Page 105 of Sinful Escape

The music was so loud that everybody yelled to be heard over the top of it. I had no idea how the bar staff understood what anyone was ordering.

After each member of my group placed their drink order, including me, I used my work credit card to pay for the first round. Once they were all sorted, I clutched my pint of the disturbingly named Dead Donkey’s Donger, an apparently fruity beer that the scantily clad barmaid had recommended to me, and made my way through the crowd, aiming for Roman.

He’d herded our group into the corner beneath the stairs, and being the Mr. Perfect that he was, he’d somehow managed to secure four bar tables for us, and my group had formed little circles around each of them. I sidled in next to Roman, and the second I did he placed his hand on my shoulder and leaned in. “So, have you thought about it?”

The concern on his face made my stomach shrink to the size of a walnut. “About what?”

“Pierre, of course.”

Jesus. He didn’t waste time.

“It is a no-brainer if you ask me. How is your beer? You like it?”

“Oh, ummm . . .” Shit. He was good at getting the jump on our conversations.

He nodded at my amber ale, urging me to drink. I took a tentative sip. The beer was cold and sweet, and dare I say it, actually pleasant. I nodded. “It’s really good.”

He chinked his glass to mine and together, we each took another sip of our beers.

I leaned into him, ready to take the conversation back to Caterina. But when I inhaled his delightful ocean-scented cologne, I was taken on an exotic journey to a tropical island somewhere well away from the noisy bedlam around me.

“What is the worst that could happen?”

His question lured me back from the swaying palm trees. “Huh?”

“With Pierre.” He said his name like he was a god. “What’s the worst that could happen if you went to him?”

Damn it, Daisy. Focus. “The worst.” I inhaled deep and huffed it out. “Okay, you want the worst. I go to Pierre, and he laughs in my face, admits that it was just a stupid mistake, and announces that he’d have to be way more drunk to actually do anything else with me.” The second I stopped talking, I prayed that the thumping music had drowned out everything that’d blurted from my stupid mouth.

Roman’s jaw dropped, confirming that my prayers had not been answered. When he blinked at me, all silent and brooding, I figured he was processing just how fucked up I was.

His expression softened and he leaned in closer. His hot breath tickled my ear as he said, “That is not going to happen, Daisy. Pierre has probably been jacking off to the memory of you running around with your top off.”

“Oh, God.” I lurched back, took one look at his cheeky expression and gulped down my Dead Donkey’s Donger. “That’s disgusting.”

“But true.” He nodded with conviction.

I shook my head. “Oh, come on, you don’t really think that.”

“Si, I do.”

Men really were weird. I rolled my eyes, shaking my head.

He touched his hand to my shoulder and leaned into my ear. “As my sisters keep reminding me, men are simple. When we are not thinking about beer,”—he held up his glass— “we are thinking about women. By what you have told me about what happened with you and Pierre, believe me, he has been thinking about you.” He said it with such tenderness, like he was imparting his wisdom to a much-loved naïve sibling, that my heart squeezed.

When he looked down at me, he really, truly looked at me. His gaze flitted from my eyes to my mouth and back again. Every millisecond was breathtaking. It was like the two of us were the only two people in the world.

Blood pumped around my body and for one scary, exciting, foolish moment I actually thought he was going to kiss me.

He wrapped his arm around my neck and squished my chin to his chest. “Don’t take life so seriously, Daisy. You only have one chance at it.”

Listening to my own thumping heart, I felt stupid and awkward. A suffocating clutch of embarrassment gripped me. For one senseless, fleeting moment, I’d thought Roman was interested in me. I was such a fool. A stupid naive fool. Roman was just doing what he always did best: being Mr. Perfect.

Swallowing a lump the size of Everest, I eased back from him. “Right, on that note, it’s time to move on to the next place.”

The night became a blur, and with each boutique brewery we visited, Roman plied me with another beer that I simply had to try. I sipped the ale, trying but failing to revisit our discussion about Caterina, and Roman continued his mission to convince me to go to Pierre before I returned to London. He was relentless. On and on he went with never-ending reasons why going to Pierre made sense.

“Pierre needs closure.”

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