She turned her face toward him, and they held each other’s gazes, him squinting slightly, her with a slightly chagrinned look on her face.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before,” she said.
He brought his hand up and rubbed his chin, his brow furrowing. Then he snapped his fingers. “Got it,” he said. “I’ve seen you at Failte.”
Her eyes lit up. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “Yeah, probably! My best friend and I go there all the time.”
“You’re keeping all the good-looking women here, Roubideaux,” Billy said. “First Petra, then Annie, now this one . . .” He gave Daisy the eyes. “You seeing anyone, sweetheart?” I felt a flare of anger swirl through my chest, but I gritted my teeth and grinned.
Daisy looked at me, and then said—rather empathically—“No.”
That was all Billy needed to hear. Even if she had been seeing someone, that had never deterred him before. He could be a downright scoundrel when he wanted to be—he’d probably slept with more women than I had—but no fucking way was he going to move in on Daisy, I didn’t give a shit what dirty thoughts were going through his mind right now.
“Well.” He rubbed his palms together and stood up. “Thrilled to hear it. Anyway, I’ve got to run, but I sure do hope to see you around.”
“He was nice,” Daisy said after he left. “It’s so funny, I’ve seen him around the bar before, but we never talked.
“So,” I said, “you’re not seeing anyone?”
“That’s what we said we were going to do, wasn’t it?” she asked. “We weren’t going to tell anyone?”
Maybe, but that was really more in regards to Jonathan; I hadn’t factored Billy fuckin McAllister coming into the picture.
Chapter Twelve
Daisy
After work, I met up with Caroline for a drink.
“You won’t believe it,” I said, “but that red-haired guy that we see here sometimes is a client of Ian’s. He came into the office today.”
“He’s hot,” Caroline said. She leaned toward me. “You know whose son he is though, don’t you?”
“Son? No, I don’t.”
“Seamus McAllister. He’s basically the head of the Irish mafia. Well, it’s not really the mafia, but it’s kind of like that.”
I gave her a skeptical look. “How do you know?”
“I don’t know; it’s one of those things that I thought everyone just kind of knew.”
“I certainly didn’t know that. And why would someone from the mafia need security services?”
“It’s not really the mafia. But it’s like it.” Caroline’s eyes shifted past me toward the door. “And speak of the devil,” she said.
I turned and looked over my shoulder. Billy had just breezed in, and it was like he had a homing device or something, the way he looked right over at me, even though we were toward the back.
“Oh crap,” I said. “He’s coming over.”
“Of course he is.”
“I was hoping you might be here,” he said when he reached our table. “Mind if I join you?”
Caroline shot me a glance; she was going to leave this one up to me. “No, that’s fine.” He plopped down at the table; one of the waitresses was already coming over with a black and tan for him.
“Daisy,” he said. He had blue eyes with a mischievous glint in them, and short, rust-colored hair. His skin was pale, lightly freckled. “You know, it’s funny that I ran into you like that at Ruby’s.”
“Ruby?”