Page 198 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8

‘Thank you,’ she agreed, nodding once.

‘So,’ he asked, pouring the glass, ‘who are you?’

‘Isn’t that a little direct?’ she asked, a half smile on her lips as he finished pouring the champagne and held it towards her. She stared at the glass for a moment, working out how she could take it without touching his hands, but they werebighands, and they gripped almost the entire fragile glass.

In the end, she stopped hesitating and reached out, ignoring the frisson of shock that ran through her veins when her flesh connected with his. Her eyes, though, lifted, and her mouth went dry. His smile was knowing and arrogant. The perfect antidote to her natural, genuine reactions.

He thought he’d already won her over. He was used to this—walking into the bar, being all suave and gorgeous and getting whatever the hell he wanted from whomever he met. Well, he was about to meet his match.

‘I happen to like direct,’ he said, lifting one shoulder. ‘Don’t you—?’ He let the sentence hang, midconstruction, in the air between them, and when she didn’t fill the gap, he asked, ‘What is your name?’

She pulled her lips to the side, thinking how commanding he was, how he seemed to think he could walk up to anyone and begin interrogating them.

‘You tell me yours and I’ll tell you mine,’ she said, enjoying the way his features briefly reflected surprise.

‘You don’t know who I am?’

‘Should I?’ She batted her lashes then sipped the champagne, enjoying the rush of ice-cold bubbles as they filled her mouth and then flooded her body.

He frowned. ‘I suppose not.’

‘Are you famous?’ she pushed, enjoying teasing him.

‘No.’

‘Then why would I know who you are? Or have we perhaps met?’

His laugh then was a gruff sound of genuine amusement. ‘I think we’d both remember.’

‘You’re certainly not lacking in confidence, are you—?’ She used his intonation, inflecting a slight question at the end of her words.

‘Zeus,’ he responded, almost brushing aside his name. ‘And I think you’ll find I’m not lacking in lots of things.’

Her own laugh was—to her chagrin and surprise—also genuine. ‘Does this usually work for you?’ she purred, taking another sip of champagne before placing the glass down and putting her elbow on the bar, propping her chin in her palm so she could lean a little closer to him.

He scanned her face. ‘Are you saying you’re not interested?’

Careful, Jane.

She wanted to push him, without pushing him away. ‘Hmm,’ she murmured, reaching for her hair and stroking it. ‘I’m not saying that, exactly,’ she said, after a pulse had throbbed between them. ‘I did ask your name, after all.’

‘That’s true and promised your own in exchange.’

‘Jane,’ she said, wondering why it seemed as though the simple act of uttering her name was somehow akin to the throwing down of a gauntlet. Blood seemed to pound far too fast through her veins, so she was intimately familiar with the fragility of her body’s construction, the paper-thin vascular walls that suddenly might not be able to contain the torrent of her body’s pulse.

‘Jane,’ he repeated, and the same pulse she’d been worried about seconds earlier seemed to rush even faster. He said it like a promise; he said it like a curse. ‘It doesn’t suit you,’ he said, tilting his head a little.

Her stomach dropped to her toes. Only Charlotte knew that Jane had, in fact, been christened Boudica Jane—a glimpse into her parents’ aspirations for her. To save the world, by following in their footsteps. If only they’d held her hand and allowed her to walk a little more closely.

‘Disappointed?’ she deflected, in no way interested in revealing her true name to this man. She had dropped the Boudica in the third grade, when a girl in her class had taken to calling her ‘booger digger’—naturally, it had caught on and she’d lived with the moniker for years.

‘No. I’m sure I can think of something else to call you.’

His tone was undeniably intimate, husky with promise. She glanced away, cheeks flushing at the imagery his nearness and voice were provoking, so her eyes landed on one of the two men down the bar who’d offered to buy her a drink earlier. Zeus hadn’t offered, she realised, so much as bought the drink and walked over as though that were his God-given right. The difference between him and mere mortals, she thought with a hint of a sneer.

The man down the bar winked at her.

‘Friends of yours?’