldn’t. This would undoubtedly end with her glaring at me with her gorgeous face mired with disgust, while my friends and brother howled with laughter up above.
Well, on the bright side, if she shot me down I would at least have a valid excuse to get out of here and enjoy some downtime in the suite before the rest of the guys got home and the fuckfests started. Maybe even enough time to order room service and read the draft of the last Davenport-Ridgeway 10-K that my father’s assistant had sent to me yesterday.
Just get this over with, Davis.
Down here, the music was deafening to the point where I could feel it in my chest. Thumping. Beating. Pulsating. I weaved through the crowded dancefloor, feeling like a bull in a china shop among the gyrating bodies around me. I was a head taller than most people and three times as sober. To add insult to injury, I was too uncoordinated to try to drink my beer as I walked, so I couldn’t even rectify the sobriety problem. Desperate, I focused on simply making it to the far side of the bar where she was seated.
When I was closer to her, I slowed and gradually came to a stop as I observed her from a few feet away. She was running her fingertip along the edge of a cocktail napkin and her attention stayed focused on it. The long, measured sigh she released made it seem as though she were oblivious to the sounds of the music around us or the clouds of smoke that wafted through every corner of the club. Briefly, I wondered what that would be like—to shut out the world for just a minute. To ignore all of it. To be impermeable to it.
I took a long drink from my beer before I closed the last few feet between us and slid into the empty barstool next to her. Now that I was in her vicinity, my whole body lit up with her proximity. The sweet smell of her perfume. The way that she languidly turned to look at me. The hue of her pale green eyes and the calm look of curiosity that she sent in my direction as I continued to sit next to her in silence like this gigantic, weird shadow.
Up close, she was intimidatingly beautiful to a degree that I couldn’t quite put into words. It wasn’t just the contrasts of her hair and her skin and her eyes, but also the gorgeous bow of her soft, plump lips that offset the angles of her high cheekbones and her slender neck. She felt rare, I decided, as I studied her. Beautiful only because I didn’t have a better, more fitting word for her. Beautiful wasn’t enough, but it was all the English language had to offer. Hell, effervescent wasn’t even good enough.
“You could start with hello,” she said, breaking the silence between us. “Or hi. Or hallo—I think that’s the Dutch word for it.”
Her voice was rich and confident, not wispy or delicate like the rest of her. There was this full undertone to it, the kind that a person needed if she was going to deliver an opener like that.
“Or even a casual ‘fuck you’ would work at this point,” she went on, a smirk clearly forming on her gorgeous mouth as she looked me up and down. “Anything other than you sitting there and gawking at me like I’m the Girl with a Pearl Earring.”
“I’m sorry,” I stammered, apologizing even though I wasn’t exactly sure what I was apologizing for. My father always hated it when I did that, but I couldn’t shake the habit—especially not now, not when I was tongue-tied and awkward and borderline non-functioning in front of a genuine goddess.
“Did your friends send you down here to find out why I declined their drink? It’s nothing personal. I’m just not in the mood to have horny men buy me things tonight.”
“You could buy me a drink instead, if that helps,” I replied before I could stop myself.
Shit, that was stupid.
But to my surprise, she started laughing—and not laughing in a god-this-guy-is-a-loser way, but more in a wow-this-guy-is-actually-funny way. That really threw me a loop because I was under no delusion that I was particularly witty, but apparently my social awkwardness had come full circle and landed somewhere in the vicinity of “borderline amusing.”
“That was adorable,” she replied once she had caught her bearings. “Do you actually want a drink? I’m happy to buy you one.”
Adorable? I’d take it.
“Don’t worry about it. We ordered bottle service,” I replied, tilting my gaze up at the balcony where, sure enough, all of my friends were staring at us. Shamelessly. Shocked, frankly.
Same, boys. Same.