While her friend flagged down a waiter for a wine list, Erin settled onto her bench. Wes’s watch showed two minutes to seven. She was early—take that, Ethan!—but just barely.
Was Bannister here, too?
She could’ve already run into him, their shoulders jostling in Martina’s wake. The blond near the unlit fireplace, several buttons popped loose on his shirt to reveal a waxed chest shinier than the bar…; a group of software engineers in graphic hoodies crowding the doorway to the back room, tossing off a tasting flight of sparkling wine like shots…; the stubbled jaw with glasses and a swirl of ink on his forearms…
Their gazes caught. The man cocked his head. He straightened up from his casual lean against one of the couches. He set down his drink.
But Bannister didn’t have tattoos.
So she looked away—and her stomach hopped into her throat when a hand tapped hers.
“It’s seven o’clock. I’m going to fade back.”
Martina.
“Flag me down if you need me, all right?”
She breathed. “I will.”
“Now, knock him dead.” Martina tweaked her blouse an inch lower, grinning at the result—but as she turned to the bar, her smile froze. Then it dropped. Paused mid-step in her dainty, spiky heels, she stared past Erin’s shoulder. Her nails pinched down hard.
“Ouch!What’s—”
“Erin.” Ignoring her protest, Martina swiveled her toward the window. “Look outside.”
She did.
Ethan Meyer was approaching the Wine Room.
12
“For God’s sake!”
Was nowhere safe from him? The MEC control room, the Modern Physics hallway and kitchenette, Maiman Auditorium, his office, her own sleeping brain—
She shook off Martina’s hand and stood.
“Erin—”
“He can’t just—no. He doesn’t get to ruin this chance for me.” She left her friend at the window and scooted along the bench, bumping knees and hardly apologizing for the wine and charcuterie spilling onto the low table behind her. She shouldered her way toward the entry, toward Ethan as he stepped over the threshold. Planting herself in his path, she dared him to notice her, dared him to meet her gaze.
He doesn’t get this night.The hot flash of anger pulsing in her stomach was so much better than guilt.
“Erin…” Martina again, back at her elbow. “What are you doing?”
Erin ignored her. She kept her focus on Ethan, unblinking. She couldn’t allow him to slip away from her into the crowd. Because she couldn’t meet Bannister with him here. Not when he might be out of sight but eavesdropping at the bar. Despite the ear-splitting noise levels in the room, he might overhear their conversation. Overhear something personal. Compromising.
Forster, writer.
No.
So he had to leave the Wine Room. She marched up to the door. Cooler air stirred the translucent fabric of her blouse against her half-bared abdomen, her skin already flushed and now prickling with the temperature change—and with acute awareness, too: he’d abandoned both his usual fleece and yesterday’s suit in favor of chinos and a sweater, the shape of the buttons on a collared shirt visible under the pull of heather-gray cashmere across his chest. He’d shaved again. The ends of his hair were damp around his ears and jaw, and even through the ripe odor of the crowd her nose tingled with the smoky, amber spice of his aftershave—
He saw her now. Ethan halted just inside the bar, his mouth curving into a scowl.
She fisted her hands. “What are you doing here?”
“What am I—?” The creases beside his lips deepened. He didn’t move aside for the group of hoodies from the back room when they swayed to the door with hollers about getting buckets of fried chicken from a bubble tea shop down the street. “What areyoudoing here?”
