Heart's a Mess Read Free

brother had quite the artistic streak.
“Umm, listen, you’re new here so you don’t know us very well yet. But we would
never—”
    “It’s fine.” Green eyes stared back at him,
wide and unblinking. She had the strangest expression on her face. He couldn’t
read her at all. In her high heels they stood almost eye to eye, but it didn’t
help one iota. It felt as if she looked right through him. “Really, Alex.”
    “It is?” he asked.
    “Yep.” Her smile had sharp edges. “Boys
will be boys. Let’s pretend this never happened.”
    “But—”
    “I really should get to work. You should
probably mop up your face. Your lip’s bleeding a little there, in the corner.”
The woman started backing away as though she couldn’t get out of there fast
enough. As if he were poison. “And we’ll just forget this ever happened. Okay?
Great.”
    “Great?”
    “Great,” she confirmed with that uneasy
smile. Then she left. Warp speed couldn’t compare.
    For minutes he watched the doorway,
waiting. Nothing happened. He was too stunned to be relieved. That and he hurt.
His knuckles ached and his lip, as told, was indeed bleeding from one corner.
But the major catastrophe had been diverted, somehow. Everything had turned out
fine. Huh.
    Excellent. Great.
    Alex put his hands on his hips and took a
deep breath, first one and then another, searching for some calm. Yep, a nice,
big inhalation, straight through his nose…
    It sent the faint floral scent rushing
through him. Pouring in and filling every atom of his being, better than any
drug.
    His head shot up. “Fuck me.”
    * * * * *
    Violet limped to the staff room at the end
of her shift, more Band-Aids than she’d ever imagined possible adhered to her
feet. Damn those sexy, confidence-enhancing shoes. Kill them in a fire. Being
sacked would have been preferable to spending ten hours standing up in them.
Never, ever again.
    “Hey, Violet,” a voice said from behind
her.
    A truly lovely male voice with just the
right amount of rough dwelling in its seductive depths. The things that voice
had said to her last night. Take it off. Touch me here. Don’t stop. You feel
soooo damn good, sweetheart. Her temperature spiked at the memory, as if
she were baking beneath the summer sun. Alex apparently loved to talk and she
definitely loved to listen.
    But this was bad. What she needed was to
remove her shoes. Remove her shoes, get a drink and then to bed. But not with
him, never ever, ever again with him. Because that would be asking for trouble.
She’d had enough of that in her life.
    “Hi, Alex,” she said without turning. The
visual stimulus wasn’t required. Nor was him catching sight of her suddenly all-too-obvious
straining nipples. Stupid, perky pricks. “I thought you were behind the bar
until closing.”
    Sunday through Thursday the restaurant
closed at nine and the bar at eleven. Her hopes and dreams of a smooth and
speedy getaway had rested upon it. Her need to get the hell away from him sat
right up there with her need to remove her shoes. Escape couldn’t be more than
nine, ten meters away at most. She only had to get out into the hallway and
then through the back door. Her car couldn’t be another five or six meters
after that. Fifteen meters say, and she’d be home free. She could do it. She
could and she would, whilst keeping her job, because he didn’t remember.
    On one level, his drink-induced amnesia
niggled. But on a hundred more she felt profoundly grateful for the fact. All
night she’d taken her drink orders to Duncan, doing her best to avoid Alex. Her
eyes, however, had strayed toward the man every chance they got. He’d given her
a few bland smiles. Comforting, impersonal nods and nothing more. She’d felt
safe, up until now.
    “No,” he said. “Duncan and I take turns
closing up. Tonight’s my night off. Normally I’d have been out of here an hour
ago. But I was waiting.”
    “Yeah?” Violet threw open the locker to
grab her