Page 18 of Party Favors

Not a dog, a man! You had one job. Also, if you have to pee, hold it because the bathroom here is a human rights violation.

I had only a moment to wonder when she’d checked out the bathroom when I got another text from Adrian.

When will you be able to go to the jewelers to pick out a ring?

I texted back,Soon.

Another notification came in from Facebook. My stepmother had posted a picture of her kids and my dad.

Happy family! #blessed

My father had abandoned us when I was young and had gone through a long string of women before settling on my stepmother. They’d had four kids together in the last five years. I’d never met any of them, was never invited to holidays or events. I didn’t matter in my father’s life at all. The only acknowledgment I’d ever gotten from them was her accepting my friend request. He absolutely doted on his new kids, and it always made me feel like there was something I personally lacked because he’d never loved me the same way.

Those twisted, painful feelings returned, and I couldn’t help myself. I started to cry. Not huge, heaving sobs because that would have beenhumiliating to do in public. My throat felt tight from trying to stay quiet, and my eyes burned. I could feel my shoulders shaking and kept my head down.

Basta reached over to lick the tears on my cheeks, and I found myself putting my arms around her neck, hugging her tightly.

“Are you all right?”

I glanced up and saw the most handsome man I’d ever met in real life standing at the edge of the table.

My heart started to pound hard in my chest as I blinked my tears away. I had an immediate response—it was like steel striking against flint. I felt an undeniable spark when our eyes met.

It had been years since I’d felt that way.

He had dark hair, almost black, and light eyes. Most likely blue, but it was hard to tell in this lighting. I flashed to an early interview Kat had given, before the royal family had helped her refine her image, back when she would be completely honest and overshare. When the interviewer asked her what she’d thought the first time she’d met Nico, she said she had thought he looked like Superman’s hotter cousin. I completely understood the sentiment because the man in front of me blew both Nico and Superman out of the water.

“Are you all right?” he repeated, looking so sweetly concerned. My fizzy, overexcited brain registered that he rolled hisRs the same way Monterrans did. It was faint, but there.

The still-functioning part of my mind reminded me that I had been sitting there not responding to his initial and repeated question for an uncomfortable length of time.

“Yes!” Whoops, needed to modulate my voice. I shouldn’t be shouting. “I’m okay. Well, okay-ish.”

I wondered if he was lost or something and needed directions. I couldn’t figure out why else he’d be talking to me right now.

So I was completely shocked when he asked, “May I join you?”

You can do anything you want to me. My hands flew up to my flushed cheeks, as I didn’t know if I had just thought that sentence or said it out loud.

“Yes.” I croaked the word out and cleared my throat and loudly repeated it. “Yes. Please.”

Given that he sat down instead of running screaming into the night, it seemed I’d managed to keep my thoughts about letting him have his way with me all to myself.

The waitress returned with my beer, handing it to me. “Ciao, what can I get you to ...”

Her voice trailed off when she looked up from her pad to make eye contact with him.

She put a hand over her chest and I completely understood her reaction.

“Drink?” she squeaked, as if she suddenly realized she hadn’t finished her question and was staring. Not that anyone would blame her. “What can I get you to drink?”

Some part of me felt relief because the fact that she was speaking to him meant I hadn’t hallucinated him and he was really sitting next to me, being impossibly handsome.

He smiled at her and asked, “What would you recommend?”

His voice sounded seductive, and I wondered if he was the kind of person who flirted with everybody and I wasn’t special. Deflating, but expected.

“Uh, everything. Everything’s good,” she said, leaning against the table and batting her lashes at him. I’d never seen anyone do that in real life. The detached part of my brain that wasn’t experiencing vivid jealousy wondered if he was going to respond to her.

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