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memory came as easily to her as did a great many other things, like her intuition, her strength, her agility, her speed.
    Things her mother assiduously trained her to keep to herself.
    She started the next night. Jenna loved her job more than anything else in her life, in spite of the inevitable discrimination she endured as a woman in what was considered—by the vast majority of their well-heeled clientele—a man’s job.
    This particular evening, she had arrived at work nine hours earlier, far ahead of the evening rush, and was now standing on the opposite side of the long, curving bar from Becky, the feisty, ginger-haired bartender recently hired away from a competitor.
    It was late, almost closing time, and her feet hurt.
    She’d had three difficult customers tonight. They were all older men who eyed her as if wondering how much she’d fetch at auction, then grilled her with questions about the wine list, proper food pairings, and minute differences from one vintage to the next, each finally allowing she might actually know what she was talking about and wasn’t just the hat-check girl standing in for the real sommelier—the
male
sommelier.
    She was in a foul mood.
    When she felt that singular current of crackling electricity spike through her body, she should have known things were about to get worse.
    “Ooh, la,
la
,” Becky murmured, low so only Jenna heard. Her hand paused in midair over the wine glass she was about to lift into its place on the hanging rack above her head.
    Jenna raised her eyes to Becky’s freckled, sun-kissed face and took in the admiring stare aimed over her left shoulder at someone who had just come through the front door. She moved her gaze to the mirror that hung on the wall behind Becky, which provided an unobstructed view of the entire restaurant within its colossal, oak-framed border.
    A man—tall and dark-haired—stood looking around the restaurant, letting his gaze rove over the graceful interior as if he were looking for someone. He handed over his coat without glancing at the eager hostess who appeared before him to take it.
    His suit alone was worth admiring. Precisely cut to showcase broad shoulders, trim waist, long, well-muscled legs, it was a fitted charcoal-gray pinstripe and had the look of absurdly expensive bespoke. He wore beneath a snowy white button-down shirt, open at the collar to reveal a hint of tawny skin at his throat.
    But it wasn’t his elegant suit that made the chic and sophisticated patrons of Mélisse sit up and take notice of this gorgeous new arrival. It was the unstudied air of confidence and privilege and raw magnetism that surrounded him that drew the eye, the way he simply
took
the room by standing within it.
    The maître d’, a haughty man named Geoffrey with stooped shoulders and hairy wrists that showed below the starched white cuffs of his shirt, appeared at his side and exchanged a few words with the man. He gave him a curious, low bow.
    Jenna lifted an eyebrow at this and watched in curiosity as Geoffrey led his elegant charge to a reserved table at the back—the best table—a graceful curved banquette of dove-gray leather ensconced against walls painted smoky plum.
    He seated himself with the lithe movements of a dancer and accepted the menu and wine list from the waiter who materialized at his table. He spoke a few words to Geoffrey, who then scurried away like a terrified rodent, shooing the waiter along before him as he fled.
    Then, with slow deliberation and the barest hint of a smile lifting his cheek, the man raised his head and met Jenna’s gaze in the mirror.
    Under lashes long and black as soot, his eyes were sharp and very green. She saw their phosphorescence through the dim, candlelit air and froze on a breath.
    His smile deepened, a slow, slow burn. He did not blink.
    “Oh, God.” Jenna dropped her gaze and felt heat creep up her neck and flood her cheeks. Her heart began to pound.
    The ghosted memory of the vivid dream