Three Dates With You

  A Flirty Novella

  Lauren Blakely

  Lauren Blakely Books

  Contents

  Also by Lauren Blakely

  About

  Three Dates With You

  1. Maeve

  2. Maeve

  3. Maeve

  4. Maeve

  5. Maeve

  6. Maeve

  Also by Lauren Blakely

  Contact

  Copyright © 2021 by Lauren Blakely

  Cover Design by Helen Williams.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. This contemporary romance is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners. This book is licensed for your personal use only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with, especially if you enjoy sexy romance novels with alpha males. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Also by Lauren Blakely

  Big Rock Series

  Big Rock

  Mister O

  Well Hung

  Full Package

  Joy Ride

  Hard Wood

  Rules of Love Series

  The Rules of Friends with Benefits (A Prequel Novella)

  The Virgin Rule Book

  The Virgin Game Plan

  The Virgin Replay

  The Virgin Scorecard

  Men of Summer Series

  Scoring With Him

  Winning With Him

  All In With Him

  The Guys Who Got Away Series

  Dear Sexy Ex-Boyfriend

  The What If Guy

  Thanks for Last Night

  The Dream Guy Next Door

  The Gift Series

  The Engagement Gift

  The Virgin Gift

  The Decadent Gift

  The Extravagant Series

  One Night Only

  One Exquisite Touch

  My One-Week Husband

  MM Standalone Novels

  A Guy Walks Into My Bar

  One Time Only

  The Heartbreakers Series

  Once Upon a Real Good Time

  Once Upon a Sure Thing

  Once Upon a Wild Fling

  Boyfriend Material

  Asking For a Friend

  Sex and Other Shiny Objects

  One Night Stand-In

  Lucky In Love Series

  Best Laid Plans

  The Feel Good Factor

  Nobody Does It Better

  Unzipped

  Always Satisfied Series

  Satisfaction Guaranteed

  Instant Gratification

  Overnight Service

  Never Have I Ever

  PS It’s Always Been You

  Special Delivery

  The Sexy Suit Series

  Lucky Suit

  Birthday Suit

  From Paris With Love

  Wanderlust

  Part-Time Lover

  One Love Series

  The Sexy One

  The Only One

  The Hot One

  The Knocked Up Plan

  Come As You Are

  Sports Romance

  Most Valuable Playboy

  Most Likely to Score

  Standalones

  Stud Finder

  The V Card

  The Real Deal

  Unbreak My Heart

  The Break-Up Album

  The Caught Up in Love Series

  The Pretending Plot (previously called Pretending He’s Mine)

  The Dating Proposal

  The Second Chance Plan (previously called Caught Up In Us)

  The Private Rehearsal (previously called Playing With Her Heart)

  Seductive Nights Series

  Night After Night

  After This Night

  One More Night

  A Wildly Seductive Night

  About

  A flirty friends-to-lovers novella starring a tough but feisty heroine and a hero who’s determined to prove he’s worth a shot…

  In theory, dating again sounds easy. In practice, it’s terrifying. Especially if the guy you want to take a chance with is your good friend. But as we gallivant around London, Sam makes his case for taking a chance on three dates with him.

  Gulp. Here I go…

  Three Dates With You

  By Lauren Blakely

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  1

  Maeve

  It’s an hour till closing and Trouble has just walked into my bar.

  You could set your clock by it—if a customer is going to be a problem, expect it to be one of the last customers of the night.

  I eye the tall guy sporting a long ponytail, leaning against my precious jukebox. He runs a finger down the list of song choices, clicks a button, then glances over at me.

  Or, more specifically, at my boobs.

  I roll my eyes, then grab a dishrag from the shelf behind me to clean the pint glasses while “Pour Some Sugar On Me” blasts over the speakers.

  “I think you have an admirer,” Cat says as she grabs a clean glass and pours a beer. She’s my right hand at the bar along with Billy, my new mixologist. Sure, I still miss Dean, my old business partner at The Magpie—but these two make life here fun.

  “He’s definitely checking you out,” Cat says, tipping her head toward Ponytail. “And he’s kinda cute.”

  Oh, sweet girl. “Tip from one woman to another—stay away from guys like that. Guys like that are trouble.”

  “What do you mean, trouble?” She tilts her head to the side as she hands the customer his beer then chalks the drink up to his tab.

  I raise one hand, count off the list. “One: he’s been making eyes at my chest ever since he walked in.”

  “Well, empirically speaking, your boobs are great.” Cat shrugs.

