It really was too bad that Daniel was just her chance at dinner for an evening. He was one of the most handsome men Alex had conned recently as well as the most interesting by far. Most of the time, the guys she left the clubs with were at least ten to twenty years her senior—sometimes more—and they all had a penchant for talking about themselves until she wondered just how far she could shove her fork through her ear. By contrast, the businessman beside her was obviously successful, but he was so good at downplaying his accomplishments that she found herself in the unfamiliar territory of actually [i]wanting[/i] to ask him more about himself. It was a strange place to be, but for those eyes and that smile, she wouldn’t mind if he wanted to tell her about how he’d gone from wannabe rocker to the wolf of Wallstreet all night long.

…Platonically, of course. Her two whiskey cocktails on an empty stomach may have been demanding otherwise, but she wasn’t as impulsive as her friend, Whitney. She’d made a vow to herself that she would never go home with any guy she just met, and damn it, she was going to keep it, even if his chaste touch to her shoulders tempted her to reconsider her convictions.

Walking with Daniel out of the bar, Alex noticed that he continued to play the role of gentleman by holding the door open for her. She thanked him politely and stepped through the opening first, realizing belatedly that she probably should have brought a jacket. The night was brisk, and it was difficult to stay warm for someone who had almost no meat on her bones. The light breeze cut through her like a knife, but even when her “date” asked if she would prefer to hail a cab, she shook her head. “A walk sounds nice,” she lied. “No point in wasting the opportunity when our restaurant is right around the block. Let’s go.”

Really, sitting in the back of a taxi would have been far more comfortable, but two motivations compelled her to say no. The first and most prominent was that her drinks had gone straight to her head, and she needed to sober up a little, so she wouldn’t do anything stupid. The second was that vehicles were dangerous. As a rule, she tried to avoid them unless she absolutely had to climb into the back of a car for some reason. Once inside, she would be at the mercy of the driver, and she was aware that cabbies could be bought. Her past demons followed her wherever she went, so she couldn’t risk getting into a car and finding herself being whisked away to somewhere that she did not want to go. It was safer to walk, so she could run if she needed to get away quickly.

Hoping to distract from her subtle shivering, so Daniel wouldn’t notice and wonder why she’d picked the less comfortable mode of travel, she clasped her hands behind her back and casted him another smile. “So, where do you work?” she asking, selecting a topic that she felt certain he’d be interested in chatting about. There wasn’t a single person on the face of the planet who dressed as smartly as he did and kept his occupation to himself. Well, unless they were FBI, but the odds of that were so low that she’d take her chances.