0 orchestrated

She stepped out of the elevator and turned toward the hotel cafe. As she stepped through the threshold, her heart practically stopped in her chest. "Excuse me," she heard a voice from behind sound with a hint of impatience. She hadn't even realized she had stopped. She smiled apologetically at the woman behind her and stepped to the side to allow the woman to pass. Her eyes followed the woman's entry into the cafe, but her gaze was quickly stolen by the man who now stared back at her.

A small, yet quite sexy, smile pierced his lips as he stood and gestured her toward the chair next to him. For a moment she hesitated; this seemed quite unreal. He read the hesitation in her demeanor and a pleading expression crossed his face as he pulled out the chair. She took a deep breath to steel herself and headed toward the chair he held out for her.

As she reached him, his smile returned. "Hi," he said as though they were old friends. Without a single word, she sat down across from him. She saw a flicker of uncertainty in is eyes. It was so quick she may have missed it if she hadn't been so entranced by his eyes. She could imagine herself getting lost in those beautiful crystal blue eyes. A sigh escape him, "look, I know I said that I wouldn't orchestrate our next meeting; that I agreed to whole serendipitous thing, but I couldn't help myself. I can't explain what it is, but," he paused as one of the cafe employees came to the table.

With a warm smile, the employee placed a cup of coffee in front of her. In the short time she had been here, this morning cup of coffee was a ritual that had led her to quickly befriend the employees. She took a sip of the coffee, gave it a second to seep into her, and smiled at the cafe employee. "Thank you, Johnathan." He nodded and held up a warm corn muffin with butter in front of her. "You're a life savor," she told him as he placed the plate on the table.

He smiled and shrugged. "Anytime," he said before walking back to the counter to assist in waiting on other customers. She savored another sip of her coffee, closing her eyes as the warmth enveloped her. When she opened her eyes, she caught him watching her. Again she felt her heart skip. She couldn't believe she had almost forgot he was sitting there across from her. She smiled at the glimmer of curiosity that showed on his face as he watched her place the cup back down on the table.

"Johnathan and I have an understanding. When he first met me with his bubbly morning personality, I quickly informed him that I am not a morning person. Since he has been kind enough to make sure I get my morning started with a nice hot fresh cup of coffee and a muffin." She watched the way the right side off his mouth curved up into a smirk and wondered what it might be like to kiss that smirk away. She shook the thought from her mind and focused on the muffin in front of her. "I'm guessing, considering your confession that you are not here to ask me to dinner." She said over the top of her muffin.

He watched her as she took a bit of her muffin. Slowly his face lit up with a delectable grin. "On the contrary. I have every intention of getting you to agree to have dinner with me."

0 anticipation

His simple statement, spoken with such confidence, lingered with her. She could not believe that she actually double checked her appearance in the mirror before leaving her room. It was crazy how he had managed to get under her skin. As much as she hated to admit it, there was a part of her that hoped she might run into him again. Not that she would actually agree to have dinner with him, but the idea of talking to him again brought a smile to her lips. It had been a while since she had smiled. That was one of the reason she had taken this trip. She was not really much of a traveler. If she went anywhere, it was because someone had manage to convince her to join them. And yet here she was in a strange country all alone.

Being alone was not her favorite thing to be. She hated the idea of going out by herself; hated eating by herself; disliked going to the movies by herself. How she had managed to convince herself to travel alone in foreign country was beyond her. The truth was she knew she needed to get used to being alone. After all, that was her destiny; she could feel it all the way to her core. She didn't like it, but she had way too many issues to deal with that bringing anyone else into her world would be cruel.

She pushed the elevator button again knowing full well it would not cause the elevator to arrive any sooner. Her gaze clouded over as she thought back to her encounter yesterday. His sexy little smile haunted her. She remembered the small feeling of embarrassment that ensue when she caught herself checking out his retreating figure. He was a beautiful male specimen; not a species she was use to dealing with. She laughed slightly to herself; she wasn't use to dealing with any one of the human persuasion, male or not. Except for kids, which probably explained her current vocation as a teacher. Ninety percent of the interaction one had to deal with as a teacher was with students. Adults were a nuisance that was relatively easy to avoid.

The ding of the elevator as it reached her floor brought her back from her trance. She shook away the feeling of anxiety and tension that had been festering since he sat down across from her. The doors opened and she stepped into the empty elevator. Empty, she thought as the doors closed. A sigh escaped her as she thought about the poignancy of the simple word. As she caught a glimpse of herself in the elevators shiny metallic walls, she was reminded of the effort she had taken in readying herself this morning. She couldn't help the smile that crossed her lips as an image of him appeared before her. If anything, the promise of his words would give her something to daydream about.

