“I’ll do my best,” Alex promised grandly, lifting her glass to down another swig of her cocktail. Feeling the effects of the liquor already, she knew she needed to slow down, but it was difficult to remember that little detail when she was trying to flirt with a stranger at the same time. If he offered to buy her any more drinks later, she would just have to hope she would be responsible enough to turn them down. Overindulging was safer at the abandoned law firm, where she was surrounded only by people she knew and trusted.

When Daniel complimented her, she was a little surprised by the butterflies she felt in her stomach. It was hard to tell if the alcohol she’d been drinking had anything to do with the reaction, but either way, she liked hearing that he thought she was beautiful. His wandering eyes had already told her the same thing, but there was something different about listening to the words be spoken aloud. The debonair businessman with the Rolex watch was ditching a party because he wanted to talk to [i]her[/i] at the counter. She couldn’t help but feel like she’d won the wealthy bachelor lottery. And who wouldn’t be excited to win a lottery?

Her olive eyes dropped briefly to his shoulder as she noticed that he was getting a little bolder. He was so close now that the sleeve of his shirt almost brushed against the bare, dusky skin of her arm. She wondered if the fabric was as soft as the high thread count made it look. “I’ll go with ‘or not,’” she mused, looking back up to meet his gaze without moving from her spot. His proximity didn’t make her cringe like Chad’s had. “I find it hard to believe that a guy like you isn’t invited to parties every weekend. Your kind is the reason why girls show up to any parties in the first place… I bet they fucking fight over you when you’re not looking.”

As Daniel went on to talk about fate, her smile wavered ever so slightly. She knew he was just bantering with her, but it was impossible for her to totally hide her flinch when the word was spoken. She had a particularly hateful relationship with “fate” after everything that had happened three years ago, and she preferred not to entertain the idea that it could exist. She had to be in control of her own life, because if there was something else out there pulling the strings, there was every chance that she was going to have a short and miserable existence.

“Yeah… fate and I don’t really get along,” she shook her head, staring down at her drink with a smile still painted on her face to minimize the cryptic aura of the statement. “If you really have to give this encounter a cheesy name, let’s just call it a meet-cute.” Attempting to lighten the mood before he could ask about her odd response to his joke, she looked up at him again and sipped her cocktail. “Handsome man leaves engagement party to save beautiful woman from a raging dickhead. All we need is a cliché romantic tragedy and we have ourselves the plot of the next hit Hallmark special.”