11.

Charlotte had spent the rest of the morning convincing herself that she had plenty of time to solve her problem, so when Evelyn appeared at her door shortly before noon to remind her about lunch, she was still no closer to finding a suitable date for the wedding.

"Your lunch meeting with Mr. Lawson is in thirty minutes," Evelyn informed her. "I've confirmed the reservation at the Grand Meridian, and his office says he'll meet you there."

Charlotte looked up from the documents spread across her desk. "Thank you. Did he say whether the meeting would take long?"

"He expects about an hour, possibly longer if you need to discuss the revised proposal in detail."

"An hour should be fine." Charlotte closed the file she had been reviewing and reached for her handbag. "I'll take the documents with me."

Evelyn nodded before stepping aside to let her pass, and Charlotte gathered the papers she needed before leaving her office. She had met Mr. Lawson several times over the years, and although he had been with Sinclair Group long enough to know how things worked, she wanted to hear his explanation for the changes to the commercial redevelopment proposal directly from him. If the project was as promising as the revised report suggested, then she had no reason to stand in its way. She simply wanted to be certain that the company wasn't being encouraged to commit millions based on figures that looked impressive on paper but might prove difficult to achieve in practice.

The drive to the Grand Meridian took less than fifteen minutes. Located in one of the city's most expensive commercial districts, the restaurant was popular with executives, investors and wealthy families who preferred to discuss business over lunch without attracting unnecessary attention. Its elegant interior, discreet staff and private dining areas made it a favourite among people who valued their privacy, and Charlotte had attended several business lunches there with her father when she was younger.

She handed her car keys to the valet and entered the restaurant, where a hostess greeted her almost immediately.

"Good afternoon, Ms. Sinclair. Welcome back to the Grand Meridian."

"Good afternoon."

"Your guest has arrived and is waiting for you. If you'll follow me, I'll take you to your table."

Charlotte followed her through the main dining area, glancing briefly at the occupied tables as they passed. The restaurant was busier than she had expected, with several groups of businessmen gathered over lunch and a few couples occupying the tables near the windows.

The soft murmur of conversation blended with the quiet movement of waiters carrying trays between the tables, creating the sort of atmosphere that made it easy to discuss sensitive matters without everyone around you listening.

She was halfway through reminding herself to ask Mr. Lawson about the independent valuation when a familiar male voice drifted across the room.

"Then make sure the revised agreement is on my desk before the end of the day. I don't want another explanation about why your department couldn't meet a deadline that was agreed upon two weeks ago."

Charlotte stopped walking.

She knew that voice.

It had been five months, but she would have recognised it anywhere. The deep, controlled tone was exactly as she remembered it, as was the faint edge of impatience beneath the otherwise calm delivery. For one bewildered moment, she wondered whether her mind was playing tricks on her, because the last person she had expected to encounter in the middle of an ordinary business lunch was the man she had spent a considerable amount of time trying to find after their night together.

Slowly, she turned towards the source of the voice.

And there he was.

Sat at a table near the far end of the restaurant, the man was dressed in a perfectly fitted black suit with a white shirt open at the collar. One hand rested beside his glass of water while the other held a phone to his ear. He looked entirely at ease, as though the people around him existed merely to ensure that his day proceeded according to his wishes.

Charlotte stared at him.

He was real.

The man she had paid ten thousand dollars to sleep with, the stranger who had disappeared before she woke up, the man whose identity she had tried and failed to discover, was sitting in a restaurant in the middle of the afternoon as though he hadn't vanished from her life without leaving so much as a proper name she could use to track him down.

Her eyes widened as the realisation struck her.

"Oh my God!" she blurted out, far louder than she intended. "It's my one-night gigolo!"

For one brief second, Charlotte felt an absurd rush of triumph. After five months of wondering whether she would ever see the mysterious man again, she had finally found him, and she hadn't even needed to search for him this time.

Then the man lowered his phone.

His eyes settled on her, and Charlotte's breath caught.

He was looking directly at her now, his expression unreadable as his gaze travelled over her face, taking in her wide eyes and the unmistakable excitement she had failed to conceal. Recognition flickered in his eyes, followed by a slight lift of his eyebrows, as though he, too, was surprised by the unexpected reunion.

Unlike Charlotte, however, he made no attempt to hide his reaction. He simply leaned back in his chair, lowered his phone onto the table and studied her with an attention that made her suddenly conscious of the fact that she was standing in the middle of a restaurant, staring at him as though she had just discovered a long-lost relative.

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

Charlotte had imagined seeing him again on several occasions, usually while lying awake at night and wondering why he had left without so much as an explanation. In those imaginings, she had always been prepared. She would ask him who he really was, demand to know why he had disappeared, and perhaps even make him explain the strange note he had left behind.

She had never imagined finding him like this.

The man sitting before her looked even more intimidating than she remembered. His black suit fitted him perfectly, his broad shoulders filling it without effort, and there was a cold authority in his posture that had been difficult to appreciate in the dimly lit corridor where they had first met. He looked like a man accustomed to having people wait for him, not someone who spent his days carrying trays between tables.

