Page 33 of False Evidence

“You’re with Talon & Drake?”

She shook her head. “My date is, though.”

He winked at her. “I’ll put it on the company tab, then.”

She smiled. “Better yet, put it on my date’s room.” She gave him the room number, not even feeling slightly bad about it. He’d abandoned her without a second thought. She’d charge a taxi to his room if she could.

The bartender muddled the mint with a flourish and proceeded to assemble an excellent mojito. She added a hefty tip and signed the bill, then turned on her stool and sipped her drink as she watched the dancers.

The slow song had ended, and a current hit by Green Day had her considering joining the dancers, but one look at her shoes changed her mind. Sure, she could dance barefoot, but then when Russ returned, he’d be happy she was shorter than him again, and she was feeling just pissy enough to want to avoid that.

A man in a tailored suit approached the bar. His gaze swept over her as he neared, and she felt a zing of attraction fill the space between them.

He was utterly gorgeous. Thick, dark hair, light brown skin. Thirtyish. He moved with confidence. Like an adult. A handsome, successfulman.

This wasn’t a boy. Nor was he a student.

She spent most of her time with students. Undergrad and grad, they ranged in age from teenage geniuses to men years older than her, but sometimes it felt like the academic environment trapped them all in a state that was out of sync with the rest of the world. There were students and there were professors, and only the latter group were the adults in the room.

Which was ridiculous.

It probably stemmed from her own insecurity due to the judgments people made based on her looks. She was tall, blonde, and stacked, which meant she had to fight to be taken seriously in the real world. In grad school, students and professors alike knew there was no way she’d be in the program if she didn’t have the brain for it. So it was a safe zone of sorts, but she’d still spent her first semester doing everything she could to prove she belonged.

Deep down, she’d known Russ had only invited her to this party because of the aforementioned hair color and oversized breasts, which would, she presumed, impress certain coworkers. For her part, she’d agreed for the free dinner, not because she was eager to get to know him, so she couldn’t really complain. They both had superficial reasons for being on this date.

But she didn’t know what was worse, that he’d been so confident she’d jump into bed with him that he’d reserved a hotel room, or that he was still thinking he’d get laid after abandoning her for a blackjack table. He was probably bragging to the other players about bagging the blonde right now.

She wasn’t a person to him. She was a trophy, like catching a really big tuna and posing for pictures to show the world what a great fisherman he was. And he probably thought she was too young and silly to pick up on that.

Anger burned all over again.

She fixed her gaze on the handsome man who now stood one barstool away and ordered a drink. This complete stranger had better odds of getting her into bed tonight than her date, and she never screwed around with strangers.

While he waited for his drink, he turned and caught her stare. He gave her an easy smile. “You work for Talon & Drake?” He scanned her again, and his thick, dark brows furrowed with skepticism.

Okay, so maybe not. She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “No, I’m afraid my blonde hair makes it impossible for me to math. No engineering for little me.”

He snickered. “Huh. I’m told that having a penis makes it impossible to detect sarcasm, but still, I’m hearing notes of something in your very logical statement about the correlation between hair color and the ability to compute.”

“Maybe you don’t have a penis, then.”

He grinned, turned to the side, and made a show of pulling on his waistband and looking down. “Whew. Still there.” He turned back to her. “I was asking because I haven’t seen you before, and I feel certain I’d have noticed you in the office.”

“There are several East Coast branches at this party. Maybe I work at one you aren’t familiar with.”

“Nope.”

“Nope? You know everyone at every office?”

“Not by name. But again, I’d have noticedyou.”

“Maybe I’m new.”

“Nah. You see, you’ve given yourself away becauseyoudon’t recognizeme.So, are you crashing the party, or is your date the dumbest man on the planet to leave you alone?”

He sure had a high opinion of himself. He couldn’t be much older than thirty. How important could he be in a company like Talon & Drake? It was an engineering firm, not a tech startup. “My date could be a woman.”

“Still dumb to leave you alone.”

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