Page 33 of The Perfect Deception

“Par­don me?” he asked. What kind of pick-up line was that?

“Ugh, this bar­tender is im­pos­si­ble to flag down.”

Oh. “Here, let me try. What do you want?”

Her lips curved in a smile, but it didn’t carry to her eyes. “Mar­tini.”

“Shaken or stirred?”

She frowned be­fore giv­ing him a bland smile. Dina would have got­ten the ref­er­ence. He turned to the bar­tender and raised his voice. “Hey!”

The bar­tender turned. Adam gave the or­der.Not the most el­e­gant way, but ef­fec­tive.

“You’re much bet­ter at this than I am.” She held out her hand. “Yvonne.”

“Adam.” She had a firm hand­shake and well-man­i­cured nails. The ban­gles on her arm clinked and re­minded him of change jin­gling. The noise could get an­noy­ing.

“Are you here with any­one?” She craned her neck to look past him and re­fo­cused on his face.

Her voice was raspy. He had an al­most ir­re­sistible urge to sug­gest she clear it. “Yeah.” He pointed to­ward Ryan. “You?”

“No, I usu­ally stop by here af­ter work.”

So she was a reg­u­lar.

“So what do you do?”

“I’m a lawyer,” he said. “You?”

“I’m a per­sonal trainer. Do you work out?”

God he was tired of mind­less con­ver­sa­tion. Adam swal­lowed the last of his beer. Ryan was right, he was picky. Glanc­ing to­ward Ryan and see­ing him still oc­cu­pied with his blonde, Adam tossed some bills on the counter.

“Well, it was nice to meet you, Yvonne.”

“Leav­ing so soon?”

She placed a hand on his arm. He blinked, try­ing not to mis­take her nails for talons.

“Long week.”

As he es­caped the con­fines of the bar, he took a deep breath and tried to force him­self to re­lax. Drinks with Ryan hadn’t helped.

Dina’s face flit­ted through his mind and pulled him up short. His hands curled into fists as he pic­tured her springy hair. His lips curved in a smile as he re­mem­bered her ob­scure trivia and her love of knowl­edge.

Dina.

He wanted her.

Chap­ter Ten

Dina’s phone rang early the next morn­ing, and she cracked an eye open as she looked at the time. Seven-eigh­teen. Who was call­ing her this early on a Sat­ur­day morn­ing?

“Hey, Dina, it’s Adam.”

She cleared her throat, hop­ing she didn’t have too much of a morn­ing voice, know­ing it was a fu­tile hope, and pray­ing he wouldn’t hear it. “Hi, Adam.”

“Oh gosh, I woke you! I’m so sorry. I…I wanted to talk to you, and didn’t think about the time.”