Brad smiled. She wanted to be the best?
‘The protégée wants to whip the master, but I’m not going to let that happen.’ Jonny slung his arm along Mya’s shoulders.
Brad immediately felt an animal response, his skin prickling at the sight of another man touching Mya—since when did he have hackles?
> ‘Oh, it’s going to happen and you know it.’ Mya flicked Jonny’s arm off as easily as she’d flicked off the flirty guys from the stag do the night before. ‘You’re running scared.’
Both Brad and Jonny chuckled and watched her swagger to a waiting customer.
‘You’ve been teaching her?’ Brad asked Jonny.
Jonny nodded. ‘She’s a quick learner. Focused, driven, plus she’s been practising. That’s how she got the job here in the first place.’
‘And she wants to work here because?’
‘It’s the most popular bar in town.’ Jonny looked at him directly. ‘We get good clientele with a lot of money to spend. So we make good money. With her looks and the skill to match, she’s popular.’
‘Why do you help her out? You’re not threatened by her?’ Brad texted some mates, determined not to turn into some sad stalker type who just sat there and stared at his fixation. He certainly didn’t want to feel this needle as he watched the byplay of the two bartenders. It couldn’t be jealousy, could it? Never.
Jonny laughed. ‘Wouldn’t you rather work with her than some guy?’ he pointed out with a sly smile. ‘We work well together—people like the competition. Some like to look at her, others like to look at me.’ He turned back to the bar and bluntly summed it up. ‘It’s all for the show and to help them spend their money.’
And Mya needed the money. She’d mentioned the tips last night. She could earn more here than on an internship? Even though the internship would progress her career. Brad frowned as he remembered what little he could about her. The girl his parents had been so disapproving of had actually become the Dux of the school—carrying off the elite academic prizes. It had only been because Mya was going to university that Lauren had decided to go too. So surely she was doing as well at university? By rights she should be bonded to some corporate firm already, with a scholarship in return for five years of her working life. Instead she was flinging bourbon around a bar and working back-to-back shifts between the club and a café while squeezing in summer school as well. Something had gone wrong somewhere; the question was, what?
Mya wished Brad would go do his thinking elsewhere. She’d spent all night trying not to think about him, and here he was the minute she’d walked into work. She tried to retain coordination as she checked round the tables making sure all were clean and had the necessary seating arrangements, but she felt his eyes on her.
She’d gone overboard in her reaction to learning he’d cancelled one of her shifts, but the truth was she couldn’t afford to lose a night off work. As it was she worked the bar job and a café job in the daytime. But it wasn’t just a silver spoon that Brad had been born with; it was a whole canteen of cutlery. He might work, but it wasn’t because he needed the money. He had no idea what it was like for people on the wrong side of the poverty line. And he was so used to getting his own way she was now ridden with the urge to argue with every one of his suggestions.
She walked back to the bar. She’d gone uber-efficient when she’d seen him sitting there. It was a way of working off the insane amount of energy she seemed to be imbued with. It didn’t help that he was so gorgeous wearing dark jeans, a belt that drew every eye to his lean waist and a red tee so faded it was almost pink—only Brad could put on pink and make it masculine sexy. Pure ladybait.
Eyes locked with his, she reached for the knife to slice more lemons. Her skin sizzled as he openly looked her up and down.
‘You never used to dress so monochrome,’ he commented thoughtfully.
He remembered that? Mya had never worn normal in the past, but she didn’t have the time to make her crazy outfits any more.
‘Needs must,’ she said briefly. If she didn’t have the time to do something properly, she preferred not to do it at all, so all the fun she’d once had in creating something from nothing had been put away. Lauren had never worn the latest in fashion either—another thing that had brought them together back at school. She too turned her back on the consumerism of the day, and together they’d done it with style. Mya knew how to sew. She could turn a rag into something unexpected—deliberately setting out to make a statement with her clothing.
He glanced up and grinned at her. ‘Still touchy?’
‘I didn’t sleep well.’ She sliced quickly.
‘Nor did I. I kept looking at your picture on my phone.’
She paused, eyes glued to the knife. No way could she dare look at his expression this second. ‘I don’t want to know what you were doing with my picture.’
‘I never looked at you that way before.’
Oh, like that was meant to make her feel better?
‘I’m aware of that,’ she snapped. ‘It was not ‘til you saw the bikini.’
‘No, I was otherwise occupied. I’m sorry about that in a way. But to be honest it was a good thing. You weren’t ready for me then.’
