Page 4 of Champagne Fizz

Fire.

And one-night-stand.

Fuuuuuzzzzz!

My insides melt like ice cream. Yeah, I just made the rooftop restaurant sound like the perfect place for us to hook up, and the twinkle in Kent’s eyes seems to agree with that assessment.

My neck flames. He’s way too hot. I couldn’t handle a hook up with him—not with my overheating problems.

I shrug at his attempt to determine if I’m the kind of woman who hooks up with strangers in hotel rooms, trying my best to seem mysterious and not too eager to accept his invitation (even though my body is lighting up in all the ways I’m not supposed to let it).

There’s a reason I stay away from hot men.

They make everyday interactions—like an innocent ride in an elevator—aproblem.

I don’t answer his question.

I don’t say yes or no.

Instead, I try to focus on keeping myself in check and this conversation professional.

“Tell me,” I ask coyly. “What do you do?”

He smiles at that question and lowers his head, looking at the floor as a sweet blush of color runs across his cheekbones again.

“I’m uh,” he stalls, and I don’t know why asking his profession should make him suddenly bashful. “I’m, uh … I’m in the food business.”

“Really?”

“Indeed.” He looks up, and that flush of color is covered with a dashing mega-watt smile like he’s about to spoil the fact that he’s Superman under all those preppy clothes.

“Do you own a franchise?” I pry. “Anything I’ve ever heard of?”

“Yes, you’ve definitely heard about it.”

“Really? What one?”

The elevator dings and the silver doors open to the rooftop, revealing a long patio and the Waikiki Bay glittering in the distance.

“Well, it turns out I own—” Clark Kent points out the elevator doors. “That one.”

My gaze follows his hand, but my stomach has already closed into a fist in my gut, because he’s pointing at the rooftop restaurant.

The restaurant I just trashed.

The restaurant I said my clients should not get married in.

The restaurant I made sound like a slutty brothel.

“Y-you own—?” All the blood drains from my face and that corn-fed smile of his goes full bloom.

“Technically, I co-own it, but yes.” He nods to the restaurant as mischief laces his grin. “That racy sex-bomb of a restaurant is my baby. It’s my vibe. It’s the kind of place I’d probably get married in because, you know, it fits who I am.”

He throws all my words back at me like an expert marksman.

Which I deserve: me and my big mouth!

“And you know that meeting, the one you’re about to have with your clients?” he asks, his voice getting mischievous, “the one where you’re going to convince them tonothave their reception here?”

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