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I set the glass in front of him. “Your Macallan, sir.”

He doesn’t touch it. There’s a full glass already sitting at his elbow, untouched too.

“You already have one,” I point out.

“I do.”

“So the second one is…?”

“An opportunity.” His eyes travel up the length of me, taking their time, like he’s got every right to. “I don’t miss those.”

His voice is low and unhurried, with an Italian accent folded into the edges of it like a blade folded into a napkin. It slides down my spine and settles somewhere it has no business settling.

I should say thank you, sir, and walk away. That’s the rule.

“Expensive opportunity,” I say instead.

“I’ve paid more for less.” He gestures to the seat across from him. “Join me.”

“Staff doesn’t sit with guests.” A beat. “Sir.”

Something shifts behind the mask. His fingers go still on the glass, and his eyes darken, slow, like I just handed him something he intends to keep.

“Careful. I could get used to hearing that from you.”

My cheeks burn. I don’t say it again.

Not yet.

“Then don’t think of me as a guest,” he says.

“What should I think of you as?”

“Curious.” His mouth curves, there and gone. “About you. I don’t get curious often.”

“And if I say no to your offer?”

“Then you can go back to pretending you didn’t notice me watching you.”

Heat floods my face, then drops lower. He saw me see him.

I could say no. I’m almost sure he’d let me.

“One drink.” I sit, but on the very edge of the seat, spine straight, so we both know I can leave whenever I like. “And not because you asked. Because I’m curious too.”

His head tilts, a fraction. Not triumph. Interest, sharp and hungry, like he noticed exactly how far I didn’t lean back.

Dark hair, thick, gone silver at the temples in a way that would look distinguished on a banker and looks dangerous on him.

Ink on his neck, too. Black script curls up out of his collar and along the side of his throat, right over his pulse, like someone wrote a warning there.

I want to know what it says.

Big hands, with blood-red ink across the knuckles, old script too dark to read in this light, and one old gold ring on his little finger.

And a mouth below the edge of the mask that looks like it hasn’t smiled in a while.

My body has opinions about all of it.