Rowan’s glare shifts to the exact booth where I was just sitting and then to Jenna who closes in on it with a spray bottle and a rag. The sheet of paper I left behind sits like a damning piece of evidence on the table, stark and obvious against the glossy black surface.
“Do not touch that fucking table,” Rowan snaps.
Jenna’s eyes widen as they shift between us, her lips folding between her teeth to clamp down around a smile as she turns on her heel and heads for the bar. Rowan watches her for a moment, his frown deepening when she tosses a grin over her shoulder.
His gaze lands on that fucking drawing.
And then it fixes on me.
“Sloane…” he says, taking a few cautious steps closer as though trying not to provoke a wild animal. “What are you doing here?”
Dying an agonizingly slow death of mortification, clearly. “Umm… eating?”
Rowan’s navy eyes glimmer, a fleeting spark igniting in their depths. “In Boston, Blackbird. What are you doing in Boston?”
“I…I’m here for work. Meeting. A work meeting. Not like, here in the restaurant, obviously. In town. City. Boston city.” Dear God, make me stop. I am burning hot, my wool jacket trapping my body heat and amplifying it until I’m positive my blood has turned to lava. Sweat itches between my shoulder blades and I try not to fidget, opting to back up a step toward the door rather than shedding my jacket to scratch my skin off.
Rowan’s gaze flicks down to my feet and he halts his campaign to inch forward, a crease forming between his brows in a thoughtful frown. “Stay,” he says, his voice low and quiet. “We can sit at the booth.”
A nervous laugh bursts past my lips, its color darkened by my self-deprecating thoughts. The last place in the world I want to go is back to that booth where I left a drawing like some shy, pathetic middle schooler, confused and lovesick over her first crush.
So I do whatever any pathetic middle schooler would do. I take another step backward toward the door and lie my face off. “I’ve gotta get going, actually. But it was great seeing you.”
I flash Rowan an apologetic smile before turning to stride toward the exit only to be stopped short by Lachlan, who’s standing as a sentry between me and my escape. He raises a glass of whiskey to his lips and takes a sip around a devilish grin. I was so caught up in seeing Rowan and battling with my emotions that I didn’t even notice him receive his drink, or rise from the table, or block my access to the door.
Shit.
“Well, well,” Lachlan says through his shit-eating grin. “Fuck. Off.”
Rowan growls behind me. “Lachlan—”
“If it isn’t the elusive Sloane Sutherland,” Lachlan continues, swirling the ice in his glass. “I was beginning to think you were a figment of my brother’s overactive imagination.”
“Sit down, Lachlan,” Rowan grits out. I glance over my shoulder to where he stands rigid a short distance behind me, his hands folded into tight fists.
“Whatever you say, little brother.”
Lachlan raises his glass in a mock toast before sauntering off in the direction of my booth.
“Touch that fucking table and I will rip your goddamn hands off and use them to wipe my ass until the day I die,” Rowan snarls.
Lachlan stops, turning slowly to give his brother a devious grin before he shrugs and starts back to his own table, passing close enough to the seething chef to clap him once on the shoulder and whisper something in his ear. Rowan’s eyes darken, but they never leave mine. Even when my gaze darts around, every time it lands on him, he’s there, waiting.
“Sloane—”
A blast of animated conversation enters the restaurant on the cool draft from the open door.
“Rowan! You’re done for the day?”
I turn to watch a gorgeous blonde woman enter the restaurant with two equally beautiful friends close on her heels, both of whom are engaged in an animated conversation full of laughter and confidence. The blonde strides straight for Rowan. She never wavers on the stilettos that accentuate her bare, tanned legs, her skin glowing as though she’s just returned from some expensive spa vacation. She tosses Rowan a wide grin, oblivious to the tension she’s just shattered in the room, the shards of it cutting me to the core.
“Hi, Anna,” he says. Those two words seem full of resignation as the woman wraps an arm around his shoulder in a hug he doesn’t return, though she doesn’t seem to notice. When she lets him go, she turns, spotting me for the first time.