Chapter 32

This is so not happening.

I will not cry.

I'm dressed to kill, in a little black number that accentuates my curves. The Colorado winter is mild, so I even forwent wearing pantyhose, and I've got some gorgeous patent leather pumps on my feet.

My hair is down, falling around my shoulders in a dark-brown curtain. I even straightened it, so the natural waves are gone.

I wanted to look sleek and classy tonight for my date with Dave.

My makeup is done just so—a natural look but with a bit more eyeshadow than I normally wear.

And if I do say so myself, in this moment, with this anticipation, I look every bit as beautiful as Rory or Callie.

So I won't cry.

I won't mess it up.

I'll make sure someone sees me tonight.

Even though David Simpson is an hour late.

A whole hour.

I've texted him several times, but no response.

He called me earlier but didn't leave a voicemail.

The coward didn't have the courage to even leave me a message.

He'll probably give me some excuse. His family needed him for some other crisis. Or he lost track of time doing God knows what in the orchards again.

Maybe I should have told him I loved him back. Maybe this is my fault.

Or maybe he got pissed off that I went out with Grayson. I told him that we were just friends going out for dinner, and that?—

No. There's no excuse.

If he no longer wanted to see me, he could at least have texted me before I spent the whole afternoon dolling myself up.

But no.

Something else stole his attention away from me tonight, away from the date that I've been looking forward to all week—that he's been looking forward to all week, according to the texts and phone calls we've shared.

But when the moment of truth came, he ghosted me.

He's no doubt wishing he hadn't said those three fateful words so soon.

My appetite is gone, of course. I'm too upset to eat. But I have to do something.

I don't know the girls on my corridor yet. I just moved in a week ago. The sorority girls are all at the house or already have plans for the evening.

I could go over to the house, see if any of them want to go out.

But I'm not in the mood to be a bubbly sorority girl tonight.

No. I'm in the mood for something else entirely.

If Dave wants to blow me off? Then I can blow him off right back.

Where to go?

I don't have a lot of money in my purse, but I look the part, and I want to go somewhere classy and elegant.

The Carlton. The bar at the Carlton. I have enough money to buy myself a drink, and after that I can start a tab on my credit card.

My credit card with its tiny limit of five hundred dollars.

My credit card that I never use except for emergencies.

Yeah? Well, tonight is an emergency.

I call an Uber, and because it's Saturday night in a college town, many drivers are out, so I get a ride quickly.

I drape my black trench coat over myself and walk out of the dorm to meet my driver.

"Going to the Carlton tonight?"

"Yep."

"You working?"

"No, I don't work there. Just looking for a night out."

"Oh."

By the tone of his voice, I see what he is insinuating.

He thinks I'm a working girl.

Now I feel worse than ever.

I don't talk to the driver the rest of the way.

And I also don't give him a tip.

When he drops me off at the Carlton, I murmur a quick thank you and whisk quickly into the hotel, turning toward the bar area.

I've stayed at the Carlton once before, back when Dad had his heart attack.

I was entranced then, and I'm entranced now.

Except tonight I'm on my own financially.

I walk into the bar. The lights are dim, and already an aura of elegance and sophistication surrounds me. Rich, dark wood paneling lines the walls, contrasting beautifully with the soft, warm lighting, which casts a welcoming glow over the space. The bar stools are plush leather, and the bar counter is a polished marble masterpiece, gleaming under the soft lighting.

Soft jazz music plays in the background. It's early yet, only half past seven, so I find a seat at the bar fairly easily.

A handsome bartender—his name tag says Garrett—strides up to me. "What can I get you tonight, beautiful?"

"Sidecar, please."

Then a low voice next to me rumbles as someone slides into a seat. "You can put that on my tab."

I turn and face an amazingly handsome man. His hair is blond, with some silver at the temples. His eyes are sparkling blue—though not quite as sparkling as Dave's.

But I'm not here to think about Dave. Dave stood me up.

"That's kind of you," I say.

He holds out his hand. "I'm Logan Templeton."

"Madeline Pike." I take his hand.

He lifts mine and lightly brushes his lips over the back of it.

I feel a slight spark but nothing amazing. More the fact that an older and obviously accomplished gentleman is paying attention to me.

"Do you come here often?" he asks.

"Only once before." When my father was in the hospital with a heart attack and the Steels treated us to dinner here, but Logan doesn't need to know that.

"Are you waiting for anyone?"

I narrow my gaze. "Maybe I'm waiting for you."

My cheeks warm. Did those words just come out of my mouth?

"That's what I like to hear. What do you do, Madeline?"

"I'm a life coach." It's not a lie so much as a statement of my future. That's what I tell myself, anyway.

He raises an eyebrow. "Really? That's interesting."

