The bar got utterly quiet. It was like being underwater. I almost shook my head to clear the water from my ears.
But it was just me.
It was just her.
A tiny little thing. Dainty. But in a weird way, she was larger than life.
A girl as beautiful as Audrey Hepburn had walked into my bar. Maybe even prettier. Her eyes were bigger, I thought. The lips fuller. And she wasn’t wearing a speck of makeup.
I heard sounds of male appreciation all around me. The beautiful dark-haired girl was here with a bubbly blonde. They couldn’t have looked more different. The blonde was scoping the place out and arching her back, subtly letting it be known that she was approachable. The slender brunette, on the other hand, had her arms crossed over her chest, and her eyes looked nervous. I wondered what they were doing together.
Here, of all places.
Too young, I said to myself. Too young for me.
At the same time, I knew it didn’t matter. Nothing did. In that one moment, everything had changed.
I didn’t know whether to thank God or to curse him. I was a good Catholic boy. I went to Mass a couple of times a year. I donated to the church. I even went to confession when Auntie insisted, though I left a lot of shit out.
Like murder. Money laundering. Illegal gambling. Or running drugs with local bikers, back when we used to.
This was bad timing for me. I wasn’t looking for The One. Not yet. The nice girl I could take home and present to my brother. The one my mother would give her blessing to from heaven. But I had this crazy feeling that I’d just found her, whether I was ready or not.
The most beautiful girl I’d seen in my entire life had just walked into my bar. But it was more than just her beauty. She didn’t look like most of the girls who came in. She didn’t look available.
That was it. The magic ingredient I’d been searching for. A girl who was as averse to falling in love as I was.
I slugged back the rest of my drink and waited, getting ready to make my move. Or, better yet, to make my prey come to me. Because there was no doubt in my mind that I was getting that girl.
And keeping her.
Her friend whispered something in her ear, and she nodded uncertainly, following the blonde to the bar. They were going to cause a riot, I realized. They were out of their depth and then some. My wait and see approach suddenly seemed dubious in this scenario.
Then again, I looked into the mirror behind the bar. I could see them perfectly, even though they were at the other end of the bar. I watched hungrily as her huge eyes flickered to her own reflection without much interest. Interesting. She wasn’t in love with her own reflection like most beautiful girls were.
Her eyes moved quickly away from her own image.
And right at me.
Our eyes locked and held. A predatory smile crossed my face. And then something else took hold. My smile faded as a foreign feeling washed through me.
I felt protective. Not just about the guys bearing down on them at that very moment. I felt protective of her . . . from myself.
There was a dark part of me that wanted to chew her up. But not spit her out. I wanted to swallow her whole.
She exhaled and looked away, primly ordering a drink from Zane, the head bartender on duty tonight. He was one of my best and also managed the place. After he served their drinks, I waved him over.
“What did she have?”
He didn’t have to ask who I meant. He knew. The blonde might be pretty, but the dark-haired girl was exceptionally so.
“Gin and tonic.”
I raised my eyebrows at that. A serious drink for such a little girl. But when I looked over, she had barely touched it. Meanwhile, her girlfriend was already halfway through her drink.
“Give them a round on the house.”
Zane grinned at me.
“Will do. But I think all of their drinks are already covered.”
I groaned as we looked at the other end of the bar. The girls were surrounded. The blonde looked thrilled. My girl did not.
I shook my head. I was already thinking of her as mine. As my girl. And she was.
She just didn’t know it yet.
“She won’t accept.”
He raised his eyebrows and shrugged.
“We’ll see.”
I spent the next twenty minutes watching the brunette deftly deflect every line thrown at her. She primly took three sips of her drink. Three.
I settled in to wait and to watch. It wasn’t hard. Watching her was like watching a classic film. Listening to an opera. It wasn’t a waste of time. It was a fucking privilege.
It was an absolute goddamn pleasure.