The Art of Stealing Hearts (13 page)

I
pause. No matter how sexy and charming he is, I won’t
put a price on myself like that.

“Is
it too much?” St.
Clair asks, frowning.

“No,”
I say. “I
just…I
wonder about mixing business with pleasure, that’s
all. I mean, the two of us, what happened in Napa…”
I feel myself
flush. “Because
if you’re
only giving me the job because we’re
involved, or if you’ll
be expecting me to—”

“Grace,
please,” he
stops me. “This
isn’t
about us. I mean, I would absolutely like to keep seeing you,”
he adds,
intertwining his fingers in mine. “Getting
to know you, all of you…” His
gaze turns suggestive for a moment, and I feel the heat between us
all over again. “But
I would want you to be my art consultant even if you had no interest
in our being romantically involved. Please believe me. You’re
exactly the right person for this job.”

“Really?”
A weight
lifts from my mind.

“Really.
You are knowledgeable and passionate, with an amazing eye and a gut
instinct that can’t
be bought, and I want you to help make my art collection the envy of
the world.”

I
laugh, relieved. “That
won’t
be hard. You already have some brilliant pieces.”

“But
art is everywhere,” he
says, and I catch my breath at hearing my mom’s
words come out of his mouth. It’s
like a sign. “And
I want us to find it together.”

A
flock of seagulls flies past us, heading out toward the horizon,
where there seems to be no limit, no end as the blue of the sky meets
the blue of the ocean in a blur of shading, a painter’s
study of color.

Moments
like this, I realize, don’t
come around often. I have to seize the chance: jump without looking,
without hesitation, and see where the fall takes me.

“Then
I’ll
do it,” I
tell him. “I’ll
take the job.”

Charles
clasps my hands and smiles into my eyes, and as I smile back at him I
realize that all my dreams are finally within reach.

TO BE CONTINUED …

What happens next? Grace and St. Clair’s whirlwind romance continues in
THE ART OF STEALING KISSES
-
Available
October 14, 2015

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Hunter Knox comes straight up – with a side of trouble! Meet the bourbon heir making life
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So a girl walked into a bar.

It wasn’t a joke, it was my life.

Which,
actually, now that I think about it, sometimes feels like the same
thing. No comments, please.

Besides,
tonight was the beginning of my new life. It was the first step in a
direction I’d
wanted to go for a long damn time. So where was I? Ah, yes. I walked
into a bar.

It
was a nice bar, at least. In fact, it was really a lot nicer than any
bar at a mid-range hotel—the only one my supervisors were
willing to spring for—in a mid-range part of Charleston had any
right to be.

The
lighting was soft, but not so much so that I couldn’t
read the print on the bottles, glowing yellow and orange lamps
bringing out the warmth of the polished walnut bar and booths, as
well as the striking red brick of the walls and the paintings that
adorned them. Some kind of mournful violin music was piping over the
sound system, just loud enough to make itself felt and give the
chatting patrons a bit of privacy.

A
profile caught my eye, a man silhouetted by the soft golden light,
facing away from me. I admired the strong lines of his shoulders and
the way that his auburn hair caught slivers of light even in the
semi-darkness, throwing out glints of gold like sparks in a
low-burning fire. Perhaps feeling my eyes on him, he turned. Before I
could look away, our eyes met, and a shock of electricity pierced
through the distance between us.

Those
eyes…deep and knowing, traveling across my face before
wandering down my body and back up again, slow and leisurely as if he
could feel every inch of me through his gaze alone. I felt my body
heat up under his stare, my blood singing in anticipation at the
offer his eyes were making. A smile began to stretch across his face,
as if he could read the eager acceptance in mine.

I
looked away quickly.
Research,
Ally!
I
reminded myself.
Not
banging hot guys.
Research is
why you’re
here tonight.

I
hurried away to the other side of the bar before I could give into
temptation.

