Page 30 of No Knight (My Kind of Hero #3)

Ryan

I see him before he sees me. I watch him from the back of the bougie wine bar as he steps in from the rain, slicking his hand through his wet hair.

When I’m done. I give a little huff. My reality is so different since I said that this morning, all fuck off and die vibes. I wasn’t ready to speak to him then, and I’m even less ready now. But there are things in life you have no control over, no matter how hard you try.

Point number one: my news. The potential to rock both of our worlds.

Point number two: me camped out in this wine bar since midmorning, after giving Matt the impression he’d be waiting on me way after office hours.

To be fair, that was the plan. Hell hath no fury like a woman, if not scorned, then made to feel less than. On several fronts, I think as my throat moves with a deep swallow.

As far as new starts and new years go, this one sucks.

Matt’s expression changes with the tilt of his lips, and he lifts his hand in a tentative wave.

Like I wasn’t a colossal bitch to him this morning.

Not that he didn’t deserve it. And I deserve an explanation.

The explanation I told myself I didn’t need.

But that was before. And now I’m living a whole new reality.

Even if what happened in October has suddenly shuffled lower on my shit list.

He makes his way toward me, unwinding a blue woolen scarf from his neck.

“Hey,” he says, reaching the edge of the booth of amber velvet. It’s U shaped and deep, and I’ve chosen to sit here for privacy. I also planned to arrive early to gain the high ground. I just hadn’t planned to be here most of the day.

I’m sitting in the deepest part of the booth. The power spot, I guess. I decided it wouldn’t do to sit opposite him. Getting lost in those eyes. Being tempted by the tiniest quirk of his smile. But mostly, I’m not sure I want to see what’s on his face as I break the news.

But I couldn’t keep it to myself. He has the right to know, though I tried to persuade myself otherwise.

“Hi.” I resist the urge to stick my finger into my hair to loosen this bun.

My head is thundering, the thing having pulled tighter and tighter as the day passed.

But at least I’m no longer wearing dark glasses like a desperate-to-be-seen C-list celebrity.

Someone ought to make a concealer for swollen, cried-out eyes.

They could patent it and make a fortune.

“Can I get you another drink?” he asks with fake cheer.

I give a short shake of my head. Ow. “You go on ahead, though.” I tighten my hand around my cup of tea, my other gripping my coat under the table as though I’m ready to bolt at a moment’s notice.

“Right. I will.” He strips off his dark woolen coat and drops it to one end of the booth, the smell of rain and wool and cologne assaulting my nose. I didn’t even know rain had a smell. “Back in a bit.”

“Better make it a double,” I mutter once he’s out of earshot.

“Lord knows one of us should be drinking.” A pain shoots up my left wrist, and I realize my fist is clenched.

It’s a physical manifestation of stress that hearkens back to my childhood.

What might be a natural reflex to a developing nervous system gave me carpal tunnel more than once.

The fact that I’m feeling like this now—again—makes my eyeballs prickle.

No, and hell no. I’m not going there again.

I cried myself dry a long time ago.

I’m usually much better at keeping my emotions at arm’s length. I am not enjoying my visit to the past, and these reactions feel alien after all this time. Overwhelm is nobody’s friend.

“ Name five things you can see. ”

An old therapist’s advice comes floating back to me. I’ve had my fair share of therapy on my way to becoming the person I am today. It helped me rationalize my mother’s shortcomings.

Not so much my own, though.

I push the insidious thought aside in favor of finding my five things. The rain on the windowpane, sparkling like diamonds. My shaking hands, the earthenware cup they’re wrapped around. My coat by my leg and that ass and those dark jeans.

A laugh bubbles up inside me. Oh, the irony of a lingering attraction. I force myself to move on.

“ Four things you can hear. ” Music. The ambient kind that gives off good drinking vibes. The chink of glasses, the buzz of my phone with an incoming message I don’t want to read. Matt’s chuckle as the bartender flirts with him.

Touch. Three more things. My cooling cup, my forehead slightly damp to the touch. The smooth wooden tabletop.

Deep breath.

Smell. Two things. My herby tea and the hint of liquor long ingrained into the walls.

Taste. One more thing to concentrate on. I lift my cup and grimace at the tepid liquid.

He turns, his expression open. Why not guarded?

My leg begins to bounce, but I force it not to, jamming my hand under it as he pulls out his wallet.

Good Lord, that is an ass made for jeans.

