“You asked him to water down the drinks,” I observed evenly.

“We’re not looking to get anyone drunk,” Victoria said.

“You just want them to think they are,” I inferred. “It’s amazing how people start to act drunk as soon as they think they’ve had a lot of alcohol.”

“You’re a perceptive one, aren’t you?” Victoria almost but didn’t quite smile. “Enjoying yourself tonight?”

Eyes on her. No looking behind the bar, Sawyer.

“By some definitions,” I said, and then I cut to the chase. “How old are you?” If she was a senior in college, she was probably too old to be Ana’s baby, but I had to ask.

“Twenty-one.” She arched an eyebrow at me. “Why don’t you ask me what you really want to know?”

I wasn’t sure what she was expecting—maybe for me to ask for the inside track on how to prove myself worthy of the White Gloves—but I took her up on the invitation to be blunt. “Are you related to Victor Gutierrez?”

“Are you asking on your own behalf?” she said mildly. “Or on behalf of Campbell Ames?”

It took me a second to parse that response.

“I hope she knows that business is just… business,” Victoria said lightly. “Whatever my father’s intentions or grand plans, I assure you, they have nothing to do with me.”

Nick appeared then with the first three bright-colored drinks, setting the martini glasses down on the bar in front of her.

“I’ll be back for the others,” Victoria told him. She glanced at me. “And for you.”

As she retreated, I lost my excuse not to look at Nick. I let my eyes travel in his direction, but reminded myself that if he’d wanted to contact me in the past month and a half, he could have.

“Long time no see,” I said.

“Last I checked . . .” Nick grabbed a rag and ran it over the bar between us. “. . . you’re not old enough to be on this side of the ropes, Miss Taft.”

I wondered what Emily Post had to say about telling a guy to take his sarcastic use of the word Miss and shove it up his—

“Oh, yeah,” Nick continued, in a way that made me pretty damn sure he was trying to get a rise out of me, “you’re not really big on rules—or laws. Are you?”

It was hard to tell how much of that was a compliment—and how much was an insult.

Nick had played a key—and largely unwilling—role in Campbell’s plan to take down her father. The four of us hadn’t exactly endeared ourselves to him, given that the plan had involved him being arrested.

Twice.

Then again, it wasn’t like he’d been forced at gunpoint to say yes when I’d asked him for that dance.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t enjoyed it.