0 seriously?!

"Seriously?" She looked at him in a bit of disbelief. For one, something like this never happened to her. She just wasn't the type of girl to catch someone's eye. Secondly, she just couldn't imagine that someone would have the gall to ask out a perfect stranger after only a five minute conversation.

He shook off her puzzlement and leaned back in the chair. "Why wouldn't I be serious?"

She stared at him for a moment taking in his casual mannerism and his confidence. The two qualities were an attractive combination, not to mention the fact that he was positively gorgeous. She pushed her thoughts aside and focused on the question at hand. "Look, disregarding the fact that we just met and know nothing about each other, I am not interested." She could see him beginning to lean forward and open his mouth to day something. She raised her hand to stifle his rebuttal. "Seriously, I appreciate the offer, but in case you didn't pick up on it from what I said before, I am not really a people person."

His gaze penetrated her for a while as he contemplated how to proceed. "First, I find our meeting twice quite serendipitous. Neither of us looking for anything in particular, yet finding each other seems like a sign. As for not knowing each other, having dinner would most definitely remedy that. As for not being a people person, you seem to be managing my intrusion into your little solitary lunch with much class and little signs of stress." He leaned forward again. "Have dinner with me."

"Coincidence," she answered as she leaned back increasing the distance between the two of them. "There is nothing clandestine about us meeting twice."

"I disagree whole heartedly. It is more than coincidence. This is a big city. The chances of us bumping into each other is quite small." He reached across the table toward her hand, stopping just shy of touching her. "Would you find it more clandestine if we were to meet three times?"

She smiled and let out a small sigh of a laugh. "Are you hoping I'll say yes so that you can orchestrate our next meeting and thus trap me into having dinner with you?" She shook her head. The words that came out of her mouth next were a bit of shock to her. There was no doubt he presences was playing on her emotions. "How about this I'll promise to consider having dinner with you should we by chance meet again. That is the best you are going to get from me."

"So then, you'll have dinner with me."

0 serendipitous

The sound of the chair scrapping against the brick laid patio startled her from her thoughts. She took a moment to glance away from the computer screen to catch a glimpse of the man who sat down across from her. Her eyes averted back to her screen as she tried desperately to squelch the tirade of thoughts that itching to take control of her mind. "Don't suppose you remember me?" His voice was exactly as she recalled it, rough and sexy like the rest of him.  It had only been a brief exchange of words, but it was still enough to embed his voice into her memory.

She took a moment to regain her mental composure. Without looking up from the words she had been laboring over for the past several days, she replied. "Likelihood is against you. I'm not really one for faces or people for that matter. I have a small tunnel vision problem. Not because I'm too absorbed in my own thoughts to notice anyone, nor because I'm an elitist who walks with her nose in the air believing she's better than everyone else. On the contrary, I rarely pick up my head or look people in the eyes. People simply make me uncomfortable. So I do my best to pretend they don't exist. You," she finally took her gaze away from the jumble of words and looked up at him, "however, were unavoidable. One, because we bumped into each other at the airport, an incident that made it very hard to pretend you didn't exist. And two, you just sat down at the table over there," she nodded in the direction from which she had known he had come, "with Della, that would make you either the groom or the groom's much hotter, her words not mine, older brother."

A sexy half grin creased his lips at her words. She could see a glint of humor in his eyes. He cocked his head to the side slightly, "So, you saying you don't think I'm hot?"

With a small raise of her shoulders, she responded, "'Hot' is a relative term, though I'd say you possess some generally handsome features. As for 'much hotter'," she leaned slightly to the side and looked toward where his brother was sitting with his future bride and her aunt, Della. She looked back at him,obviously giving him a once over, "that might be a bit of an exaggeration."

He nodded thoughtfully at her. "So than you do think I'm hot?"

She allowed the smile that had been itching to get out spread.  With a small shake of her head, she allowed a small sigh of a laugh to escape.  "Is there something I can help you with? Your party seems eager to order and I'm sure your presence is desired."
 
Without even a glance over his shoulder, he shook his head and dismissed her statement. "My brother knows what I want, he'll order for me. No worries there. As for what you could help me with," he leaned forward across the table, "you can have dinner with me."