"So you're Cedric, I mean Mr. Orion's friend since grade school?" Rosie asked as she watched Aiden drain his bourbon. "Wow. That's a long time to be friends with someone."
Aiden put the empty glass on the bar in front of him and ordered another. "Call him Cedric, Rosie. He's not here."
Rosie glanced over her shoulder. They were at the hotel bar where they had moved after dinner, both sitting side by side on the bar stools. "Are you sure he's not, Aiden? I wouldn't put it past him to just pop out of nowhere. He does it at work a lot and it once terrified my friend, Cindy, to tears."
She turned her head to him when he chuckled. And although he still freaked her out, she was beginning to relax in his company. Maybe he wasn't a creepy stalker like she initially thought. Or maybe it was just because of the martini she was drinking.
"Cedric and I went to the same school. We hit it off after learning we have more or less the same hobbies."
"And what hobbies are those?"
He picked his glass up and swilled his drink around. "Sports," he muttered to it.
Rosie nodded and rested her elbow on the counter, leaning the side of her face on her hand. She was feeling a little tipsy. "I see," she murmured. "And who was the better athlete?"
A corner of his lips curved up. "I was."
She smiled. "Of course, you were."
"Enough about me." Aiden suddenly spun on the stool to face her, keeping one elbow to the counter and stretching out his long legs next to hers. She blinked with surprise and lifted her head up from her palm. "What about you, Rosie? What's your story?"
What did he mean, enough about him? The only thing they had talked about during dinner and until then was her job as a secretary, what she thought about the company and her bully of a boss.
"My story is not as exciting as you probably think," she answered, wishing he'd go back to facing the bar again. "I'm just your average small-town girl. I lived with my parents and younger brother until I had to move to the city when I got the job at the company."
He nodded and stared at her, as if he was trying to figure something out about her. "No villains in your story? No backstabbing girl friends or clingy ex-boyfriends?"
She let out a laugh. "None. My friends all adore me and my break-ups were pretty amicable. I've never even been in a cat fight before."
"So you're a peaceful sort of person."
"Or in other words, boring."
He shook his head. "I don't think you're boring, Rosie. In fact, I think you're pretty interesting."
Other women would have taken that as a compliment but Rosie felt nervous instead, especially since he was still staring too intently at her. Shifting uneasily on the stool, she tried to come up with something else to talk about.
"Do you work, Aiden?" she asked.
His lips twitched. "I do."
"With Mr. Orion - with Cedric?"
"In a way." He arched his neck back and drained his drink again. She watched as he did, his muscular throat fascinating her for some drunken reason. Then he gestured at the bartender for one more. "I fix a lot of things for him."
"So... maintenance?" she guessed though she doubted he was.
He barked out a laugh. "Something like that."
"I don't believe you. That shirt doesn't say maintenance."
He suddenly leaned in close to her and her whole body stiffened. "Would you really like to know, Rosie?" he asked softly.
"Well, I asked, didn't I?" she responded.
He smiled. Then he leaned back just as a new voice joined into their conversation.
"I do hope you're not talking about me."
For another drunken reason, Rosie turned to Cedric with a huge smile on her lips. His face was pulled taut with a fierce scowl but that didn't discourage her.
"Too late," she said in a teasing tone. He was standing too close she could feel the heat from his body. "He's told me all I need to know about you, Mr. Orion."
A dark brow lifted. "Are you drunk?"
"No. This is only my first martini. Aiden here is on his third. But we did have that bottle of wine earlier," she contemplated.
Cedric aimed a murderous glare over her head at that.
Leaning into him, she whispered, "Maybe you should stop Aiden from drinking, Mr. Orion. He might mistakenly enter my apartment again."
She thought she heard Aiden chuckle. She shifted her gaze to him and saw that he had turned to face the bar. He was leaning both elbows on it, holding his glass in both his hands, his eyes closed.
"See?" she shouted and Cedric muttered a low-oath. "He's drunk."
"I think you're the one who's drunk."
"No, I'm not. I haven't even finished my drink yet." Taking the cherry from the bottom of her glass, she plucked it off the stem with her teeth, chewed and swallowed. Then she finished off her martini and held the stem up. "Hey, want to see how fast I could tie this into a knot with my tongue?"
"You can do that?" Aiden asked behind her and she twisted her head to look him again.
"Yeah. My college friends and I used to compete with each other whenever we go out for drinks. I thought you were sleeping? Are you alright?"
He didn't answer. Instead he pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and flipped it open. "I'll give you a hundred dollars right now if you do it."
A growl rifted the air. "Do you want to die, Aiden?"
She swung her gaze back to Cedric. "It's a hundred dollars. I'm going to take it."
The terrifying look in his eyes penetrated through her semi-drunken state and she started to wish she hadn't said anything. "Do YOU want to die, Rosie? Are you really that hard up for cash?"
It wasn't exactly about the money but about her pride. But she decided it would be prudent to keep her mouth shut and not answer that.
"Why don't I take you home?" he muttered, taking the glass from her hand and setting it down the counter.
It would also be prudent not to argue with him so she didn't.
"What about Aiden?" she asked. "We both live next-door to each other."
Cedric glowered over her head as he helped her off the stool. "Aiden? Are you coming?"
Aiden lifted his half-empty glass. "You go ahead. I'll finish this first."
"We can wait," Rosie offered but was steered away by the heavy arm around her shoulders before she could even finish talking.
As they walked through the elegant lobby, Rosie lifted her gaze and stared up at Cedric. She wasn't the only one to do so. With his stunning good looks, he attracted attention everywhere but that attention would soon peter out as soon as they got to know him personally. A strict, severe and an exacting businessman with a perpetual scowl on his face and who did not have a sense of humor.
His gaze fell down. "Like what you see?"
She flushed. "Yes."
He hadn't expected that answer. He froze in the middle of the lobby and stared down at her. She grinned. The expression on his face was funny. Or it might be because of the alcohol in her system. She was not, by all means, a heavy drinker.
"Your looks are actually more of my type," she quipped.
He tilted his head to the side. "What about Aiden?"
"No," she drawled out the word while shaking her head side to side. "He terrifies me."
"Good," he muttered. Then he exhaled through his nose and with the air of a man whose patience was slipping, pulled her back to walking. "Come along now, Rosie. Let's get you home."
"That's the second time you said my name," she grinned widely. "And yes, Mr. Orion, I counted."
Cedric looked like he was so done with her as he waited for his car on the hotel driveway.
"I would say you'd probably be embarrassed by this behavior come Monday but I doubt you would. You're pretty shameless after all."
"Aw. You called me pretty."
"Jesus Christ," he muttered.
Then he all but shoved her inside the backseat of his car when it arrived.
"Take her home, Christian," he instructed the driver, holding the door open with his hand. "And if she keeps on talking, you're welcome to dump her in the streets."
"That's not nice," she commented, leaning her head against the headrest and closing her eyes.
She noticed after a few moments that the door wasn't closing and the car wasn't moving. She opened her eyes. Cedric was staring down at with an unreadable expression on his face. She smiled.
"You look quite handsome when you stop scowling, sir."
He rolled his eyes heavenward.
Then he straightened and slammed the door close.
As the car drove away, she turned to look back. He was going into the hotel. And inside, waiting for him, was Aiden.