‘I’m not now,’ she lied, snapping the knife down on the chopping board, ignoring the way the lemon juice stung her burn.
‘Oh, you hold your own,’ he said. ‘And you know it.’
Her phone vibrated against her leg. She frowned and pulled it out. But it wasn’t a text; it was a reminder from her calendar.
Oh, no.
‘Are you okay? You’ve changed colour.’ Brad raised his voice. ‘Mya?’ He asked more sharply. ‘Bad news?’
She tried to smile but couldn’t force the fear far enough off her face to manage it. How could she have made such a mistake? She had everything on file, had due dates highlighted and underlined, but she’d been too busy dreaming up exotic cocktails and daft names to christen them in the past twenty-four hours to check. In other words, she’d been having too much fun.
She’d been so distracted she’d said yes to the extra shift at the café when they’d called last minute, forgetting to check her diary just in case. She’d figured it was better to keep fully occupied and thus ward off dangerous, idle-moment thoughts. Brad-type thoughts and replays of an unexpected, crazy kiss. She’d been distracted by imaginary conversations with a guy. About a party?
As a result, the assignment due tomorrow for her summer course had slipped her mind. She’d not done it. She’d not even half done it. She hadn’t done nearly the amount of research and reading she should have. She was playing everything close to the wire at the moment, every minute screwed down to either work or study, and last-minute deadlines had become the norm in recent weeks—so long as she had the info she needed. Mya was good enough to wing it. But just winging it wasn’t good enough for her. She wanted to ace it. She wanted her perfect GPA back. She wanted her perfect control back. She didn’t want to be sleepless and thinking saucy thoughts at inappropriate hours of the day. She was such a fool to let herself be distracted. Especially by Brad Davenport. She drew a deep breath into her crushed lungs. No more distraction.
‘Nothing I can’t manage,’ she lied and brought the bottles back to the line-up of shot glasses to pour more cherry-cheesecake shots for the trio of babes at a nearby table who were wearing ‘so hot right now’ dresses and drinking in the vision of killer-in-casual Brad.
‘Really?’ He watched her with absolute focus, as if he had no idea that he’d caught the undying attention of every woman in the building. But he knew it already—it was normal for him.
She nodded and looked down to concentrate on pouring the vodka in the glasses, not trusting herself to speak again without snapping at him. Suddenly she was too stressed to be company for anyone, and his utterly innate gorgeousness irked her more than was reasonable.
He put both palms on the bar and leaned closer. ‘Mya?’
That underlying note of concern in his deep voice didn’t help her combat the melting effect his mere presence had on her bones. His observation of her made her butter-fingered—not good when she had to flip two glass bottles at once in performing-seal fashion. Smashing the spirits would see the dollars coming out of her pay packet. ‘I need to concentrate.’ She offered a vaguely apologetic smile.
‘We’ll have to talk about the party later.’
‘Sure.’ He eased back and flashed her a smile that would easily have coaxed her own out had she looked long enough.
But she resolutely kept her eyes on the glasses as she fixed the cranberry layer in them, because she was not allowing him to distract her any more. She put the shots onto a tray, lifted it and slowly walked out from behind the bar, to carry them to the divas. They were all looking over her shoulder, checking out Brad.
‘You know him?’ one of them asked in an overly loud whisper as Mya put the tray on the table between them. ‘He’s single?’
‘Permanently,’ Mya answered honestly. She glanced around and saw he hadn’t moved. Worse he had a smile on, not his usual full-strength-flirt one, but a small twist to the lips that somehow made him even more attractive. It was so unfair the way he could make hearts seize with a mere look. She turned back to the pretty women. ‘But he loves to play.’
And no doubt he’d adore three women at once. Maybe if she were to see him go off with the trio for some debauched night, then she’d blast away the resurgence of this stupid teen crush and be able to concentrate wholly on the wretched assignment she had ahead of her.
One of the girls stood and went over to talk to him. Mya went straight back behind the bar and tried not to pay attention to the high-pitched laughter. But she knew it was exactly two and a half minutes until he joined the women at their table. Mya decided to let Jonny serve them from then on.
She ignored the way the women leaned forward and chatted so animatedly. She ignored the laughter and smiles that Brad gave each of them. Most of all she ignored the way he tried to catch her eye when she walked past a couple of times. Peripheral vision let her know he looked up and over to her; she refused to look back. She had far more important things to think on. And then she was simply far too busy. People began pouring in as the sun went down but the night warmed up.
‘Jonny, if I don’t take my break now, I’m going to miss it altogether.’ She leaned across to beg him.