But I preferred the privacy of the small booth. I slid into it. “This is great, thank you.”
She handed me a menu. “Your waitress, Emily, will be with you shortly.”
I thanked her again and dropped my gaze to the menu. My stomach grumbled loudly as soon as I saw filet mignon.
My waitress, a tall, willowy young woman with an English accent appeared to take my drink order. I asked for champagne, because screw it. After the week I’d had, I was treating myself to a goddamn filet mignon and a glass of champagne. Or two.
As I sipped at my glass of bubbly, I pulled my phone out of my purse and trolled through the work e-mails I wasn’t supposed to be looking at until my return.
However, the skin on my neck continued to prickle, distracting me. It wasn’t a wonder, then, when I felt someone approach my booth and stand over me. Slowly I lifted my gaze, annoyance already heating my skin when I found a tall, rangy guy in a business suit grinning down at me.
“Dining alone?”
I didn’t reply and let my deadpan expression do the talking.
It didn’t deter him. “That is a diabolical sin.” His dark gaze drifted down to my cleavage, which he blatantly ogled. My skin crawled. “I’m Matt. Let me join you.”
In hell, maybe. “Matt, I appreciate the offer. But I just want to have a quiet dinner alone. Thank you.” I dropped my gaze, returning my attention to my phone.
It took him a second or two—I could almost feel his confusion—but he eventually walked away and I breathed a sigh of relief. Dear old Matt was likely thinking to himself, Why would a woman dress that way if she wasn’t looking to grab a man’s attention? And that there was one of the things still wrong with our society. There was this obnoxious misconception that women only dressed well to attract a mate. Hello! Some of us were just obsessed with clothes, shoes, and makeup and liked to look good, you know, for ourselves. Shocker.
So I wasn’t at all taken aback when the feeling of being watched didn’t dissipate with Matt’s retreat.
My toes curled inside my shoes with agitation as I felt another person approach. This time he slid into the bench across from me in my small booth. I lifted my gaze to the stocky blond guy who bore a faint resemblance to a handsome Australian actor. Clearly, he thought this made him irresistible, if the cocky, assured smile he shot me was anything to go by. “Sorry about my friend Matt. I tried to tell him a beautiful woman like you wouldn’t be interested in sharing a meal with a guy like him. I came to rescue you instead. I’m Chuck.”
Of course he was. I stared through him stonily. “Well, Chunk—”
“It’s Chuck.”
“I don’t mean to be rude, but I couldn’t care less if your name was Tallulah. Like I told your friend, I just want to eat alone. If you wouldn’t mind …” I gestured for him to get out of the booth.
He leaned over the table, his blue eyes moving over me in a way that made Matt’s staring feel benign. “I get it. You’re alone. You feel vulnerable, a little defensive, but you don’t have to. I promise you I’m a nice guy who just wants to share a meal with a pretty woman instead of the assholes I’m on a business trip with.” He smiled.
I guessed I was supposed to melt now.
“Chuck.” I smiled sweetly and his eyes lit with triumph. “If you don’t get your ass out of my booth, I’m going to scream bloody murder.”
The grin promptly fled, replaced with astonishment. “There’s no need to be rude.”
“I’m not the one who sat down at a table I wasn’t invited to sit down at.”
“I think we’ve gotten off to—”
“Chuck. Get the hell out of my booth.”
Chuck flushed angrily and shuffled out of the booth, shooting me one last glare before he marched back to his table.
My heart pounded in my chest, my fingers trembling slightly as I reached for my glass. Confrontation was never fun. Some people might think I was the one who had turned it into a confrontation by being defensive—a bitch even—but I was watching these men from under my lashes. They were laughing as another one of them stood up, grinning my way, shrugging his suit jacket down as if readying for battle. So was I a bitch? Or was I fully in my rights to feel defensive and wronged when men treated me like prey?
Yes, I was absolutely within my rights.
I felt my stomach plummet as the next one began to walk toward me. This was a game to them. To see which one of them broke me.
Deciding I’d rather eat in my room alone than endure their assholery, I reached for my purse and began to shimmy out.
“Stay.”
My eyes flew upward at the familiar voice and a flip low in my belly betrayed me.
The Bastard Scot towered over me for a second before he slid into the bench opposite me. I could only stare at him, stunned. Somehow, I still wasn’t used to how striking and pale those blue eyes of his were. They held me fixed in their snare, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Was he the one who had been staring at me? Was it his eyes that made my skin prickle? Finally, able to relinquish my eyes from his, my gaze drifted over him. He was wearing a white shirt open at the collar, the sleeves rolled up to the elbow so his right sleeve of tattoos was visible again. His blond hair looked a little darker and I realized it was still wet from the shower he’d obviously taken.
The thought of him naked with water rolling down that fine body made me flush hot, and I was more discomforted than ever that I could be attracted to someone I did not like.
“Better this than me layin’ one of those assholes out, no?” he suddenly said from his place opposite me.
My eyes flew over to the table of businessmen. The one who was standing threw us a disgruntled look before slumping back into his seat. His buddies shot my new companion displeased frowns.
I turned back to the Scot, utterly confused.
His expression was sour, and I realized why when he spoke. “My presence will deter them. We’ll just pretend we’re at different tables. But this way we can both eat in peace.”
Clearly I was putting him out so … “Why help me?”
“You might be a pain in the arse, but I wouldn’t let any woman be harassed. And I owe you. I don’t like owing anyone. This way we’re even.”
His words from earlier came back to me. “I hope you don’t expect a thank you.”
The Scot’s lips twitched, as if desperate to smile at my teasing. He got hold of that impulse, however, and didn’t reply. Instead, he sipped the whiskey he’d brought over to the table with him.
Tension immediately sprung up between us as we sat looking anywhere but at each other.
Really? We were supposed to sit there and ignore each other?
I rolled my eyes. “They’re not exactly going to be deterred if we look like two strangers sharing a table.”
His gaze returned from its perusal of the room to meet mine. “Believe me, they will.”
Considering how he dwarfed the booth, he was probably not wrong. But … well … the thing of it was that he was doing a surprisingly nice thing for me. I was weirdly not uncomfortable around him even though he was obnoxious and rude, and I think—maybe because of my physical attraction to him more than anything else—I wanted the chance to discover that he did in fact have a redeeming quality.
“I’m Ava Breevort.”
“No one said anything about exchanging names.”
I sighed. “Okay. I could continue to think of you as the Bastard Scot in my head, if you’d like.”
The look he gave me said he found me more than a little insufferable. Well, hey, the feeling was mutual. Still, he answered, “Caleb. Caleb Scott.”
“Why do men do that?”
“Do what?”
“Say their name followed by their name and surname. Is it just an unconscious desire to be James Bond?”
“I’m already regretting this favor.”
Redeeming quality? Really, Ava? “Well, Caleb, I didn’t ask for the favor and I didn’t need it. I don’t need some man to save me. I was taking care of it myself.”