Risking It All by Shannon Stults

Author:Shannon Stults
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance
ISBN: 9781951786397
Publisher: The Tule Publishing Group, LLC
Published: 2020-01-10T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

Drew pulled a chair out for Darby then took his seat on the other side of the small table.

The hostess, a petite Asian woman with straight black hair, in a red dress and strappy heels, handed each of them a menu. She smiled directly at Drew. “Your waiter will be right with you.”

“Thank you,” he said, grinning back. When she was gone, he turned his full attention to Darby. “This is nice, isn’t it?”

She nodded as she glanced around the room, taking in the pristine white tablecloth, the high, wide stone arches holding up the dark wood beams overhead. The ring of globes that made up the chandeliers emitted a soft yellow light, providing an intimate, romantic atmosphere.

When Drew said he wanted to take her out to dinner, she certainly hadn’t expected anything this fancy. Alberto’s was nearly an hour outside of Willow Creek and a million times nicer than any place she’d ever been to, mostly because she could never afford anything like this. To be fair, she’d also never been on a real date, and the last time she could remember any guy treating her to a meal was at Hot Dog on a Stick by the Santa Monica Pier.

Darby opened the sleek menu in her hands, took one look at the price list, and nearly dropped it on the table. “Holy shit,” she hissed under her breath. The appetizers alone ranged between twenty and fifty dollars. With most of the money she’d earned at Wade’s moved into savings, she barely even had that much in her checking account.

“What’s the matter?” Drew asked, not taking his eyes off his own menu.

“Nothing, I just—I didn’t expect this place to be so pricey. I mean, twenty-five dollars for a beet and goat cheese salad? Are they serious? What, does it come with the entire goat?”

Drew’s eyes narrowed and the side of his mouth lifted. “I thought Lilly said you were from New York. I would think you’d be used to places like this.”

“Hardly. Just because I’ve lived in some big cities doesn’t mean I had enough money to afford anything like this.” At least not since she left New York City.

Sure, her closet had once been filled with the designer clothes and shoes her mom had bought for her as a teenager. But, unlike her mom, she couldn’t care less about designer brands or fancy restaurants. And more importantly, she’d hated the idea of living off her mother’s handouts all her life. So she’d ditched it all the day she left the city, her closet now consisting mostly of cheap thrift store finds—save for a couple pairs of jeans and a few tops she’d taken with her when she left.

Hell, she was sitting here in the most expensive outfit she owned, a formfitting emerald-green dress she’d bought in San Francisco, and it still probably cost less than the impossibly white tablecloth her elbows currently rested on. She didn’t belong here. Especially when compared to Drew and his sleek, dark gray suit and that shoulder-length blond hair that made him look like Bradley Cooper.

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