Kate
I could see the way he looked at me as I served the next customer, but I tried to put him to the back of my mind. Men like that, who oozed charm and charisma from every pore didn’t just walk over to women like me and start conversations. He must have wanted something. Of course he wasn’t interested in getting to know my better side—all he was probably concerned with was getting me into bed as fast as possible.
I’d been working in the same hotel for a couple of years and I’d seen my fair share of men, so I knew his type. I knew that men who looked like him were only ever interested in adding you to the list of plain women they’d been able to conquer in bed, and I definitely had no intention of being number one thousand and ten.
I looked over at him, at the smoothness of his hair and lightness of his green eyes as they stared right back at me. His gaze made my heart beat harder within my chest. I felt rooted to the spot as he watched me, and it was almost as though I heard him commanding me to give into him, but he’d never met a woman like me before. Men with money didn’t impress me. I wasn’t easily bought, and I certainly wasn’t the kind of woman to jump straight into bed with a man because he bought me a drink, there had to be more to him than that.
“Hello?” the man in front of me barked. “Am I interrupting something here?”
I jumped back around to his swollen red face and angry eyes as he glared at me, eyebrows furrowed in disgust.
“Sorry, I’m sorry,” I mumbled quickly before anyone heard. “I’ll make it right away. Gin and tonic, wasn’t it?”
“Red wine!” he snapped. “A glass of red wine! What the hell do I have to do in this place to get some decent service?”
I felt the blush rising to my cheeks as I turned to hurriedly prepare it, the embarrassment creeping over me, and despite the virtually empty bar I felt all eyes on me.
“Make it quick. I have a plane to catch,” he spat from behind me whilst he huffed loudly.
My fingers fumbled with the bottle and I cursed as a splash of wine landed on the bar top. He saw it and tutted loudly.
“New on the job?” he barked, as I presented it to him.
I shook my head, not wanting to speak in case it triggered an angry response. I needed this damn job and I couldn’t let him or any other pathetic excuse for a man, risk it.
“I’m sorry.”
“You will be if I miss my…”
“Is there a problem?” Jonathan had left his seat at the bar and perched himself beside the angry customer who looked at each of us in turn before snorting.
“Are you kidding me?” he asked, and it was then that I realized he was already quite drunk. “Who are you, her bulldog?”
“I’d watch your mouth if I were you,” Jonathan said, leaning in closer to him, and I felt a rush of emotion that someone in the world actually had my back. He barely knew me, yet there he was sticking up for a stranger.
“You know what it’s like in these places.” The man tried to argue, but it was falling on deaf ears. Jonathan wasn’t interested and I could tell by the deep stare he gave the man, that he wasn’t going to back down anytime soon.
“I don’t wanna hear it. Just watch what you say and how you speak to women.”
“Or…?”
“Or you’ll be seeing me again a lot sooner than you think.”
He looked at me and then back at Jonathan in silence, the threat still hanging in the air as he pushed his stool back and got down.
“I don’t know what the hell’s going on here, but I’m going. This place is full of shit anyway and it seems like they just let anyone behind the bar now.”
He stared at me long and hard before walking away as Jonathan lifted himself from his seat, leaving his glass of wine on the table unpaid for.
“Oh God, I’m sorry,” I sighed, turning to Jonathan. “Thank you.”
He shook his head and looked at me as he sat back down, his eyes serious.
“You don’t need to thank me. Men shouldn’t speak to women like that anyway. It’s almost certainly a law in life, if you didn’t know that already.” The corner of his mouth turned up slightly in an attempted smile.
“I didn’t, but thank you for policing the bar.”
He threw his head back and laughed, the sound radiating around me like a warm embrace.
“Well I guess that’s my pleasure too. Sounds like you’ve not met the right kind of men in your life.”
I thought about his comment. Of course he was right. I’d never met anyone who’d been willing to fight for me, and those I had met expected me to be grateful that they were even giving me the time of day.
“Love isn’t for everyone anyway,” I said, watching his expression. “People like me have to take what they can get sometimes and I’d just prefer to keep away from all of that.”
He looked shocked.
“People like you?”
I nodded, pretending to rub a mark off the marble counter.