  “Even if I had a porn-star worthy rack, my face is up here, and a little eye contact wouldn’t go astray.” I hold up a second finger. “Reason number two: he’s been here five minutes, and he’s already asked Billy to send a drink to that woman over there”—I point to a lady in red standing with another woman in one corner of the bar—“and that one there.” This time, I point to a woman in a “bride-to-be” sash.

  “Ugh.” Cat rolls her green eyes.

  “Double ugh,” I agree. “And reason number three: his pickup line. It’s sure to be atrocious.”

  “How do you know?” she asks.

  “Call it a special skill,” I say as I place a glass on the rack. “When you’ve worked the bar for as long as I have, sometimes you just have a feeling when a man has absolutely no game in the pickup line department.”

  “I’ve never met a pickup line I’ve liked,” Cat laments, then darts her eyes to the jukebox. “Here he comes. Need me to run interference?”

  “It’s fine. I’ve got this,” I reply, and Cat moves away to serve another customer as Ponytail approaches the bar.

  I turn to face him, flashing my most professional smile. “What can I get you?”

  “I was hoping for something real . . .” His eyes dance to my chest again. “. . . tasty, if you know what I mean.”

  Aaaand we have a winner, ladies and gents.

  Cat hides a smile behind her hand, disguising it with a cough, and I heave a deep breath.

  “We have many tasty options here on our menu.” I gesture to the folder on the bar. After all, there’s no need to be rude. “But if that was a terrible pickup line and you were hoping to perhaps order some of this?” I gesture to my chest. “I am most definitely not for sale.”

  Ponytail shrugs and taps the bar with a too-long nail. “Your loss, lady.”

  “Sure it is.” I gesture to Billy as he walks closer. “If you’d like to order an actual drink for yourself—not for another one of our patrons—Billy can help you out. If not, he’d be happy to order you a taxi and you can head on home.”

  Ponytail gapes, a la goldfish.

  I don’t wait for his reply. Instead, I turn and walk to the other end of the bar to prep the bottles of booze I’ll need for an industry trade show tomorrow, adrenaline pumping through me. It’s not the first time I’ve been hit on here, and it won’t be the last. Something about being a bartender—I guess people figure I’m easy prey.

  Clap. Clap. Clap.

  I look up, searching for the slow-clapper.

  And there he is.

  Sam.

  My old business partner’s close friend.

  And the subject of some of my wildest dreams.

  Not that I gave him a second thought until recently. When I first met him a few years ago, Sam was married, which placed him firmly in the “just mates” column.

  As Dean’s friends, we always found ourselves at the same parties and events. Sam was the incredibly hot, incredibly unavailable guy with the best dirty jokes.

  It was just a shame I hadn’t seen him much since Dean had moved to the States.

  “You handled that well,” Sam says, tipping his head toward Ponytail as he lopes out of the bar. “That could have been a challenging situation.”

  “Thanks.” I shrug, like it’s no big deal. “This isn’t my first rodeo.”

  “I bet. I’m sure you get hit on a lot.”

  “I wouldn’t say a lot.” I make a face. “But enough. I definitely get hit on enough.”

  “What constitutes ‘enough’ bar pickups?” he asks, playfulness in his tone. “Is there some kind of national standard?”

  “You tell me,” I reply, since Sam’s a bar owner himself and sometimes he stops by mine. “What’s your limit?”

  “It’s not a question of quantity for me, but rather quality.” Sam’s dark eyes fix on mine, and is that a hint of flirtation in his sexy American accent?

  Heat fizzes inside me. “I feel the same way.”

  He smiles, and oh, that sexy, crooked smile—it’s like champagne, sending tiny frissons of excitement through my body.

  “’Scuse me, love? A refill?” someone calls from the other end of the bar.

  I hold up one finger to Sam, be right back, and head over to grab the gentleman his drink.

  As I pour the beer, I covertly check out Sam once again. His dark eyes are on his phone, his gorgeous smile the perfect pair to them, like gin and vermouth. He runs a hand over that sexy jawline, and my fingers itch, wanting in on a piece of that action too.

  What if he stayed until close and we shared a drink? If we talked until late in the night, and then talking led to me touching that jaw? If he leaned in close as he kissed me goodnight, what would he smell like?

  How would he taste?

  Get a grip, Maeve.

  He’s just a man.

  A recently available man.

  Who happens to be incredibly handsome.

  But there’s a reason I don’t date.

  I’ve made too many bad choices. Plenty of guys seem good on paper and then turn out to be total wastes of time.

  Take Jeremy, the best and worst of them. Went to Cambridge, nabbed a fancy law degree, dressed like James Bond. He took me to museums and cooked for me. He wrote poetry on the side and would read it to me while we sat on the balcony.

