Fight or Flight(14)
Tears burned in the back of my eyes and I blinked them away as I stared in the mirror. Years of moving on was not going to be obliterated by a few days in Arcadia.
When I was feeling stressed or distressed, I would run. Run for miles. Sweat it out. Let it all go. Running was my self-medication. But I didn’t have my running gear with me and I was in an airport hotel. Without my usual avenue of relief open to me, I decided getting out of the hotel room would just have to do.
Armor on, I swiftly turned away from the mirror, grabbed up my purse and key card, and left the room.
I made my way down to the hotel restaurant, giving the hostess a blinding smile when she asked me if it was a table for one. “Yes, please.”
The restaurant had a traditional look about it—dark wood furniture, dark wood floors, and intimate low lighting. I stared straight ahead, following the hostess to a small booth at the back of the restaurant. Suddenly feeling as though I was being watched, the skin on my neck prickled. Out of my peripheral vision I caught sight of a table of businessmen staring in my direction and put the feeling down to that.
“Is this okay? Or would you prefer a small table?” She gestured to one in the middle of the room.
But I preferred the privacy of the small booth. I slid into it. “This is great, thank you.”
She handed me a menu. “Your waitress, Emily, will be with you shortly.”
I thanked her again and dropped my gaze to the menu. My stomach grumbled loudly as soon as I saw filet mignon.
My waitress, a tall, willowy young woman with an English accent appeared to take my drink order. I asked for champagne, because screw it. After the week I’d had, I was treating myself to a goddamn filet mignon and a glass of champagne. Or two.
As I sipped at my glass of bubbly, I pulled my phone out of my purse and trolled through the work e-mails I wasn’t supposed to be looking at until my return.
However, the skin on my neck continued to prickle, distracting me. It wasn’t a wonder, then, when I felt someone approach my booth and stand over me. Slowly I lifted my gaze, annoyance already heating my skin when I found a tall, rangy guy in a business suit grinning down at me.
“Dining alone?”
I didn’t reply and let my deadpan expression do the talking.
It didn’t deter him. “That is a diabolical sin.” His dark gaze drifted down to my cleavage, which he blatantly ogled. My skin crawled. “I’m Matt. Let me join you.”
In hell, maybe. “Matt, I appreciate the offer. But I just want to have a quiet dinner alone. Thank you.” I dropped my gaze, returning my attention to my phone.
It took him a second or two—I could almost feel his confusion—but he eventually walked away and I breathed a sigh of relief. Dear old Matt was likely thinking to himself, Why would a woman dress that way if she wasn’t looking to grab a man’s attention? And that there was one of the things still wrong with our society. There was this obnoxious misconception that women only dressed well to attract a mate. Hello! Some of us were just obsessed with clothes, shoes, and makeup and liked to look good, you know, for ourselves. Shocker.
So I wasn’t at all taken aback when the feeling of being watched didn’t dissipate with Matt’s retreat.
My toes curled inside my shoes with agitation as I felt another person approach. This time he slid into the bench across from me in my small booth. I lifted my gaze to the stocky blond guy who bore a faint resemblance to a handsome Australian actor. Clearly, he thought this made him irresistible, if the cocky, assured smile he shot me was anything to go by. “Sorry about my friend Matt. I tried to tell him a beautiful woman like you wouldn’t be interested in sharing a meal with a guy like him. I came to rescue you instead. I’m Chuck.”
Of course he was. I stared through him stonily. “Well, Chunk—”
“It’s Chuck.”
“I don’t mean to be rude, but I couldn’t care less if your name was Tallulah. Like I told your friend, I just want to eat alone. If you wouldn’t mind …” I gestured for him to get out of the booth.
He leaned over the table, his blue eyes moving over me in a way that made Matt’s staring feel benign. “I get it. You’re alone. You feel vulnerable, a little defensive, but you don’t have to. I promise you I’m a nice guy who just wants to share a meal with a pretty woman instead of the assholes I’m on a business trip with.” He smiled.
I guessed I was supposed to melt now.
“Chuck.” I smiled sweetly and his eyes lit with triumph. “If you don’t get your ass out of my booth, I’m going to scream bloody murder.”
The grin promptly fled, replaced with astonishment. “There’s no need to be rude.”
“I’m not the one who sat down at a table I wasn’t invited to sit down at.”
“I think we’ve gotten off to—”
“Chuck. Get the hell out of my booth.”
Chuck flushed angrily and shuffled out of the booth, shooting me one last glare before he marched back to his table.
My heart pounded in my chest, my fingers trembling slightly as I reached for my glass. Confrontation was never fun. Some people might think I was the one who had turned it into a confrontation by being defensive—a bitch even—but I was watching these men from under my lashes. They were laughing as another one of them stood up, grinning my way, shrugging his suit jacket down as if readying for battle. So was I a bitch? Or was I fully in my rights to feel defensive and wronged when men treated me like prey?