Page 4 of Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake

His eyebrows pinched together for a moment in confusion, until he got her meaning. “I’m here with some coworkers, on an overseas work trip. And it just so happens to be Jan from Sales’s birthday,” he said, opening and closing his hands in little bursts of mock excitement.

Hope perked back up in her chest like a wolf catching the scent of prey. She decided to go through the checklist, no point in wasting time.

“Married?” she asked, glancing at his ring-free left hand.

He laughed. “No.”

“Girlfriend?”

“No.”

“Boyfriend?” she asked, taking a prim sip of her scotch.

“Single,” he said, pointing a finger at his chest, humor dancing in his eyes. Lizzie nodded.

“Emotionally unavailable?”

His smile dropped a notch, something almost like sadness flitting in his eyes, gone before she could get a good read. “Probably,” he said, shrugging and running a hand through his dirty-blond hair. He was all too charming and all too tempting.

“Good,” Lizzie said, her smile growing. “Me too.”

Rake’s eyebrows shot up, amusement glinting in his eyes. “Do you do this a lot?” he asked.

“Do what? Pick up guys?” She looked him up and down. “Need me to go easy on you, tiger?”

“No,” he said, still chuckling. “I mean, talk to strangers so easily. Like you’ve known them for years.”

Lizzie shrugged. “You’d have to ask the other strangers that.”

Rake considered this as he took a sip of beer. “So, Lizzie.” He focused his attention on his bottle, scratching at the corner of the label with his thumb while a tang of sheepishness creptinto his voice. “How set are you on this someone you’ve been waiting on?”

“Less and less by the second,” she said, taking a sip of her drink and licking her lips. His eyes flicked to her mouth, watching the movement.

“My coworkers are about to leave,” he said, nodding toward the darker recesses of the bar, swarms of people packing into the large space. “If I go say goodbye, will you still be here when I get back?”

“Why wouldn’t you go with them?” she asked with her best attempt at tantalizing indifference.

He gave her a pointed look. “Because you’re much more interesting, and marginally more beautiful.”

Lizzie hid her smile behind the rim of her glass as she took another sip.

“Will you be here?” he asked again.

Lizzie shrugged, trying to play coy. “Depends on how bored I get in the meantime.”

“If you can have patience for just a few minutes, I have some ideas that I think can keep you entertained for the rest of the evening.”

“Care to share?”

“I think we’ll be sharing a lot of things tonight.”

Lizzie’s eyes roamed his face, taking in the heated meaning behind the contrived words, and she couldn’t help the burst of laughter that broke from her lips, the sound ricocheting in the space between them. Rake’s eyes went wide, taken aback by her less-than-swooning reaction.

“I’m sorry,” she said, trying to hide her grin. “But do lines like that actually work?”

“Clearly not on you,” he said when her giggles subsided, his expression somewhere between amused and indignant.

“I’ll be here,” Lizzie said, biting her lip, allowing herself to picture the feel of his body beneath her hands, how the thickropes of his muscle would feel pressing her down into a mattress. He was exactly what she needed.