The Safe Bet (Hidden Truths #1)
Brittney Sahin
CHAPTER ONE
KATE WATCHED WITH MILD DISINTEREST as the bartender, with his slicked-back blonde hair and too-perfect bone structure, poured three double shots of tequila for a group of barely twenty-one-year-old girls off to her right.
I’m getting too old for this.
She brought her chilled martini glass to her lips as her eyes locked onto the long mirror behind the bar. A lanky, red-bearded man settled next to her, his gaze sweeping over to meet hers.
“You here alone?” he asked.
Kate peeked over her shoulder at Mr. Red Beard. “Yeah.”
“That’s surprising.” He shifted in his seat to get a better view of her face. “You like this place?”
“It’s okay,” she murmured as she averted her attention back to the blush liquid in her glass. The rosy color reminded her of the failed wedding she’d planned the weekend before. The bride’s cheeks had turned beet red at the altar as she crushed the poor groom. “I can’t do this,” she’d admitted. Then she’d raced down the aisle like Julia Roberts in Runaway Bride.
That had been a first for Kate. But weddings weren’t her usual gig, anyway. They took entirely too long to prepare. That was yet another reason why she hoped her meeting with Julia Maddox tomorrow went well.
“You want to dance?”
“No, but thanks.” It had been months since she’d gone out, and she missed the feeling dancing used to give her. Loud, thumping club music had a way of syncing with the rhythm of her heartbeat, which always caused a tingling sensation throughout her body, mimicking chills—the good kind.
Music and dancing helped shed her anxiousness. In this city, particularly, Kate found that she really needed to unwind. After the long, nightmare of a day she’d had traveling from New York City to Charlotte, she at least deserved a drink.
Kate squeezed her eyes shut, wondering what she had done to warrant a year’s dose of bad luck all rolled into one hellish day. She had not only missed her flight but spilled coffee on herself at the airport. On the later flight, she had to sit next to someone who reeked of stale cigarettes, and—oh yeah—her hotel had been overbooked. Maybe she should never have agreed to tomorrow’s meeting—maybe her dad was right when he’d told her not to go.
But no—she wanted to land the gig. Who was she kidding?
“I really think we should dance.” A hand on her leg had her flinching and opening her eyes. Mr. Red Beard. Just great.
She shoved the guy’s hand from her thigh and slipped off her seat in a hurry, nearly stumbling in her heels.
His gray eyes combed over her chest as his tongue peeked out of his mouth and slid across his bottom lip. “If you change your mind, I’ll be here.”
She couldn’t even stomach a response. She grabbed her drink and turned away, tugging at the hem of her dress as she edged closer to the dance floor, feeling the need to hide the area where his hand had been.
Sipping her martini, she watched the attractive men and women shuffle around the floor, dancing to the beat of a new Calvin Harris remix. Her head tilted back, allowing the music to wash over her like waves licking the silky sands of the beach. She looked down at her heels and noticed that she was moving in place like an idiot. She rarely—actually, never—went dancing by herself. She abhorred the idea of some creep grinding up against her. It was always best to shield herself with a group of girlfriends, to keep the onslaught of male testosterone at bay.
But she wanted to dance. No—she needed to dance, to unwind the ball of nerves that wrapped, twanging, around the organs in her body.
She attempted to strip away the self-consciousness that lurked beneath her hot pink sheath dress as she finished her martini. She heaved out a deep breath and set the glass on a nearby table, deciding that she would no longer be a spectator of the men and women who moved to the music.
Kate walked onto the dance floor and allowed her body to drift with the beat. Her eyes shut, and the music pulsed through her body, electrifying her senses. She danced like she was alone in the room, the music reverberating through her soul.
After twenty minutes of dancing, she jumped a little when someone pressed up against her from behind. She turned to face the man who was intruding on her personal space. Although he was attractive in a dark haired, haunted, wiry sort of way, she had no interest in rubbing against some Adam Levine lookalike.
“I’m good,” she mouthed to him while shaking her head.
He held his hands up and moved away from her.
Message received. Thank God.
As she turned away to continue dancing, she caught sight of someone at the bar. Not the creepy, red-bearded man, but someone else. He was muscular, blonde, and sitting with his hands on his lap at the edge of the bar, and his eyes were on her. It wasn’t the leer that she had become accustomed to, that she had come to dread. But it could be hard to tell in a crowded club lit by spastic neon lights.
She shut her eyes, hoping the eerie sensation that filled her gut would dissipate.
When she looked again, the man was gone. She wasn’t exactly in the mood to dance now. She shouldn’t even be out in an unknown city by herself. Of course, she wasn’t new to the club scene, but she’d come out with no social safety net.
She checked the time on her silver, large-faced watch, wondering if it was too late for another drink with a morning meeting.