“Ooh, good answer,” Alex grinned as the new guy took Chad’s place beside her. Already, she could tell she was going to enjoy talking to him much more than she had the last man she’d wasted her time on. Not only was he eye-catching, but his subtle aggression made him all the more intriguing to her. Just the fact that he’d approached her while she’d been in the middle of a one-sided conversation with another man was proof that he was the type of guy who knew what he wanted and wasn’t afraid to do what it took to get it. However, he wasn’t a raging douchebag like Beefhead had been. There was a delicate balance between smoldering confidence and flagrant forcefulness, and he was already proving to be a master at walking that line. She wanted to see what else she could uncover behind his charming smiles while she had him at the bar.

“I can’t turn down an offer for free ammunition,” she winked at him playfully when he volunteered to refill her drink. “Just keep up that smooth talk, and I’ll think about saving the next splash for someone else.” She may have been a little tipsy from the first drink, but one more couldn’t hurt that much, right? She wanted to convince Moneybags to pay for her dinner later, and in her experience, accepting an offer for a drink was a quick way to imply enough interest in a man to keep him around for a while. Although, she didn’t need to do much pretending in this case. If she’d been a normal girl out on the town, she would have been genuinely interested in getting to know the debonair man standing next to her. But, alas, she was a homeless tramp who would have to return to her construction site castle at the end of the night. [i]Woe is me,[/i] she thought exaggeratedly as her eyes found their way back down to the expensive-looking shirt that fit his frame so nicely.

The sound of his urbane voice coaxed her to lift her gaze to his face again, where she saw that his smile had softened into something friendly. Apparently he had body language down to an art too. “Wow, two for two,” she mirrored his expression, though the smile that decorated her lips was a little more enthusiastic. “My name’s Alex. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Daniel.” The line she used on most of the suckers she hooked at the bars around New York City flowed effortlessly off her tongue when she said it to him. It was easy to walk through the routine when she was looking into the eyes of someone who truly fascinated her rather than the men she pursued just for the free food.

Keeping up the flow of conversation, she went on, “So, what brings you to [i]Devil’s Share[/i] tonight? Celebrating a successful business presentation?” As she posed the question, she reached out to touch his arm in a simultaneous indication of the clothes he was wearing and a believable excuse to find out if he was as fit underneath the sleeves as she’d guessed.