Page 3 of Scotch on the Rocks

A man around my age. Handsome in a generic kind of way. He was the kind of man you’d find modelling in an office supply catalogue, attractive, but not attractive enough to distract you from the swivel chair with adjustable lumbar support.

“Having a party?” He grinned across the circular table showing a dimpled cheek he probably thought wasadorable. I wondered if he practised the move in the bathroom mirror.

“A wake if you don’t remove your hand from my booth.”

He jerked, eyes flicking between mine incredulously. “A shut-down, just like that?”

I dragged the second olive from the stick with my teeth. “Just like that.” A man behind him – his friend, I assumed – snorted into his drink.

“Bitch!” he hissed, flipping me off and stalking away.

“Rude!” I called to his retreating back. “I thought you wanted to be friends?”

I’d barely dug back into my food when a second figure shadowed my table. One of his friends here to shoot their shot with the bitch in the back, no doubt. Perhaps I’d gotten extra lucky and they’d wagered money on it.

Not in the mood, I didn’t even glance up. “Come any closer and I’ll plant this cocktail stick in your eyeball.” I held the miniature weapon up for his viewing pleasure.

“Unnecessarily vicious and yet I admire the creativity, harpy.”

I froze. Every hair on my body rising at the deep brogue. The nickname. The lilt of humour that exposed a man who took very little seriously.

A different kind of ghost entirely.

Sitting back slowly, I had to fight to keep my voice even. “Callum Macabe.”

He nodded to my new friend at the bar. “That looked brutal.” His smile revealed pointed incisors I’d always envied.

He wore a charcoal suit, dark but not quite black. No tie. His light brown hair, the exact same shade as Alistair’s, was a little longer than when I’d last seen him, curling at the edges of his open shirt collar.

I folded one leg over the other in a move more confident than I felt. “For him or me?”

“The lad looked heartbroken.”

“I’m sure he’ll find anotherbitchto keep him entertained for the evening.”

Callum’s grin vanished, shoulders pulling taut beneath the fitted jacket. “He called you that?”

He looked almost … angry – an emotion I didn’t know Callum Macabe was capable of. It delighted me enough that I crooned, “Why Callum … you making plans to defend my honour?”

“If you ask nicely.” The words were casual. The glare he tossed at my new friends wasnot. I could have sworn they all slouched in their seats.

We lapsed into silence, and I twizzled the now empty cocktail stick between my red-painted lips. Callum watched it with an intensity I wasn’t accustomed to, the blue eyes he shared with Alistair flashing a sharp cobalt.

In an instant I was dragged back to that day on the train. The unconcealed heat in his eyes when he saw me again at Alistair’s place. There, and gone so suddenly, I’d seen the regret settle like a mask over his features. Polite. Distant. A little cold.

Perhaps that’s how everyone looked at their brother’s girlfriend.

He wasn’t looking at me like that now.

Tugging off his jacket, he slung it over the back of the booth and sat.

“What are you doing?” I demanded, steadying the table when he knocked it with his knee.

“Having dinner.” His shirt cuffs came next, as he unbuttoned and then rolled the white cotton over toned forearms dusted with light hair. He kept a polite distance betweenour thighs, however his eyes lingered on the lacy bralette just visible beneath my shirt. A muscle in his jaw pulsed.

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Ordered your own, have you?”

Laughter lines at the corners of his eyes crinkled. “You’re seriously going to eat all of that?”

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