  It was perfect. Until I found out Jeremy was doing private poetry readings for some other woman at the same time.

  But that’s all in the past, because I’ve found the perfect relationship. I pour my soul into this one, and in return, it just gets better and better. It’s a lot of work, but The Magpie will never let me down.

  She’s my bar.

  God, I love how that sounds.

  And that’s why I don’t need to focus on what-ifs with men like Sam, even if he makes me smile, and is easy to talk to, and looks like sex on a stick.

  I hand the beer to the customer then return to the man in question, who’s settled in at a bar stool. “What can I get you? I’d have thought you’d be working.”

  “I took the night off. I’m at the industry trade show tomorrow and wanted time to get my ducks in a row. Are you going—?”

  “Yes,” I rush the word almost like he’s asked me out, which is ridiculous, because it’s a trade show, not dinner and a movie, and he’s a mate, not a date.

  “Ah, good. I was hoping I could ask you something,” he says, and my body wants to say yes, yes, yes, even before it knows the question.

  It’s been a few months since Sam’s divorce. Perhaps Sam is feeling these same stirrings of potential between us as I am. Perhaps he’s seeing me, not as Dean’s mate, not as a friend of a friend, but as a woman.

  An interested woman.

  “Shoot,” I reply cool, calm, and collected.

  “I’m making a Buck’s fizz for an event tomorrow and I’m fresh out of orange for our garnish, and the only stores open this late aren’t exactly purveyors of quality produce.” He makes an apologetic face. “Do you happen to have any oranges I could borrow?”

  Oranges.

  He doesn’t want to see me.

  He wants to see my . . . oranges.

  “Sure,” I reply evenly.

  “Thank you. You are truly a goddess of the bar world,” Sam says. “Now I’ll have time to dehydrate them overnight. And I’ll have more sent to your bar tomorrow as soon as the grocer opens.”

  “No need.” I wave a hand, dismissing the notion. “Our fruit guy often delivers extra.”

  “So it’s fate then. You had some in my time of need.” His eyes smolder, that hint of flirtation back again.

  But this time, I douse the bubbles of hope in my stomach before they can fully develop. He’s not here for me, and that’s fine. We’re just friends, and that’s okay.

  Billy, Cat, and I close the bar, and he’s one of the last patrons to leave, a bag of oranges slung over his shoulder.

  Yes, the last patrons of the night sure are trouble.

  Only this time, I didn’t see it coming.

  2

  Maeve

  The next morning, I get ready for the event. I pack my slinky dress into a garment bag, along with my heels, then lace up my trainers, since I’ll spend the afternoon setting up a booth.

  I swipe on some winged eyeliner, praying it stays set during my setup session. Because I want to look like a professional business owner.

  Not for any other reason.

  My phone trills with an incoming call, and I put my makeup away and glance at the screen.

  Dean.

  Smiling, I accept his call to video chat. He’s in his kitchen, looking chipper, and I can practically smell the eggs and mushrooms sizzling in the pan behind him. Omelets, of course.

  “What time is it there?” I ask. “Six-something?”

  He laughs. “Six-thirty. Fitz has a flight soon, so I thought I’d get up and make him breakfast.”

  “What a good fiancé you are,” I tease. “Though I’d be careful. Isn’t an omelet a little ambitious? I seem to remember you burning food at the bar occasionally.”

  “One time is not ‘occasionally,’ and you’ve never let me forget it. I’m an excellent chef. And my cooking makes him very happy.”

  “I don’t think it’s the cooking.” I laugh.

  “It’s true. I keep my man satisfied in every way,” he says, then sets the phone so I can still see him as he works, sautéing the mushrooms. “Tell me about you. Is there any special someone on the scene?”

  I shake my head. “Not exactly.”

  “Two special someones?” he teases, and I laugh again.

  “I’m in a full-time relationship with this amazing bar you and your man gave me,” I say, then tone down the teasing for a beat. “Thank you again. I love it to bits.”

  “I know you do, and I’m glad, but don’t be all work and no play, Maeve. If it’s meeting someone that’s a problem, perhaps you could try Tinder.”

  “You’ve been in a relationship too long if you’ve already forgotten how dismal the prospects are here,” I tease.

  “Someday, someone will walk in there, and love will knock you on your arse,” he says.

  I snort. “Even if it does, you of all people know how hard it is to sustain a relationship with the hours we work. Unless I meet someone who also works till two or three in the morning, then sleeps till midday, it’s pretty hard.”

 

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