Page 9 of The Businesswoman and the Bartender

Before she could formulate how to proposition him, Nick moved to the next topic of conversation. “Excited for your tourist day tomorrow?” he asked.

“I am. I purchased a ticket for the boat tour you mentioned. Thanks for the suggestion.”

He nodded in response to her gratitude. “And you fly out on Saturday?”

It was a stark reminder. If she was going to do this—follow through and seduce him—she had only tonight or tomorrow to do it.

“I do,” she uttered quietly.

“Your partner must be missing you.”

A record scratch sounded in her brain. “Partner?”

“Romantic partner,” he supplied. “Boyfriend, girlfriend? Or as the kids like to say, your boo?”

If she wasn’t stunned by the question, she would have laughed at how adorable he sounded using the termboo. Instead, she blinked rapidly and took a few seconds to respond. Had he spent the past two days thinkingshewas involved with someone?

Served her right.

“Oh, there’s no partner,” she jabbered. “No pets either. And no houseplants. I’ve killed every plant anyone’s ever gotten for me. Nope. It’s only me. No one else.”

“Ah.” He scratched the back of his neck. “I just assumed.”

“I assumed with you too.” One shoulder raised in a guilty shrug. “That first night I was here? I thought you were a young’unandassumed you were taken.”

“And you were wrong on both counts,” he teased.

“I guess I’m not a good judge of character.”

“Nah, I don’t believe that at all.” A flash of movement from the other end of the bar caught his eye, and he said, “Excuse me for a second.”

Their conversation had been so intimate that she’d completely forgotten he was still working. He told the other patrons at the bar that it was last call and supplied them with one final beer. Then he gave the cocktail waitress the signal, and she alerted the parties in the lounge that it was time to get their last round of drinks in.

One group closed out, and the other asked for one more round, which Nick prepared. As he stood at the workstation and strained a sidecar into a coupe glass, he peered over at April and said, “You don’t have to rush out of here, by the way.”

The statement was likely in response to how she’d taken two hefty gulps of her gimlet after hearing it was last call. It was a knee-jerk reaction, born from years of chugging drinks at her local watering hole to get one more in before closing. But at this point, she definitely couldn’t stomach another cocktail.

As if he’d read her mind, he poured a glass of ice water and placed it beside the gimlet. “Feel free to hang out if you want,” he added. His tone was casual, but nothing about the offer felt as such.

She nodded silently as the cocktail waitress returned to pick up the final round of drinks. Nick moved to the long counter along the back of the bar space, where every spirit under the sun lived. He brought the bottles back to their proper home, then turned his attention to the open bottles of wine and used a vacuum pump to remove air from the bottles to keep the wine as fresh as possible.

The waitress popped behind the bar and helped with a few more tasks before asking, “You mind if I bounce?”

He shook his head. “Go ahead. Jimmy’s in the back. He and I can handle it.”

“Awesome,” the waitress said. She left in record time, leaving April alone with Nick.

While he was at the POS system, closing things up for the night, she called out, “Oh, how much do I owe you for this?”

“Nothing.”

“Nick, come on.”

He turned and raised an eyebrow at her. She was reminded of her dream—how he’d stared at her and had said so much with only a look.

“I’ll give you a good tip,” she promised in a mumble.

Once again, she hadn’t meant to infuse innuendo into her message, but it seemed to happen without even trying. And when naked hunger flashed over his face, she flushed furiously.

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