Captured Moments

---------- Dante Raines ----------

“Man, I’m so hungover. Why are we out here this early again?” James groaned, dragging his feet as he usually did whenever we were doing something he wasn’t interested in.

“I told you not to drink so much,” I chuckled.

“Yeah, but those girls kept buying rounds and you know me, I can’t say no to a pretty face.”

“I don’t think her face had anything to do with it,” I replied with a shake of my head. “I don’t think you can even tell me what color her eyes were, your gaze was stuck a little further south than that.”

“Hey, can you blame me, she had the biggest pair of tits. I couldn’t look away if I tried, they were like magnets for my eyeballs.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at that. He wasn’t wrong there. All those girls from the night before had been well-endowed in that area. They were all fake as hell. But still very nice to look at. If I hadn’t had plans for a meeting with my father and the board this morning, I probably would’ve indulged as well.

However, I knew that they were doubting my abilities to run Raines Enterprises, even though I’d been at the helm for the last several years already, essentially running things since I graduated college. They still doubted me.

Things were running fine and profits had been on a consistent rise since I’d taken over, but it was still never enough. And I knew what the real problem was.

It was the fact that I’d failed to give up my partying and playboy ways. Which in my opinion wasn’t a reflection of how well I do or don’t run the business. Sure, I occasionally caught some bad press when a date or two went awry. But for the most part, my image outside of work hadn’t affected the business at all.

However, I wasn’t ignorant of the fact that I was getting older and more was expected of me now that my father was officially retiring. And I knew that my father didn’t just have himself to answer to. We had the board to contend with. And considering they were all older individuals with sticks up their asses. Even the smallest slight on my image gave them pause.

Which is why I did go out partying with my boys last night, but I didn’t get drunk and I didn’t take a woman home – despite my instincts begging me to do so.

“You better not be getting boring on me now, man,” James teased. “I’ll have to trade you in as my best friend if you do. Brantley has been after a promotion from friend to best friend for years now. It may be time to finally give it to him.”

“Yeah, right. We both know that Brant would tap out from that position after a month. And even if he didn’t, you’d end up trading him in because we both know you use me to lure in all the ladies.”

“That’s true, Brant just doesn’t have what it takes,” he chuckled. “Something about your Italian ass just draws the ladies to you. I hate to admit,” he said with a dramatic sigh. “But I don’t think I could ever replace you.”

“And it would do you well to remember that,” I quipped, glancing away from where I was going to give him a pointed look.

And by the time I looked back, it was already too late.

All I saw was the most gorgeous pair of striking honey-colored eyes before the crash and the searing burn of hot coffee across my chest – my shirt and jacket doing very little to mitigate the effect.

I looked down at my now ruined shirt, gasping in surprise at the feeling of hot liquid across my skin, before looking up to see the owner of the honey-colored eyes that had assaulted me.

As soon as I did, my breath caught in my throat and my words were lost – tumbling off somewhere into the deepest depths of my mind, never to be heard from again. Because standing in front of me was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.

She was wiping at the coffee staining her blouse, in a feeble attempt to free herself from the mess – as though it would disappear by will alone. Her long brunette hair, blowing wildly in the wind. A smile gracing her gorgeous face as a laugh slipped past her luscious lips, a sparkle in her bright eyes.

I was instantly captivated – taken in a way that I’d never been before. She was everything I didn’t know I wanted but now wasn’t sure I’d ever be the same without.

She wasn’t even my usual type. But I suddenly couldn’t remember what my “type” had been because whatever it was before was nothing compared to her.

I didn’t even know her name. But I wanted her. Even if it was only for one night, which was my typical pattern, I had to know what she tastes like – you know, when she wasn’t covered in coffee.

“I’m so sorry,” she laughed and the sound was like a melody.

“It’s perfectly alr—” I began with a smile of my own before I was abruptly cut off by James rudely choosing to speak on my behalf.

“Why don’t you watch where the hell you are going!” he snapped. “Do you have any idea who this is? Who you just spilled coffee on? This shirt and jacket are probably worth more than you make in a month and you just ruined them!”

“James!” I barked as I watched the sparkle in her eyes dim and the smile drop from her face.

“It was an accident,” she stammered. “I’m sorry, but it isn’t like I did it on purpose. If you give me your phone number, I’ll pay for the dry cleaning.”

“Sure, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? The phone number of the most eligible bachelor in the city. Is that your game?” he sneered, his tone dripping with accusation.

“What—no, I don’t even know who you are.”

“Yeah, right,” he scoffed. “You think we haven’t seen this little trick before. Nice try, honey.”

“James!” I roared. “Stop that right now. She didn’t do anything wrong.”

I liked James. I considered him my best friend. We’d been practically inseparable since we met our freshman year of college. But sometimes he said and did things that really rubbed me the wrong way. He talked down to people which was something I never did.

He liked to flaunt who we were and what we were worth as though they were the only things in life to be proud of.

We’d both gone to school to get business degrees and then ended up working for my father’s company. It wasn’t as though we were self-made men who’d clawed our way to the top.

Sure we made good money. I essentially ran the company and we’d worked hard, but we’d gotten lucky more times than I could count. We weren’t better than anyone else. But James seemed to forget that.

“You don’t have to worry about dry cleaning,” I assured the beautiful woman, jumping in before James could act like a fool again. “I’ll be alright. I have plenty of shirts. And don’t worry about him, he’s just in a bad mood. No harm. No foul.”

“Are you sure?” she questioned, tucking a loose strand of silky hair behind her ear.

“Absolutely.”

“Well, here,” she replied as she dug around in her purse before pulling out a small pad of paper and a pen. “Let me give you my number in case you change your mind about the dry cleaning.”

I could hear James scoff again and I didn’t have to look to know that he was rolling his eyes. I knew exactly what he was thinking that she was giving me her number in the hopes that I would call her for a date.

But her motives didn’t matter and it wasn’t his life. I wanted her number. And I was going to call her for a date.

She jotted it down and handed it to me with a sheepish smile. Our fingers brushed each other as I went to retrieve it and I could swear I felt spark. Not like the sharp zap of static when someone has been dragging their socks across a carpet – but literal sparks. Like the ones talked about in movies and sappy romance novels.

I’d almost thought I’d imagined it until I looked up to find her staring down at her own fingers in surprise.

I felt a strange sense of smug satisfaction at the realization that she was just as taken as I was. There was something here. Something between us. Something that I fully intended to explore.

“Well,” she awkwardly chuckled as she adjusted her bag. “You have my number. Feel free to call about the dry cleaning or anything else, I guess,” she mumbled, her cheeks burning bright, the color tinting her cheeks with just the lightest hint of pink and I found it cute.

Cute? That wasn’t a notion I had often.

And without another word she scooped the remains of her coffee off the ground and scurried into the crowd. I turned, my gaze following her without meaning to until she disappeared completely from view and I could no longer even pretend that the back of the brunette’s head that I was staring at was still her.

I looked down at the piece of paper in my hand and there was her number scrawled across the white page. My beautiful line of hope that kept me attached to her – that offered me the chance to explore this connection further.

She may have walked away, but this wasn’t it. This wasn’t the end of our story. And this small piece of paper was what guaranteed that.

I looked at the name scribbled above the numbers and smiled before testing out the sound of it on it my tongue, hoping that there would be a lot more of her there in the future.

“Mia Allsun.”

Fitting, I chuckled too myself before glancing at my watch and hastily shoving the paper in my pocket.

If I didn’t hurry now, I’d be late.