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Hoping the king held out his hand and welcomed a commoner to join him. At his table. In his bed.

She’d been reading way too many romance novels.

“Yep, that’s kind of the reaction I had, and I’m not even straight,” the bartender replied with a chuckle. “He’s been watching you. I’ve seen him in here a few times. I don’t think he’s married.”

That was good for him and good for whatever woman he ended up taking to his room tonight because it absolutely wouldn’t be her.

Why? Why not go over there and talk to him? Why not be bold and ask for the things she wanted? Did she have to be this pent-up, closed-off person she’d become forever, or could she take back a bit of herself?

All she would do was talk, spend maybe an hour with him if he was nice. She wouldn’t go to bed with him. Probably not. Definitely not. He might not want to go to bed with her. But even if he did, she wouldn’t. Probably.

Or maybe she would. Maybe she would give herself one night off from guilt and worry.

“I do believe I’m going in.” She said the words out loud. “Should I take him a drink?”

The bartender quickly poured out a beer. “This is what he’s drinking. And I’m here until close if you change your mind and need an easy way out.”

She picked up both drinks and took a deep breath. It was time to see if she could claim a bit of herself back.

JT Malone finishedoff his first beer of the night and turned his attention away from the gorgeous woman sitting with Sandra Croft. Not that Sandra wasn’t nice on her own, but the woman next to her at the bar was simply stunning.

Her auburn hair was up in one of those loose buns women wore. He didn’t think about hairstyles much, but there was something about her that made him want to walk up and ease her hair out of whatever band was holding it there so he could see it tumble around her shoulders. She was tall. Even sitting on a barstool he could tell she was likely five eight or five nine. Moments before, her lips had curled up at something Sandra had said, and her face had gone from lovely to knock-him-out gorgeous. That smile had rocked his world, and that was a bad thing.

Because she had to be Nina Blunt, and he was here for work, not play.

If he wasn’t, he would get up and walk over to the bar and offer to buy her a drink. He would tell her she was the first woman in a very long time to intrigue him. Maybe it was because he did know a bit about her. Nothing personal beyond she was a badass and she lived in London. He knew she lived in a building that also served as a BDSM club. Did she play at The Garden? He’d gotten his Master rights at Sanctum months ago, but a briefrelationship with his training partner hadn’t gone anywhere, and he struggled to find vanilla dating interesting now.

He’d had his taste and he liked it. Naturally he needed something more. He had the damn world at his feet and he had to be picky. Pretty didn’t do it for him. Strength did. He wanted a strong woman. One who could stand up to him, stand with him. A woman who could be a partner, take the lead when she needed to. And then obey him during sex.

Yep. He was a fucking keeper.

His cell phone vibrated and he glanced down, seeing his brother’s name and picking up. “Hey.”

“How’s Dad?” Michael asked. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get there today. I couldn’t get out of here. The weather’s bad. I’ve got an early flight in the morning.”

“He’s fine. The doctor said everything went perfectly and he’ll be back to calling us all dumbasses in no time at all.” It had been a day. A long, hard day. An emotional day, and he really hated getting emotional.

He’d thought he was going to lose his dad. He’d seen how pale his father had gotten, how he’d gritted his teeth against the pain in his chest. It was easy to think David Malone was immortal. He’d always been larger than life, but he wasn’t going to be around forever, and the incident had forced him to look at his own life.

He was drifting, and not in a good way. He’d been numb for a very long time.

“Hey, are you all right?”

His brother had always known when he was on the edge. Even when they were thousands of miles apart, but then that was what being a twin meant sometimes. “I’m fine. It was a lot. He thought he was having a heart attack. Turned out to be his gall bladder. Apparently years of eating chicken fried steak has an effect. But they took it out with a laparoscope, and he won’t evenhave much of a scar. Doc wants him to take it easy for a couple of weeks. Mom is in full-on warrior-queen mode, so I think he’ll fall in line. The whole staff is dedicated to keeping him rested.”

A chuckle came over the line. “That should drive him crazy. But seriously, I’m sorry you had to deal with that alone. I’ll be out at the ranch as soon as I get back.”

Their family home was a working ranch they’d grown up on. It was part of the business that was more about tradition than money. Malones had been in Texas long before it was a state, and the Circle M had been their home. Even after they’d started making their money off oil, they’d stayed on the ranch. Lots of people would have left the country for the wealth and luxury of the city, but not his father. No. His father still rode herd and fixed fences and woke his ass up before the crack of dawn so they could get ranch work in before they went to the office.

There were times he spent months on a rig just to get some damn sleep.

God, he’d thought he was going to lose his father, and then his father wouldn’t ever know his wife or his kids. He shook it off.

“Good. They would love to see you, but I’m in Dallas and I’ll be here until I head out to the island retreat.” It was why he was here instead of at home, probably cursing at his dad because he would try to be active long before he should.

Unfortunately, corporate espionage didn’t care that his father couldn’t get on a plane anytime soon. The asshole who wanted to sell Malone Oil’s revolutionary tech to a foreign government didn’t give a shit that JT Malone hated the very idea of a corporate retreat. If they canceled it, they lost the opportunity to catch a spy in the act. At least that was the way the CIA had explained it. He really did hate the bullshit that came with corporate retreats. He couldn’t imagine how much he was going to hate one where he had to deal with the CIA, too.

Though it might not be so bad if he was able to get to know that gorgeous redhead. At least if his father was leaving him with a big problem, he’d also handed him a beautiful distraction.