Page 13 of One Night in Paris

Cautiously, I shifted in my seat, turning to look up at the woman. She wasn’t looking at me, though. Her eyes were on thepad in her hand, her foot tapping against the black and white checked floor, her pencil poised to write down whatever I said. She must not have looked too closely at me. Surely, she would recognize me, wouldn’t she?

Because I sure as hell recognized her.

“Harper?” I bit out, my eyes bulging. Either this was my lingerie designer one-night-stand from Paris standing before me in a pink waitress uniform or I had really lost my mind. I hadn’t seen her for months, but I would recognize that beautiful face anywhere. What the hell was happening here?

She looked right into my eyes and muttered, “Oh, fuck.”

8

HARPER

“Oh, fuck.” What the hell was Logan doing here? My mind went blank as I stared into his somewhat familiar green eyes.

This was just the day I was having. Everything had been off since I’d stepped through the door. Well, really, it had started before that. After all, I had taken my mother to chemo earlier in the day. That was not only a bit physically draining but clearly emotionally so.

While Logan’s eyes continued to bore through mine, I went over everything in my head.

My shift hadn’t even been half over before I’d started to feel dead on my feet. The assholes at table four had taken a lot out of me. Not that I’d had any more problems from them after twisting that one bastard’s arm, but worrying about getting in trouble from that was stressful. Losing my job wasn’t really a huge concern to me. After all, diners were a dime a dozen in this town, so I could always get another shitty job at another shitty diner. But as much as I detested most of the people I worked with, I had made a few friends over the years, and I was comfortable here. It was routine.

And getting in trouble wasn’t something I was content about either. In school, I’d been a bit of a brown-noser. Not on purpose, but I’d wanted to make sure I did well so I could get good grades and get a scholarship to college—which I’d done. Some of that still sat in my soul, even if this wasn’t exactly the Ivy League.

I’d been standing in the back, taking five minutes of my fifteen-minute break, when Dotty had barked out that “Princess Juliet” had a table. Reluctantly, I’d headed out to take this guy’s order, not paying attention at all.

Until he’d turned around and said my name.

“Wh-what are you doing here?” Logan stammered, trying to figure out how a lingerie designer who owned her own company could be dressed like a waitress in a diner that made most dives look like classy joints.

Frantically, I looked around, trying to come up with something. Maybe I could tell him this was one of those shows where the boss came in to fool their employees. But no, I hadn’t told him I owned a diner, for crying out loud.

My eyes fell on the newspaper that was sitting on the table in front of him, and my heart stopped beating for a moment. The picture of a really hot guy with a seductive, completely confident glint in his eyes stared up at me. He looked familiar, this guy in the three-piece suit staring at me from the business section ofThe New York Times.

That was when I realized it was him!

“Harper?” Logan said, turning around in the booth a bit more so that he could look at me. “Why are you in a waitress uniform at a diner in the Bronx? Do you work here?”

“No, no,” I said, sarcastically. “This is just a hobby of mine. I like to take on different low-level occupations to do research on what kinds of lingerie best suit the demands of inner city workers.”

Logan stared at me unblinking, clearly not thinking my joke was funny. “So… the CEO thing didn’t work out either?”

“About as well as your schooling, I guess.” Tapping the paper with my pencil, I saw his face turn red. Logan cleared his throat and turned back to the front. Stepping over, I looked down at the headline, kicking myself for not knowing who he was to begin with. I didn’t have time to keep up with the business section of the newspaper, but I did try to stay up to date on the gossip, and it appeared that Logan was quite a catch.

Well, I’d already screwed him and screwed myself out of the chance of ever being with him again, so it probably didn’t matter now. Besides, I didn’t even have time to bring other people their dinner anyway, let alone go to dinner with the likes of Mr. Bachelor of the Year.

Not that he was asking.

“Did you need some more time to look at the menu?” I asked, changing the subject back to the question at hand.

His mouth fell open, a few random noises coming out as he tried to come up with a response.

“Princess Juliet, get your ass over to table nine. We don’t have all fucking night here!” Dotty shouted at me from behind the counter. The woman was full of decorum. She was one of the reasons so many of our customers raved about our family-friendly ambiance.

“Is Harper even your name?” Logan’s green eyes continued to gaze right through me into my soul.

My name tag clearly said Harper on it. I should’ve cut him a break and told him that Dotty was deranged. Instead, still angry that he was even here and that he had lied to me, I replied, “No, my birth name is actually Princess Juliet Montague Reynolds. My mom is a sucker for classic tragedies. She’d thought about naming me Isolde but wasn’t sure how to spell it. Seriously, youwant something else to drink, or is the coffee Dotty likely forced upon you good enough?”

The corner of Logan’s mouth pulled up slightly. Was he laughing at me? I couldn’t tell. Either way, he wasn’t answering my question.

“Coke then? You look like more of a Coke guy than say, Diet Coke.”

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