A Little Too Interested

I did not know men could be uncomplicated until Damian Kimber asked me where the bar was and meant absolutely nothing else by it.

The Aurelia was hosting a mixer that Friday, some joint affair between Grimwood Holdings and a handful of other firms I didn’t know, or maybe, just maybe, didn’t care about. If I did, I would probably know every single one of them, their headquarters, and every detail about the firms themselves. I was working the floor, refilling glasses, following the same invisible choreography I’d learned was the proper way to do things here, much like we had at the engagement party. Everything was almost the same, except this crowd was smaller and considerably less likely to contain anyone who had personally ruined my life.

I thought that right up until a man peeled off from a cluster of suits near the window and fell into step beside me like we had already been introduced.

“Please tell me you know where the bar actually is,” he said, “because I’ve been given three different directions by three different people, and I’m starting to think this hotel just enjoys watching grown men wander in circles.”

“It’s a popular hobby among hospitality staff,” I said with a smile. “Confusing people in suits. We take real pride in it. Feels good, something. You know?”

He laughed, easy and immediate, the kind of laugh that did not seem to be angling for anything underneath it. “Fair. I probably deserve that for asking a stranger instead of just following the signage like a functional adult.”

“The signage is admittedly terrible.”

“See, now I feel vindicated.”

He fell into step beside me as I walked. I hadn’t exactly invited him to join me, but I didn’t particularly mind that he had. Somewhere around the second turn, he introduced himself.

“Damian Kimber.”

“Rosalie.”

“Just Rosalie? No last name? Very mysterious for a hotel employee.”

“Hart,” I admitted. “Though I reserve the right to withhold it from anyone who annoys me within the first five minutes.”

“Noted. I’ll pace myself.”

He had this easy, open face, the kind that looked like it had never once had to work very hard to be liked, and a way of talking to me that contained absolutely none of the weight I had gotten so used to carrying around certain other men in rooms like this one.

“So, Rosalie Hart. Do you actually enjoy this, or is this a between-jobs kind of situation?”

“A bit of both, you know? All work and no play.” I shrugged. “It pays the bills. Occasionally, I even like it.”

“High praise.”

He glanced around the room at the clusters of suits and the hum of men discussing numbers large enough to turn an empty stretch of ocean into an island. I had heard enough of these conversations to know that whatever figures they were throwing around, they belonged to a world I was not part of.

“I should probably go back and pretend to care about quarterly projections,” he said. “But if I don’t, will you tell me where the actual bar is, or will I need to wander for another twenty minutes as some sort of hazing ritual? Or maybe meet another person and have this sort of conversation with? Because if you ask me, I’d prefer it to stay exclusively with you.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, surprised by how loud it came out, and pointed him toward the bar. He thanked me with a grin that did something unfamiliar to my chest, something light and uncomplicated, nothing like the gravity that had settled behind every interaction I’d had with anyone over the last few weeks.

It was easy. That was the strange, almost suspicious part of it. Nothing about the conversation required me to manage my own face, calculate what I could and could not say, or brace for a question that might land somewhere dangerous. Damian Kimber wanted nothing from me except maybe directions and, apparently, a few more minutes of conversation, and I had forgotten entirely what that kind of wanting felt like.

He found me twice more over the course of the evening, once to report back that the bar had, in fact, been exactly where I said it would be, which was also where the first two people had directed him. He still didn’t understand why he’d found the directions so confusing. The second time was near the end of the night, when the crowd had thinned and the string quartet had packed up, leaving something softer playing over hidden speakers.

“I have a confession,” he said, leaning against the pillar I was using to rest my feet, which had started aching an hour ago. “I came over the first time because you looked like the only person in this entire room who wasn’t doing something they shouldn’t.”

“That’s either a compliment or an insult, and I must tell you I don’t know which.”

“Compliment. Definitely a compliment.”

He smiled, and there was something refreshing about that smile.

“I’d like to take you to dinner sometime. Properly, I mean, not hotel mixer small talk. If that’s something you’d want.”

I opened my mouth to answer, already surprised by how quickly the word yes had assembled itself somewhere behind my teeth, ready to come out, when I felt it.

Then suddenly, that electric awareness of being watched that I’d developed speared through me.

And I knew for a fact that I was being watched. I couldn’t immediately tell who it was, though I could have made a pretty good guess.

And I guessed right.

He was the one.

Roman.

My eyes caught him standing near the far wall, a glass of something amber in his hand, with Vivian beside him, mid-conversation with someone I did not recognize. His eyes were fixed on me and Damian, and he wore an expression I had never once seen him display in public before. It was not polite disinterest, and it was definitely not his usual careful blankness. It felt a little sharper than that, and even though he was in a conversation with his fiancée, it looked, impossibly dangerously, a little too interested, like jealousy wearing a very thin disguise of boredom.

“Rosalie?” Damian’s voice pulled me back. “You went somewhere for a second.”

“Sorry.” I forced my attention back to him, to the easy, uncomplicated face asking me an easy, uncomplicated question. “Dinner sounds nice.”

“Yeah?”

His grin widened, and he was obviously pleased, even though I sensed he was a little concerned about why I’d zoned out.

“I’ll get your number before I leave tonight, then. Properly this time. No vague hallway flirting.”

I agreed, and he wandered back toward his own cluster of suits, looking considerably happier than when he’d left it. I stood there against my pillar, my pulse doing something complicated and unhelpful.

My whole body was acutely aware that, across the room, Roman Grimwood had not stopped watching. He had made absolutely no effort to pretend otherwise, even though he was supposedly deep in conversation with his fiancée.

Then Damian appeared right behind me.

“Maybe we should exchange numbers now. Later could be too late. What do you think?”

“Sure.”