"Yeah, I really enjoy my work. It's very inspiring. What do you do?"

"I'm here on business," he says. "I'm an attorney in Denver."

"Really? My sister's studying to be an attorney. And my soon-to-be brother-in-law used to be with a downtown firm. Now he's the city attorney for the town of Snow Creek."

Garrett raises his eyebrows. "Don Steel?"

"Yeah. He's engaged to my sister Caroline."

I'm not sure why I'm not using our nicknames. All I know is that I'm talking to a guy who's probably in his late thirties or early forties, so telling him my name is Maddie seems kind of infantile.

"Interesting," he says. "So you have a connection to the Steel family, then."

"You wouldn't believe how many connections I have to the Steel family."

He cocks his head. "More than one?"

"Yeah," I say dryly. "Apparently you don't read the society pages."

"I can't say that I do."

"My sister Aurora is engaged to Brock Steel, and my brother Jesse is engaged to Brianna Steel."

"But you're still unspoken for, I hope," he says.

"I am free as a hawk soaring above the sunlit sky."

Where did that come from?

"And like the hawk, are you looking for prey?" His eyes dance.

Garrett slides my drink in front of me, and I take a sip of the sour liquid before I reply to Logan.

"I'm always looking for something," I finally say. "What it is depends on how the evening progresses."

I'm so not being myself.

This man is handsome, but he's way too old for me. Jesse had a conniption about the difference between Brianna's and his ages. Logan could easily be twenty years my senior.

"May I ask how old you are?" I ask bluntly.

"I'm forty-one. How old are you?"

"Thirty-one."

I purposefully place myself ten years below him. If he knew I was only twenty-two, he'd probably run for the mountains.

Not that I'm expecting anything to happen, but he's good for my ego at the moment.

"Thirty-one?" He looks me up and down. "You must have some good genes. You don't look a day over twenty."

"Thank you." I take another sip of my drink.

"Garrett, I'll have a scotch, neat. Macallan if you have it."

"Anything for you, Mr. Templeton." Garrett gets to work on the drink.

Logan's not wearing a wedding ring, which doesn't surprise me, given how strong he's coming on. But if he is out of town on business, he may have just taken it off.

"Are you married?" I ask blatantly.

He lifts his left hand. "You see a ring on this finger?"

"No, but that wasn't the question."

He chuckles softly, a low rumble. "I'm not married, beautiful. Are you?"

"Do you see a ring on this finger?" I hold up my hand in front of his, allowing our fingertips to barely touch.

No ring, but I am wearing the pendant Dave bought me in Paris. Right now it's burning as if it's branding my flesh.

Logan grins. "No, I don't."

I take another sip. "I'll be honest with you, though. I just got out of a relationship."

"Now that is interesting." He trails his finger over my forearm. "Because I did too."

Again a tiny spark skitters across my flesh, but it's nothing compared to the fireworks that erupt inside me when David Simpson is near.

But Dave Simpson isn't here. Something came up—something clearly so important that he couldn't even bother to text me and tell me he had to break our date.

Garrett slides Logan's scotch in front of him.

"Thank you." Logan slides a hundred-dollar bill across the table.

Maybe I've been hanging around with the Steels too much, but the hundred-dollar bill doesn't even make my eyes widen.

"So you want to get out of here?" Logan asks.

I swallow, tamping down the nervousness erupting in me. "I think I'd like to finish my drink."

"Okay. Let's finish our drinks." He looks out a nearby window. "The night is young, after all."

"What are you suggesting?" I ask.

"Maybe some dinner?" he says. "And then who knows?"

"Dinner sounds nice," I say.

"There's a great restaurant here in the hotel. Would you care to join me?"

I glance at my drink, which is still three-quarters full. "Maybe after our drinks."

As thrilling as it is to have an older man pay attention to me like this, I don't want to be the person who falls in bed with a stranger because I'm angry at another man.

But dinner? Dinner I can handle.

As long as he's not expecting anything beyond that.

I take another sip of my cocktail, the sweetness of the sugar on the rim tamping the sour a bit. "What kind of law do you practice?"

"Corporate," he says. "When you mentioned Don Steel, I took note because I had just become partner when he started at our firm."

This time my eyes do widen. "Really? Wow."

"He was an up-and-comer too. We were ready to make him a partner when he left."

"Yeah. To take the job as a favor to his mother, who was retiring."

"Right. I never understood why he gave up such a lucrative spot in the law firm."

"The Steels aren't exactly hurting for money," I say.

He takes a drink of scotch, and a small moan vibrates from his chest as he swallows. "True enough." He gestures to Garrett. "Garrett, could you call over to the restaurant and see if they can take this lovely young lady and me for dinner?"

"You got it, Mr. T."

I smile and take another drink.