“Look at me. I’m not exactly a supermodel, am I?” The words slipped out before I could stop them. I wasn’t into who whole ‘self-pity’ talk that I had somehow allowed him to hear and I felt the heat rush to my cheeks as he looked over my body and I suddenly felt self-conscious standing there stuffed into my shirt. I scraped my hair back away from my face and stepped out of his gaze, but his eyes followed me.
“I think it’s terrible,” he said looking back up at my eyes.
“Sorry, what did you say?”
“Terrible. I think it’s terrible the way you see yourself, because from here, where I’m sitting, you’re beautiful.”
“Oh God, that would be the drink talking…“ I laughed nervously with embarrassment.
“I’m serious,” he said, leaning over the bar. “I see beauty inside you and out. You’ve got something that most women don’t have.”
We watched each other in silence and all of a sudden the large bar had become too small. I took a deep breath, trying to get some air inside my lungs before I passed out. He thought I was beautiful. Possibly the most attractive and confident man I’d ever met in person sat at the bar telling me that I had something others lacked. It must have been a joke. Someone must have been waiting around the corner to jump out with a video camera, or at the very least his friends must have been hiding somewhere laughing to themselves as they watched him flirt with the fat woman behind the bar, daring him to talk me into bed. I swallowed hard, fighting back the rush of emotion that bubbled beneath the surface. Just because he made you feel good, doesn’t mean you have to get attached.
I was the first to break the silence, laughing slightly with nerves again.
“I bet you say that to all the women you meet.”
“Would you believe me if I said I didn’t?”
I watched the corners of his mouth turn up into a small smile again and I relaxed slightly, allowing my heart to go back to normal.
“Probably not, but then again maybe I just haven’t met the right men…” I replied echoing his words.
He nodded, throwing back the last of his drink.
“How about you leave this place now and join me for dinner?”
His words surprised me and I laughed.
“I can’t. I need this job, remember? But thanks for the offer…”
“Aren’t you intrigued about how right you could be treated?”
“Listen, Jonathan. I’m not what you’re looking for. I know the sort of women you probably go for, and just in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s not me.”
“How do you know what I want?” he asked, his head titled to the side. Again, I felt my heart racing. I wanted him to want me. I wanted him to say it, and I wanted to feel his eyes over my body again.
“Okay. I don’t know, but I’m not looking for love.”
“Neither am I,” he said seriously. “I don’t have the time for love, relationships, or feelings. I’d just like to have dinner with a woman who just so happens to be incredibly attractive to me.”
I had a brief image of him undressing me, his eyes full of lust and his fingers over my skin, and it made me blush and turn away from him. I’d been without all of that for far too long. The thought alone embarrassed me.
“I can’t have dinner with you, sorry. I don’t finish until ten and…”
“That’s too bad.”
He opened his wallet and handed me his black Amex card.
“I’ll pay for that jerk’s drink too.”
“You really don’t…”
“It’s the least I can do,” he interrupted.
“Thank you.”
I swiped his card, fighting the urge to have a good look at the name on it, and handed it back to him. I tried to think of something to say that would make him stay a little longer and keep talking to me, but he stood up and straightened his shirt still looking at me, and I felt the disappointment in my stomach as I watched him put his suit jacket on.
“I’ve enjoyed meeting you, Kate,” he said, opening his wallet again, taking out some notes and a business card. He put them down in front of me. “I want to see you again.”
“I… I think…”
“Don’t think,” he interrupted, moving his face closer to mine, as close as the bar top between us would allow. “Just make it happen.”
He stared at me for second before it turned into an extremely brief smile and he turned and walked off.
I stood watching the back of him as he walked away, wishing I’d been confident or brave enough to call after him or flirt better but the truth was, it wasn’t like me to want someone as much as I realized I wanted him. I’d completely sworn off men since I’d split up with the last one, and I was so sick and tired of being disrespected and verbally abused about my weight or told to be and dress like the other women. To meet someone like Jonathan, who thought that I was positively beautiful when I felt I was looking my worst, excited me, but I had to stick to my plan. Relationships were off the cards for now. I couldn’t bear to go through another disappointment in life. I had to start putting myself first.
I picked up the tip he’d left and my body went cold when I realized it was three hundred dollars.
I gathered the business card up desperately and my eyes scanned the words too confused and shocked to put them together. When I finally did, I dropped it in shock. Jonathan wasn’t just another wealthy man sitting on a bar stool filling me with confidence—he was Jonathan Davenport, billionaire founder and CEO of DavenCorp.
Oh God!