Page 33 of Mr. Wicked

With each step, I remembered what his mouth had felt like.

The sensation in my body when he’d caressed me.

How I felt when his arms were around me.

And I took in his face, how incredibly sexy it looked with a beard that was even thicker than before, skin that was tan, a smugness that dragged across his lips, reinforcing how cocky and confident he was.

I hate him.

That was what I told myself when the jitters began to shoot up my chest, when I found it difficult to breathe, when it was almost impossible to look away from his gaze.

I despise him.

The result of that night was a rideshare that I had to take alone, back to the apartment I rented with Sloane, in the middle of a heavy downpour.

The weather symbolic of how miserable I’d felt.

I resent him.

And that memory was painful enough that I shifted my focus to the women at the table and halted behind the two of them. One sat directly next to Grayson, a pair of bright-red glasses perched high on her nose, with an aura that screamed business. The other had her hair in a high, tight bun with a smear of freckles across her nose.

“Welcome to Olives,” I said to the group. “My name is Jovana, what can I get you to drink?”

The ladies placed their orders first. I was too worked up to reach into my apron and grab the pen and pad, so I recited their wine preferences in my head before moving on to Grayson’s partners. Their drinks were easy to remember; they were identical.

There was one person left.

One person I absolutely didn’t want to look at.

That was a lie.

Shit.

I filled my lungs and gradually turned my gaze, my breath hitching as we locked eyes, my throat contracting, my arm feeling weak even though it was holding only the weight of the tray. “And Mr. Wicked, what can I get you?”

My eyes narrowed, my lips smiling.

This was how I’d look at the camera if I were recording content, a way to be flirty but not overly sexy. A way to make the audience feel like I was giving them all of me.

Even if I wasn’t.

The salutation earned me a chuckle.

A sound that, when I’d previously heard it at his table and in the hallway outside the restrooms and during the walk to his condo and inside his place, I’d found so alluring.

Now, it almost stung.

Because it slapped those memories back into my head, reinforcing just how evil this man was.

“Vodka—”

“May I chime in,” the woman in red glasses said, cutting Grayson off before she looked at me. She didn’t receive an answer from either of us before she said, “Do the two of you know each other?”

I glanced from her to Grayson. “Somewhat ... yes.”

“What does Mr. Wicked stand for?” she asked.

An odd question, I thought.

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