Right Number, Wrong Girl

I brushed off the fizzle of attraction to him. “You barely touched me. It’s quite all right, thank you.”

“I insist.”

“I insist more,” I said, unzipping my purse and pulling out my card. I shook his hand off, took another step to the side, and shoved my card at a very amused Cait before he could do anything else.

The man was handsome as hell, but apparently, he couldn’t take a hint.

I wasn’t exactly short of experience with guys like him.

He held his hands up. “I was just going to do something nice for you.”

I turned, leaning on the bar, and met his eyes. “Look. I live in London. I know what something nice means when a hot guy hits on a woman in a bar. If you really want that line to work, the polite thing to do is accept her rejection and walk away. Otherwise, you simply look rude, entitled, and honestly? Kind of a creep.”

He blinked at me.

“So thank you, but no thank you.” I took my card and card machine receipt from Cait. “Thank you.”

She wasn’t even trying to hide her enjoyment of this situation. “You’re welcome. I’m working again tomorrow if you’re still around.”

In other words: come in for a drink so I can laugh at what just happened.

“I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks.” I smiled and headed back to table where I grabbed my things and made sure to zip my coat right up. I waved goodbye to Cait and didn’t bother waving to Hugo, but that didn’t mean I ignored him entirely.

I couldn’t.

He was staring at me with his head tilted slightly to the side. His lips were pressed together, and his brow was slightly furrowed. The look in his eye gave a glimpse of what he was thinking—that he didn’t know what to make of me.

That he wasn’t used to being shut down and called out like that.

I glanced back one last time.

Green.

His eyes were green.

CHAPTER FIVE – HUGO

Miss Marple Eat Your Heart Out

That woman was infuriating.

Not because she’d called me out.

No, I knew I should have accepted her refusal of my offer and moved on, but my mouth wouldn’t let me.

I wanted to know who she was.

Especially after Cait had told me it was none of my business.

Well, I fucking knew that, but I wanted to know anyway.

Women like her—Sophie­­—didn’t tend to come to places like Moorhaven and eat alone in a country pub. At first, I’d thought she might be the person my mother had hired for Grandma’s birthday party, but her name was Camilla.

Which meant there were two random women wandering around Moorhaven.

If Camilla was half as attractive as Sophie…

Shit, it’d been a long time since I’d been so immediately attracted to someone. Especially someone I didn’t know—someone who was so clearly a stranger to this place.