Page 62 of Second Time Around
“Oh my gosh, that’s right! You’re working. I hope you won’t get in trouble.” Petra unfolded her legs to rise gracefully from the divan like Venus out of the sea-foam. “I’ll talk to your boss and explain that you were showing me the party room.”
“It’s okay. My boss likes me.”
“I like you, too.” Petra shocked Kyra by pulling her in for a hug, Petra’s sweetly exotic floral perfume enveloping them both.
Kyra gave Petra a quick, awkward squeeze and extricated herself from the other woman’s grasp. “Thanks. That’s nice of you.”
Petra linked her arm through Kyra’s. “Some night when you’re not working, we’ll have to go out together.”
Kyra was trying to steer Petra’s slightly tottering footsteps toward the door. “That would be great,” she said, knowing the invitation wasn’t real.
“When could you do it?” Petra stopped right in the doorway.
“Do what?” Kyra tried to keep her moving without letting the door swing shut on both of them.
“Have a girls’ night out. I bet you know all the best clubs.”
Kyra nearly laughed. She knew exactly one club: Stratus. “I don’t get out much because of my job. But we’ll figure out a time.” In the next century maybe.
Farr saw them coming down the stairs and leaped off his stool to take Petra’s other arm. She smiled at him. “Such a gentleman.”
“So I’m told,” he said, but his face lit with pleasure. “Now this gentleman would like to see you home safely.”
Petra leaned in to murmur in Kyra’s ear. “Don’t tell Will we talked about him. It’s between us girls.”
“Right,” Kyra said noncommittally. She had no idea what she was going to say to Will about this evening. She could barely figure out what she thought herself.
“Kyra, it’s been delightful,” Farr said, brushing his lips against her cheek. “This is my kind of place. I’ll be bringing some work associates here because I know they’ll appreciate it.”
That would please Derek. The IB guys threw around money to impress each other.
She watched Farr guide Petra out of the room before she went back to the bar, her composure shaken to the core. Bastian pulled a folded bill out of his pocket and handed it to her. “He left a hell of a tip for you. In cash.”
She glanced down. It was a one-hundred-dollar bill. “Wow.” She slipped it into her pocket with an odd sense of resentment. Did Farr think she needed the money?
“He took care of me as well, even though all I did was give him a glass of seltzer. A class act,” Bastian said.
Or maybe he was just what Bastian described, a nice guy who did the right thing.
“To top it all off, he says he’s coming back,” Kyra said, trying to shake off Petra’s poison as she surveyed the customers on her section of the bar. No one needed a refill.
“And the woman.” He whistled softly. “She’s a model, right?”
“No, just looks like one. She’s a Connecticut blue blood, so no need to lower herself to object status.”
“Is she throwing the private party here?” He looked hopeful.
“She might.” Although Kyra suspected that had been merely an excuse for coming to talk to her.
“I’ll make sure I’m available to work it.” Bastian glided away to check on his customers.
Since he was darkly handsome in a chiseled, male-model way, Kyra was sure that Petra would be happy to have him on the waitstaff.
As she picked up her bartending duties again, she had to force herself to focus and smile at the customers because she was still reeling from the conversation with Petra. She’d thought ... no, she’d deluded herself into believing that the people at the Spring Fling had liked her as a person. That the majority didn’t care how much her dress had cost or that she worked as a bartender. Not that she’d volunteered that information. She’d enjoyed the party except for the encounters with Betsy Chase. Now Petra had thrown a pall over that pleasure as Kyrawondered how many people had murmuredNot our class, dear, when she walked away.
The most humiliating realization was that Petra had warned her out of a genuine concern for Kyra’s feelings. It was clear that the other woman didn’t consider Kyra a threat to her designs on Will because Kyra offered no real competition. That galled her more than anything.
As she poured out a Negroni, she felt her cell phone vibrate in her back pocket. No visible cell phones were allowed at the bar, so she had to wait fifteen minutes until she found a reason to go to the wine cellar to check the text. Pulling the requested bottle from the rack and setting it down on a shelf, she yanked out her phone.
