Save Me from Dangerous Men (Nikki Griffin #1)(84)

The first hint of his interest was a flute of champagne that descended in front of me, the small circle of glass clinking delicately against the zinc bar. I looked up inquiringly. Past the golden effervescence of the glass to the bartender who had set it down. “Did I order that?”

The bartender shook his head disinterestedly. His face was neither golden nor effervescent. He was a thin man with a wide forehead, a large reddened nose, and a mustache the color of calking putty. In keeping with the rest of the hotel, he was dressed formally in a white shirt, black tuxedo vest, and maroon bow tie. The bow tie was a clip-on and the vest was slightly too big. He looked like he’d done this routine a million times and expected to do it a million more. “From the gentleman down the bar,” he explained.

He nodded in the direction of Silas Johnson.

I followed the bartender’s look and met eyes with the lawyer for the first time. He was at his usual seat with his usual drink. He was a handsome enough man in a rumpled, affluent way. His brown eyes were set deep in his face and gave the impression of pugnacious shrewdness. He had a salt-and-pepper goatee and a square, heavy head. The knot on his tie was loosened and his checked blue sports coat was open, revealing a belly that the personal trainer had apparently been unable to do much about. He gave me a broad smile and raised his drink. I wasn’t worried that he might recognize me from the Care4 parking lot, where I’d been wearing a full-face motorcycle helmet. I’d spent the last two evenings in the lobby, but the lawyer’s attention had been focused elsewhere. He hadn’t seen me.

I nodded without lifting my own glass and went back to my book. I turned a page and took a sip of my red wine. The champagne sat untouched on the bar. I turned a few more pages, not minding the passing minutes. Portrait of a Lady was a favorite. I drank more of my wine. My hair was down and I wore a simple black dress that showed my figure.

Finally, I heard his voice. “That champagne is thirty dollars a glass. You’re not going to drink it?”

I looked up again. He was leaning toward me, voice raised slightly, smiling to show that he didn’t really care about wasting thirty dollars on a drink. I looked from the lawyer to the champagne. “I’m not sure. But if I do, I know where to find it.”

He gave me a look to see if I was being flirtatious or insulting. My tone had been neither. Just matter-of-fact. I was already back to my book. He called down the bar again. “Maybe champagne isn’t your thing. Would you prefer something else?”

I gave him a polite smile and nodded at my wine. “I have something else.”

I kept reading. Another slow night, the nightcap-after-dinner crowd long gone. The bar was almost empty. No other single women. No one else for the lawyer to order expensive champagne for.

Only me.

He tried again, changing tactics. “What are you reading?”

“This?” I looked up, as if trying hard to associate my book with the stranger in front of me. “Portrait of a Lady. Do you know it?”

He didn’t look interested as he shook his head. “Afraid not. That’s a big book. Looks worse than what they threw at me in constitutional law.”

“Is that your way of telling me that you’re a lawyer, or that I should be reading something easier?”

He grinned. “I always did like to kill two birds with one stone.” He let the sentence hang there for a second and then went on. “I’m teasing. I’d never tell you what to read.”

“Or what to drink.” I went back to the book.

Reading a page of Henry James wasn’t the quickest thing in the world, but this time I barely made it through a paragraph before I heard his voice again. “You’re so far away. I feel like I have to shout just to talk to you.”

“If you weren’t talking to me you wouldn’t have that problem.”

He smiled. “But then I wouldn’t be talking to you.”

“All that logic,” I observed. “Maybe you really are a lawyer.”

“Not just a lawyer. I happen to be a really good lawyer.”

“I’ll be sure to call you next time I get pulled over for speeding.”

He didn’t love that. Humor often seemed to fall before ego. “I’m a partner in a firm that handles things a touch more important than speeding tickets. Come sit over here,” he urged. “I promise you I’m more interesting than a book.”

“You’re setting a pretty high bar for yourself,” I warned as I got up and sat next to him. He looked triumphant as he ordered another Manhattan. “And whatever she’s drinking, another,” he told the bartender.

The drinks were set down even though my first glass of wine was still more or less full.

“Now,” Silas said, “I’m going to run to the little boys’ room, and then you’re going to tell me all about yourself.”

For some reason, I’d always disliked men who called the bathroom the little boys’ room. One day maybe I’d meet the exception to that rule, but it didn’t seem likely to happen tonight. The lawyer got off his stool and headed toward the restroom off the main lobby. I sat there, the two drinks in front of me. Silas’s Manhattan was a garnet color. A flat twist of orange peel curled on the rim. I looked over at the bartender. He was across the bar, busy taking glasses out of an under-the-counter dishwasher. I discreetly emptied a small capsule of white powder into the Manhattan. The powder immediately dissolved, leaving nothing more than a slight cloudiness in the drink. I glanced around again. No one looking anywhere near me. The whole thing had taken perhaps five seconds.