Charlotte's smile faltered.

Something wasn't right.

Before she could examine that thought any further, she became aware of the silence around her.

It was not the ordinary lull that occurred when a restaurant's conversations briefly overlapped.

This was different. The people at the nearest tables had stopped speaking altogether, and even the waiters seemed reluctant to move. A man who had been lifting a glass to his mouth held it halfway to his lips, while a woman seated near the windows stared at Charlotte with an expression that suggested she had just witnessed someone commit an unforgivable crime.

Charlotte glanced around in confusion.

Why was everyone looking at her?

Then she looked back at the man in the black suit and finally understood that the silence had begun immediately after she spoke.

Oh, my God.

She had said that.

She had actually stood in the middle of the Grand Meridian and announced, loudly enough for everyone to hear, that the man seated at that table was her one-night gigolo.

Her eyes widened as the full horror of her words sank in.

And judging by the expressions around her, the problem wasn't simply that she had made an embarrassing remark. The diners looked genuinely horrified, as though she had just insulted someone she had absolutely no right to insult.

At the man's table, the two men seated with him had gone completely still. One stared at Charlotte with his mouth slightly open, while the other slowly turned towards the man in black, seemingly waiting for an order or some indication of how he intended to respond.

Neither appeared amused.

The hostess beside Charlotte had lost the polite smile she had worn since greeting her, and when Charlotte glanced at her, the woman's face had gone noticeably pale.

What on earth was happening?

Charlotte turned back to the man.

He was still watching her.

There was no embarrassment on his face, no hurried attempt to correct her, and certainly no sign that he was about to laugh at the ridiculous situation she had created. His expression had become almost unnervingly calm, although the slight narrowing of his eyes suggested that he was examining her as carefully as she had examined him.

He seemed to be waiting for her to do something.

Anything.

Charlotte swallowed.

She had expected surprise, perhaps even amusement, if the man truly was the person she remembered. Instead, he looked like someone who had just been presented with an unexpected problem and was deciding how much attention it deserved.

Her initial excitement began to drain away, leaving a growing sense of unease in its place.

This man was not a waiter.

People who worked as escorts or hotel staff didn't wear custom-tailored Tom Ford suits worth more than a luxury sedan. They didn't command restaurant dining rooms into absolute, breathless silence with a single raised eyebrow. And they certainly didn't look like they could swallow her whole without chewing.

Perhaps he merely resembled the man she had met five months ago.

Perhaps the voice had fooled her.

Perhaps she had been so eager to find the stranger who had disappeared from her life that she had seen what she wanted to see.

That had to be the explanation.

Because if this really was the man she remembered, then she had just announced their private encounter in front of what appeared to be half the city's business elite, and she had no idea why everyone was looking at her as though she had signed her own death warrant.

"I'm sorry," she managed, her voice considerably quieter than before. She glanced awkwardly around the restaurant, forcing a nervous smile that felt painfully unnatural. "My mistake. I thought you were someone else."

The words sounded unconvincing even to her own ears.

The man said nothing.

He simply held her gaze for another moment, his expression giving away nothing, before his eyes briefly travelled over her face once more. There was a faint movement at the corner of his mouth, so slight that Charlotte couldn't tell whether he was amused or displeased.

That uncertainty made everything worse.

She lowered her eyes first.

"I'm sorry," she repeated, this time addressing the room in general, although she couldn't bring herself to look at anyone directly. "Please, carry on."

Nobody immediately did.

Charlotte wanted to disappear.

She turned towards the hostess, who appeared to have regained enough composure to remember her duties, and followed her towards the table where Mr. Lawson was waiting. Every step felt painfully deliberate, and she resisted the overwhelming urge to look over her shoulder.

She could feel the stares following her.

She could practically hear the questions forming in people's minds.

Who was that woman? What had she just called him? And why had she spoken to him like that?

Charlotte had no answers for any of them.

All she knew was that she had come to the Grand Meridian for a perfectly ordinary business lunch, and within the first few minutes, she had managed to make herself the centre of attention for all the wrong reasons.

When the hostess finally led her to Mr. Lawson's table, Charlotte sat down with as much dignity as she could gather and immediately reached for the folder in her handbag.

She needed to concentrate on the meeting.

She needed to forget what had just happened.

And, above all, she needed to stop thinking about the man in the black suit.

Because the more she thought about it, the more certain she became that she had made a terrible mistake.

The man she had slept with had been a waiter.

He had given her only one name, Van, and left before she woke up. She had never seen him in daylight, never learned his surname, and never had any reason to believe he belonged to the sort of world that could make an entire restaurant fall silent with a single look.

The man she had just insulted looked as though he owned that world.

Charlotte opened the folder, stared at the first page without absorbing a single word, and silently begged the universe to let the ground swallow her before anyone else decided to ask what she had meant by one-night gigolo.