More Than a Mission - Caridad Pineiro [2]
She stopped herself from proceeding with the perusal.
“Is the job still available?” He rocked back and forth on his heels as he asked, apparently growing uncomfortable, but then again, so was she. Not much of a surprise considering she generally avoided strangers, in particular, men like this one.
Handsome, danger-to-your-common-sense kind of men.
“Do you have experience?” After she asked, she began to walk toward the door of the restaurant and he followed beside her, keeping his paces small to accommodate her shorter legs.
“I’ve worked in a number of bars,” he replied with a careless shrug.
She supposed that he had, but not as a bartender. There was something about him. Something in the way he moved and in the slight swagger that screamed Bad Boy. She could picture him as either a bouncer—he had an air that said he could take care of himself—or an exotic dancer, but not a bartender.
As she reached the door, she faced him. “I’m sorry, Mr….Rawlings was it?”
“How about you just call me Aidan?” he said with a practiced smile that had probably swept more than one woman off her feet. Aidan, however, was going to get a swift lesson in the art of Just Say No!
“I appreciate you coming by, but the position—”
“Is still available, right?”
She responded to his statement with a subtle drop of her head as if she didn’t want to acknowledge it. “Quite frankly, my restaurant isn’t the kind of place for a Tom Cruise Cocktail redux.”
He actually jerked back as if slapped and a stain of color came to his sharply defined cheeks. “Excuse me?”
“I just don’t think you’re the right type.” And he definitely was not used to being turned down by a woman.
Surprise appeared once more on his face, followed by what she would possibly call admiration until he carefully schooled his expression.
“And what type are you looking for exactly?” he asked and placed his hands on his hips.
“Someone more…professional. This is a four-star restaurant and my patrons expect—”
“Uptight and pompous? Fair enough.” With that, he turned and walked away, but she couldn’t help but notice just how nice a derriere he had. Not that it would change her mind.
She needed someone who wouldn’t cause trouble and, although pleasant to look at, Aidan Rawlings was trouble with a capital T.
Chapter 2
“Crash and burn.”
Lucia’s words cut rudely across the airways and into the earpiece as he hurried from the Sparrow’s restaurant. He was at the edge of the property when something compelled him to look back.
She was standing at the door, still watching him, and when their gazes collided from across the distance, a becoming blush stained her cheeks before she escaped into the building.
Aidan smiled. Good. The lady was not as unaffected as she let on.
“Shut up, Cordez,” he whispered beneath his breath.
“All bad moody are we? What do you plan on doing now?” Lucia asked while he continued on to the hotel at which the team was staying, only a few blocks from the restaurant.
“If she wants someone a little more professional, that’s what she’ll get.”
He was already at the door of the hotel when Lucia quipped, “That may take a lot of work.”
He ignored her dig and headed up to their suite. Inside, Lucia was busily working on her laptop.
Not that they’d needed it today, Aidan thought as he walked over and stood behind her, watching as she entered a date onto a list she was compiling.
“What’s that?” he said and motioned to the screen.
Lucia looked up over her shoulder. “Corbett’s contacts—”
“So it’s Corbett now is it?” he teased, well aware that Lucia had a crush on the mysterious head of their group.
“His contact at MI6 provided a list of kills that they attribute to the Sparrow. That’s in this column.” She pointed to one list and Aidan scrutinized the schedule, which comprised nearly a dozen incidents in the last six years. The Sparrow had been busy. There was just one