I wonder if he has a personal shopper. Whether in a tux, a suit, or jeans and a fine-knit sweater—and I’m digging those rugged worker’s boots—he probably always looks like he’s just stepped from the pages of a magazine.

As he taps his card to pay for his drink, I snatch up my phone and pretend to be engrossed in it, rotating my aching wrist out of sight.

But there’s nothing I need to see on my screen—the earlier text was just junk.

I have no markets to watch, no reports to read, no calls to return. What the heck will I do with myself?

Matt gives a polite cough as he reaches the booth, and I look up.

“This is a nice place.”

“Yeah, it is.” A pause. “I was surprised how big it is inside.” Small talk, urgh. I’m not sure it makes it better or worse that we’ve seen each other’s genitals. Seen, touched. And the rest.

“Like a Tardis ,” he adds. The reference goes over my head, but I don’t ask him to explain. We’re not friends. “Do you mind if I ...” He gestures to the booth.

I give a careless flick of my wrist: Have at it .

“Have you been here before?” Putting his glass on the tabletop, he slots himself in at the end of the booth.

“Once. After work.” Last week with Martine, toasting the new year and our future success.

Here’s to being ambitchious! To being a better bitch.

Where did that Ryan go?

“Thanks for meeting me,” he says carefully before he brings his glass to his mouth. That lush, talented mouth.

“Thanks for being flexible.” So very flexible, as I recall. Urgh. Stupid brain, knock that off. “With your time,” I add coolly, glad he can’t read my thoughts. “I get that you’re busy.” Just not busy getting busy, my mind supplies, in all its inappropriateness.

“I’m sure we both are.” His fingers flex around his glass. “So, yesterday.” The words are expelled with a deep exhale, signaling a change of conversational gear. “I genuinely didn’t know you’d be there. That you work for Theta.”

“I get that.” At least, my brain registered his surprise, then laser engraved it inside my head. “What were you doing there, incidentally?” And as an aside, did you have anything to do with my humiliation today?

“We’re looking for a collaboration on an acquisition. I don’t know how that went,” he says, raking his hand through his hair. “I didn’t ... Too much on my mind, I guess.”

For the first time I notice the dark circles under his eyes. The pinch between his brows.

You think you have a lot on your mind now? Well, I’m about to blow it.

“Look, Ryan, let me just say that I’m so sorry for not telling you the truth in October. And for yesterday. I’m gutted that seeing me knocked you sideways.”

“It did, as you say, knock me sideways.” I glance down at my manicure, the pale tips against the dark wooden table. I’m not sure it was purely shock that took me to the bathroom.

“But here’s the thing. Cards on the table, and peelin’ back my skin. If I could go back and do it all again, I’m not at all sure I’d change a thing.”

My bun hits the back of the booth. What now?

“I don’t think I could risk the experience, because God knows I have thought of little else since.”

My stomach does a traitorous little flip, shock replaced by pleasure, those recollections fluttering to life inside me.

“Are you okay?” he asks tentatively when I don’t offer anything. “Feeling better, I mean?”

This isn’t a throwaway line but a genuine question. A real concern as he studies my face. But my impassivity is first class. A mask I have worn for years. Even if my internal world feels like it’s crumbling.

“Seeing you yesterday ... I can only imagine how you must’ve felt.”

Goddammit! I screw my eyes tight as they begin to prickle. I will not cry.

“Ah, darlin’.” His hand moves to cover mine, but I snatch it away, using it to lift my cooling tea to my mouth. When in Rome, right? I’d rather be drinking wine. An inappropriate laugh bubbles inside me. Not for the next few months.

“I’m fine,” I say, mastering both my tears and my ridiculousness as I set the cup down again. “It’s just been a weird twenty-four hours.” Understatement of the century.

“Yeah,” he agrees in a low rumble. “It must’ve been an absolute head fuck, and then being ill, on top of everything.”

Sick, not ill. Like the two are unconnected. “It wasn’t the sight of you or anything.” My tone makes a mockery of my words. I don’t expect him to bite, but I also don’t expect the tiny hint of his smile.

“Like I say, I can only imagine, because it felt like my own heart was in my mouth when I saw you there. And I had the advantage. I already knew you were in London.”

“How?” I feel myself frown. That sounds stalkerish, right? “How could ...”

“I saw you on Saturday. At the Palladium.”

“Oh, right.” In the office bathrooms he said as much, I guess. I just wasn’t taking anything in or even thinking straight.