The
bartender—a wizened old guy with kind brown eyes and a face
that looked like it had been there to meet Mark Twain—didn’t
bat an eye when I told him what I was after, and after a brief chat
with the waitress he got me a corner booth, tucked away behind a
stuffed cougar that looked like it had time-traveled directly from
the print ads for a 1950s
Boy’s
Adventure
magazine.

Camouflage
was definitely necessary; I’d
overheard the Douchebros—and
I promise I’ll
go into more later as to why I even have a group of people in my life
worthy of that title—bragging about how tanked they were going
to get, and my plans for the night did not include fending off
drunken advances, trying to tune out comments about the size of my
ass respective to my brain, and counting how many times they could
fit the word ‘bro’
into a
single sentence.

(So far, the record was seven.)

My
plans for the night, however,
did
include the next thing the waitress brought me: six different shots
of bourbon, and a glass of water.

And
no, I’m
not an alcoholic. This was research.

Fun,
delicious research, but research.

Maybe
I should back up a little bit. My name? It’s
Ally. Allison Bartlett. I’m
five foot four, have grey eyes, tolerate the straight brown hair that
slides out of every ponytail I put it into, and frequently wear an
anxious smile that I’m
working hard to make
not
broadcast my ambition, desperation, and general worrywart nature.
It’s
an uphill battle.

Anyway,
I’m
twenty-four, and I’ve
been working at Geisel & Son Advertising in Washington, D.C. for
two years now. I was an intern my senior year, and I lucked into an
entry-level position opening up a month after I graduated. It’s
full-time, benefits, the whole package. So I should be thanking my
lucky stars, right?

I
sure would, if anyone at Geisel & Son ever managed to remember
that I wasn’t
the intern anymore.

Time
and again over the last two years, I’d
heard my ideas shot down, only to turn around and see them accepted
as brilliant when suggested by whichever man did the least possible
amount of rephrasing. I’d
been talked over in meetings, told to fetch coffee, and confused with
the receptionist. And I think I might have been able to handle all
that, if it had been coming solely from the old guard within the
establishment. But no, more than half of it was coming from people
barely older than me, who seemed to have watched too many episodes of
Mad Men and taken all the worst bits to heart.

So
this was it. My possibly last big job, where I was going to try my
hardest, stand up for myself and fight for my ideas, and give this
advertising job one last chance before it ground me down into dust
and I packed my bags and waved the sad white flag of surrender on my
career dreams.

In
case you’re
wondering how all of this has anything to do with my solo bourbon
sampler party, our latest client was Knox bourbon.

I
decided to start and end with said bourbon, in order to better
compare it to the others. I leaned over the first glass, parting my
lips as I inhaled, both smelling and tasting the aroma of burnt
caramel, old wood, and cinnamon. A promising start…I took a
sip of the amber liquid, letting it roll slowly across my tongue as I
memorized and savored the taste. It had a bold, spicy flavor thanks
to the high rye content, with a hint of charred oak and honey, and a
strong bite.

I
breathed out through my nose and mouth at the same time, and the
flavor intensified until I swallowed. I smacked my lips in
satisfaction as I set the glass back down. I generally drank a
wheated bourbon rather than a rye, and I did miss that slight hint of
sweet vanilla, but this wasn’t
bad at all.

Glass
number two was a rye after my own heart, vanilla like the first lick
of ice cream on a hot summer day, cool and refreshing, with a bit of
biting heat like a miniature sun right after it washed down my
throat. I took another sip of that one, in the interest of more fully
appreciating that fine flavor. Maybe I was playing favorites a
little, but who was going to tell?

And
here came number three. That distinctive flavor that said Kentucky,
Bourbon County, that long tradition of Scots-Irish immigration. All
the old ways carefully preserved and kept going: a hint of cedar, a
touch of honey. A little rough around the edges, but in a way that
soothed with its familiarity. I sighed, letting my eyes fall shut,
the taste of the bourbon becoming my entire universe.

“Ah,
a lady who knows how to savor the good things in life.”

