I looked back to Mickey’s table to see he was no longer there. He was up and prowling infuriatedly toward that door, looking insanely hot doing this in his sports jacket.

God, he was killing me.

“What looks good to you?” Bradley asked.

Mickey Donovan, I did not answer.

“I need a moment,” I said and his head came up, his eyes to me. “Just need to freshen up a bit. Do you mind?” I asked.

“No, Amelia,” he replied, his face getting soft. “Take all the time you need.”

He was a nice man.

And I was an idiot.

Even knowing that, it didn’t stop me from grabbing my clutch and shooting out of my chair perhaps a wee bit too swiftly for someone who’d just insinuated she might need to use the restroom but mostly she wanted to fix her lipstick.

Then I stormed across the restaurant to the hall and down it.

It was a long hall and at the end of it, another hall led off at a T with a sign that said “Restrooms” with an arrow pointing right, “Staff Only” with an arrow pointing left.

I went right, passing the men’s (why was the men’s room always first? irritating) and then the ladies’, heading to the very end of the hall where Mickey was standing, arms crossed on his chest, scowling at me.

I shoved my clutch under my arm, again lifted both hands, stomping his way, but this time I asked a verbal, “What?”

I arrived at him.

Then I was not in the hall but shoved into an alcove off the side, which was quite possibly a place where they put racks to hang coats during winter months but right then was a dark space totally removed from everything.

“Mickey,” I whispered, half in shock, half something else entirely.

“Uh…no,” he said infuriatedly and bafflingly.

“No, what?” I asked, staring up at him, not believing I was in a dark area removed from a restaurant where my date was, his kids were, and I was pressed against a wall by an aggressive, inexplicably angry Mickey Donovan.

“No,” he repeated but he did this shocking me to my bones by lifting a finger and gliding it from the very start of the cleft of my cleavage over that cleft, dipping slightly into my cleavage.

Even though his touch made my nipples harden instantly, I lifted my hand and snatched his finger away, keeping hold of it.

“What are you doing?” I hissed under my breath.

“Pull your goddamned dress up,” he clipped under his.

“Are you crazy?” I kept hissing.

“That guy, fuckin’ Bradley, is that a joke?” he asked.

I didn’t know what that meant.

That didn’t stop me from snapping, “No.”

“Amy, even your ex, who’s a dick, is not as big of a douche as that douche at your table.”

Oh my God!

“Bradley is not a douche,” I retorted.