Taken By The Hero (Hero Romance 2) by Kalena Lyons Page B

young, clean-cut professionals who were eager to buy them drinks… and purposefully ignoring Laura, who began to feel like a third wheel. Just as well , she thought. I could have wound up with another Dan, otherwise.
    Still, her insecurities had begun to kick in. All around her, she saw couples ferociously in the act of either seduction or routine. She began to feel that there might be something wrong with her after all. Why had she enjoyed being single for all these months? Was she abnormal? Were her standards too high?
    Jack watched her brow furrowing. When she finished her martini, she excused herself from the bar to step outside. He took his cue.
    “Henry,” he said to the bartender. “For the rest of the evening, the young lady is on my tab. Please freshen her drink.”
    The bartender nodded, and obligingly did so while Jack followed in pursuit.
    “A disgusting habit,” he announced to the startled Laura, who was standing outside the front of lobby smoking. She jumped upon hearing his voice, then turned around to see Jack smiling, a lit cigarette also in his hand.
    She looked dazed for a second before coolly replying, “We all need our vices.”
    “We all need diversions,” Jack corrected her.
    “What’s the difference?” Laura replied, suddenly intrigued by the presence of the strange but charming stranger.
    “Twenty years on your life?” Jack chuckled, and Laura followed suit.
    “Of course, without some form of a habit or another, what would we be left with? Living in a monastery?”
    “Maybe. Maybe monks are just as subject to habits as anyone else. Pardon the pun…”
    Laura laughed out loud at the admittedly poor joke. Perhaps it was the weed. Perhaps it was Jack. But there was something so engaging and comforting in the way Jack composed himself that she couldn’t help but feel at ease around him. “And in Providence,” she asked with a sly grin. “Where does it place itself in the field of vice?”
    “It all depends. Probably pretty highly—if you’re a monk.”
    And with that, Laura burst out laughing. At first, a minor chuckle; then, a hearty guffaw. Soon, she was laughing uncontrollably, so hard she thought she would lose her breath. “I’m sorry,” she replied between gasps of thin air. “But I needed that. I can’t remember the last time I laughed, so…”
    “That’s a horrible place to be,” replied Jack.
    Laura regained herself. “I guess so. Listen, I’m having a drink inside. Would you care to join me?”
    “I’d be delighted.”
    When they returned to the bar, both Liz and Aubrey had moved down several stools to be closer to their would-be suitors. There were several open seats next to Laura’s, and a fresh martini in front of her.
    “I don’t think I ordered this,” she said as Jack sat to her right.
    “Perhaps it’s from a secret admirer,” he smiled shrewdly. Laura blushed.
    Soon, the two were caught up in a surprisingly deep discussion. Laura had opened up to Jack in a way she rarely opened up to anyone before, regardless of how close. She bared her heart to him—her divorce, her frustration with her job, her friends, dating… all of which she kept inside of herself, like a nagging itch she could never scratch. It felt good to pour her heart out to Jack, and she began to wonder just how she had spent so much of the past two years bottling all her fears and her frustrations deep inside her.
    As comfortable as she was opening up to an absolute stranger, there was something still that intimidated her about Jack. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it; it was indefinable. So she drank. Hesitantly at first; then, more rapidly. Soon, as the night wore on, she began to lose touch with the surroundings—the noise, the cackling, the clinking of glasses. All she could focus on was Jack.
    By the time it was 11:30, she was completely, irrevocably drunk - to the point of being cut off. She begged Jack for apologies, but he simply smiled. He offered to assist her to