I
started, blushing, my eyes popping open and my hand nearly dropping
the glass in dismay. Dammit, I’d
wanted to be discreet! I hadn’t
wanted anyone seeing me geek out like this, and now—

I
looked up, and my annoyance at being interrupted died on my lips as I
let my bourbon take a rest, and drank in the sight of the interloper
instead. It was the same man who’d
caught my eye just minutes earlier. Of course. And here I was sighing
and drooling shamelessly over an entire smorgasbord of booze. Damn
but he was even tastier up close.

Had
he said something about the good things in life? Well, he would know,
since he was definitely one of them. Golden-brown eyes like the sun
shining through a tumbler of bourbon, freckles sun-kissing the bridge
of his nose, and a chiseled jaw you could cut diamonds on. His
auburn-gold hair was swept back from his forehead and his navy polo
shirt clung to all the right places of his shoulders and chest. I bit
my lip and resisted asking him to do a spin so I could check and see
if those khaki pants clung in all the right places, too.

Barely
resisted.

And
that accent he spoke in, oh, it made me regret all the work I’d
done to lose my own. A warm honey-slow drawl that drew attention to
his lips and the way they quirked up at the corner.

“I
didn’t
think it was good enough to stun you into silence,” he teased.

I
blushed and shot back, “I’m
just trying to figure out what criteria led you to hone in on the
girl with the highest alcohol content in the room. Your self-esteem
that low?”

I
regretted the sarcastic remark the second it left my mouth. In
high-stress situations, I tended to blurt out exactly the wrong thing
at exactly the wrong time; it was an adrenaline-fueled, involuntary,
and very unfortunate defense mechanism of mine. One that got me into
trouble more often than not.

He
only grinned, and sauntered closer. “As a matter of fact, I
have extremely robust…self-esteem. Show you mine if you’ll
show me yours?”

“The
hell kind of pick-up line is that?” I said, flummoxed by both
his nonchalant demeanor and the sweet scent of masculinity radiating
off his delicious body.
Stop
it Ally
, I
mentally scolded myself.
You’re
indignant. Be indignant!

“I’ve
got all kinds,” he promised. “Want something more
traditional? I’ll
give it a go: let me buy you a drink?”

I
gestured at the drinks already in front of me.

“I
think I’m
covered,” I said wryly.

“Then
do you mind if I buy myself one and drink it here with you?” he
asked.

I
considered. I was doing research here. Important research. Research
that could change the very trajectory of my career and make all those
dreams come true. I didn’t
need any distractions.

On
the other hand, those shoulders. And those lips, mm-hmm. And truth be
told, for all my defensive posturing, there wasn’t
a damn thing about him that didn’t
scream ‘charming’
and
‘good company’
and,
most importantly, ‘eye candy.’

My
old science teacher did always say that it was important to have a
research partner.

“Well,
it certainly would improve the view,” I said, relieved to have
finally given myself permission to cozy up to this intriguing
stranger.

He
grinned wider then, sliding into the booth opposite me, our legs
bumping together slightly. Butterflies danced in my stomach. Damn,
what was this, sixty seconds and I already had it this bad? Guys this
hot should come with a warning label. Not that I’d
stop to read it.

Hottie
McHotterson—also,
damn, how had I not asked his name yet, was I really that far gone
into the Lust Canyon?—flagged down the waitress, and ordered a
Knox whiskey.

I
made a face.

“Not
a fan?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Of
the whiskey? Sure,” I said. “It tastes great and gets
the job done.”

“What
is it, then?” he asked. He seemed genuinely curious, and that
made me open up. “What’s
missing?”

“Well,
it’s
just—”
I gestured at the label. “Look at this packaging. Just the name
stamped on there in an old-timey font, and the same barrel logo
they’ve
been using since B.F. Skinner first strolled up to an ad agency with
some rats in a box and a lot of fancy promises. It does nothing to
catch the eye.”