Page 4 of Entangled

“Hmm,” I drawl out, looking him up and down as he makes my drink. “And here I would’ve guessed thirty.”

“Ouch, Blondie.” He laughs lightly, the sound melodic as he places the drink in front of me and drops in two limes. “Well, my high-maintenance coed… hold tight and I’ll get that burger right out to you.”

I narrow my eyes at him and cock my head to the side defensively. “What makes you think I’m high maintenance?”

He tosses me a grin over his shoulder while walking to the door behind the bar, eyes dancing with mischief. “The fact that you ordered two limes.”

Chapter 2

One Year Ago

Waves crash in the background as I stand at the counter of the small but lively beach bar in Jaco, Costa Rica. I was four days into the postgrad tour I had gifted myself and so far I had done nothing but pat myself on the back for the brilliant idea. That was probably the only perk of being an orphan. I could do pretty much whatever I wanted and as long as I didn’t go too crazy, Yvie didn’t hassle me too much over how I chose to spend my funds. In fact, she had been ecstatic to hear I was going on this trip. A chance to grow as a photographer, I had told her, to work on my portfolio in a different atmosphere. Along with basking in the sun and drinking questionable amounts of tequila, but I had figured it was best to leave that part out.

And so far… it was bliss.

Being here, thousands of miles away from anyone who knew my name, my story.

Granted, no one back home in LA had known about my past before Marcie, that bitch, had Googled me and outed it to the whole school in seventh grade. After that… well, no one had been able to look at me without that lingering pity peeking through the backs of their eyes. A part of them always remembering the sad little girl who had been orphaned by her parents’ murder-suicide. Even in college, all it had taken was a handful of my old classmates and the next thing I knew, it seemed like there was always one person around who knew what had happened to me. The only exception had been Stef and the guys. The way they looked at me had never changed. Heathens that they are.

So I had learned to own myself, building up all of the pieces of me into something impenetrable. I had become the embodiment of life, burning so bold and bright that most of the time, it seemed to others like the shadows of the past couldn’t touch me. But here… I was truly anonymous, a woman reborn, and I was embracing it. The opportunity that came with travel to step into a whole new world and throw off the shackles of familiarity.

Which was how I had ended up in my current predicament, whose name was Tim. I had been at the expat bar near my hotel for all of sixty seconds before he had come up to me, asking if he could buy me a drink, and while he looked a little more preppy frat boy than I typically went for… I figured one drink couldn’t hurt.

That had been my mistake.

I stare blankly and sip my añejo as he regales me with stories of his victories on the rowing team. Apparently, I was supposed to be impressed. Tim was an East Coast, Ivy League boy, and fit the stereotype perfectly. So much for originality. But he had bought me a drink so I figured the least I could do was finish it before I informed him that this love connection was, sadly, not going anywhere. I look down to see how much tequila I have left in my glass when the bodies in the bar suddenly shift and someone stumbles into me from behind, cold liquid pouring down the back of my arm and soaking the side of my long white sundress.

“Shit. I’m sorry,” a deep voice says, the rough tone of it pulling at me, demanding my attention.

I turn my head and my eyes trail up an impressively broad chest covered in a plain white T-shirt, the fabric a striking contrast against the dark-olive color of his skin. But it’s when I make it to his face that I pause, eyes locking with the deep-forest-green pair of the owner, struck speechless at the harsh beauty before me.

His face is a mosaic of harsh lines and forgiving curves, the lighting of the bar throwing it all into shadowy planes. Hooded green eyes sit between cheekbones that could cut glass and an unforgiving brow. The strength of his jaw ceding to the lush fullness of his lips, a perfect Cupid’s bow sitting dead center below his straight nose. His head is covered in short, dark-chocolate hair that’s carelessly tousled. The combination of his height and wide frame leaves me feeling tiny even though I stand at five foot eight.

There’s something more to him though, as if you could put all of his features on someone else and it wouldn’t have the same effect. He just has thatpresenceabout him. A dark kind of arrogance seeping from his skin.

But his eyes… they’re what really pull me in. I’ve never seen eyes like that before, forest green flecked with pure night. Like looking through the leaf-covered branches of a forest at midnight.

His pupils dilate as he looks back at me, eyes rolling over my face as he takes me in, wearing an expression as surprised as I’m sure mine is.

I clear my throat to recover my voice and reach for some napkins. “No worries.”

“At least it was beer.” He lifts the bottle in his hand and his lips seem to ghost up as he takes a step toward me. “Nothing sticky to deal with there.”

“No.” I feel my own lips twitch in response. “Only the lingering smell of a brewery to deal with.”

The dark in his eyes sparks with amusement at my comment and they flick down to my near-empty glass. “Let me make it up to you and buy you a drink.”

I open my mouth to respond and pause, intuition whispering through me.

“I got her covered there, bud,” Tim chimes in from behind me.

Shit. I had completely forgotten about him.

His eyes move over my shoulder to Tim and narrow, a look of dark humor filling them as they give him a once-over before coming back to rest on me. Waiting for my decision.

I’ve already made it.

But in spite of that I shrug and tilt my head in the quintessential what’s a girl to do move. Fighting a smile when something like surprise flashes on his face. I could go with him now, give us both what we want, but the game is never fun if it’s made too easy, it’s gratification too quick. Everyone wants to feel like they’ve won something at the end of the day. The pleasure that comes from the build far surpassing that of an easy conquest. It was a lesson I learned young. The amount of time I devoted to analyzing the inner workings of people’s minds, their motivations, far surpasses that of my peers.

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