Page 13 of Accidental Mile High Daddy

I ordered a water, refused when they tried to hand me a glass bottle and insisted on tap, and put up with the way the bartender's face scrunched like I’d kicked a puppy and waited for him to fill up a glass with ice.

The back of my neck prickled.

It wasn’t anything specific. Just an odd shift in the air, the feeling of beingwatched.

I glanced behind me, toward our table, expecting to find Jules waving her hand and asking me to get her another drink. But she was still talking to what’s-her-name. I scanned the rest of the bar, but nothing stood out, nothing out of place, no eyes on me.

But the feeling lingered.

The bartender slid my glass across the bar like it physically burned him, and I grabbed it, turning on my heel to head back for the group.

Something shifted in my periphery.

Movement caught my attention at the edge of the far booth beyond the wall of plants, barely visible past the oversized monstera and the ridiculous hanging ferns that apparently passed as decor.

Hazel eyes. Just for a second. Sharp, fleeting.

And a flash of silver hair.

It was gone just as quickly as it appeared, and my stomach twisted.

No. Couldn’t be. I was simply going insane, obviously.

I took a step toward the table, and the booth I thought I’d seen was empty. Nothing there but shadows from obnoxiously angled lights and a cold feeling of déjà vu.

Clearly, I needed a lot more money in my bank account so I could afford more drinks to drown out the thought of him.

I shook it off and went back to the table, Jules already halfway through a story that I barely managed to understand, laughing where I was meant to, nodding when that seemed appropriate. I sipped at my free water with a hint of shame as I forced myself to push it all to the back of my mind. It was Jules’birthday, for Christ’s sake, I didn’t need to be thinking about him.

But then a tray of drinks appeared with a slightly confused-looking bartender, a whole extra round arriving at the table, and I was two seconds away from strangling whoever had ordered me another drink that I absolutely couldn’t afford when the bartender opened her mouth.

“Just wanted to let you know that the tab’s been taken care of,” she said.

Jules blinked. My brows furrowed. What’s-her-name whooped.

“Seriously?” Jules asked.

The bartender glanced at me before setting down a martini in front of me. “The gentleman said to tell you, ‘Thanks for choosing first class.’”

The world dropped out from under me.

I stared at her in her stupid suit-and-tie uniform and pristinely styled blonde curls. “What?”

She shrugged and straightened up, tucked the tray under her arm, and walked off.

Jules leaned toward me. “Sienna,” she said carefully. “What the hell does that mean? Is that, like, a code? Did you flirt with someone while getting a water? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I didn’t—” I stopped, mouth dry, heartbeat slamming against my ribs.

First class.

First fucking class.

That meant two things: Matthew Strathmore was here, and he knew that I knew who he was.

The breath in my lungs turned to ice. I scanned the room without thinking, trying to keep my breathing under control and battle off Jules' incessant questioning.

If he were here, if he’d saidthat, then he hadn’t left.