from the neckline of her top.
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this. Everyone in this restaurant knows I’m not wearing a bra. You know that, right?”
Despite her friend’s admonition, Charlie once again tweaked the neckline of the metallic mesh halter she was wearing. No matter what she did, there was no hiding the fact that there was a lot of cleavage on show. Like the skintight black stretch-satin trousers she was wearing, Gina’s top was not built for subtlety.
She glanced around the dark, woody interior of Café Sydney, hugely self-conscious in her borrowed clothes.
“No one knows you’re not wearing a bra except you. And maybe the people at the next table now since we’re talking so loudly. You need to relax. Here, have some more champagne.”
Gina leaned over and plucked the champagne bottle from the ice bucket where their waiter had left it and poured them both another glass. “You look great, C. You look amazing.”
“I look like I charge by the hour.” Charlie shifted in her seat, wondering if it was possible for pants to be so tight they cut off circulation to vital organs.
“You know what your problem is? You’re too used to trying to be one of the guys. Don’t get me wrong, I understand why that’s a good thing in the army, but you’re not enlisted anymore. At the risk of sounding like a feminine-hygiene commercial, you need to embrace your womanhood.”
Stung, Charlie paused with her glass halfway to her mouth. “I never tried to be one of the guys. I tried to be a good soldier.” She could hear the defensiveness in her voice and she sat a little straighter. “Just because I’m not into pink and because I don’t put everything out there on display doesn’t make me butch or one of the guys.”
Gina reached out and touched her arm. “I’m sorry. That came out the wrong way. I wasn’t saying you were butch. That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean, then?”
Like it or not, Gina had hit a raw nerve and for some reason Charlie felt unable to let it go. There was so much else up in the air at the moment, having her sense of herself undermined felt like a step too far.
Gina studied her for a beat. “Do you honestly think you look bad tonight?”
“I don’t look like me.”
“That’s not answering my question. Do you think you look good or not?”
Charlie glanced at herself. The black mesh of her top reflected the candlelight on the table and clung to her breasts in what she could only describe as an outrageously sexy way. The satin of her pants glowed with a more subtle luster, somehow lending her usually gangly legs a new voluptuousness.
“I look okay,” she finally conceded.
Gina shook her head. “You’re hopeless. You’re the hottest woman in this room and you don’t even know it. What a waste.”
Charlie made a disbelieving noise.
“You don’t believe me?” Gina asked.
“You don’t need to blow smoke up my skirt. I know exactly where I fit in the man-woman food chain.” From the moment she hit puberty she’d known. She wasn’t blonde, she wasn’t perky, and she didn’t have that unknowable “something” that made men want to howl at the moon. A painful realization at the time, but now simply a fact of life. She’d long ago accepted that straight, mousy-brown hair, plain brown eyes and nondescript features were not going to set the world on fire.
“So where do you fit, then?” Gina asked.
“On a scale of one to ten? Five. Maybe six on a good day.”
“You’re nuts.”
“Why are we even having this conversation? Let’s talk about something else. Tell me more about this Spencer guy you’re seeing.”
Gina frowned. “Is this why you never went for it with Hamish in Townsville?”
“Good God. You have a memory like an elephant.” Charlie took a gulp of champagne, hoping the action would hide the fact that she was blushing.
Her crush on Hamish Flint had not been her proudest moment. She’d mooned over the sexy, handsome warrant officer from afar for more than a year and never gotten the courage to do more than talk work with him.
Gina rested both forearms on the table and leaned toward Charlie. “I want you to indulge me in a little experiment. I want you to do a lap of the restaurant. All the way around the perimeter. And I want you to pay attention to how many men look at you.”
Charlie rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to do that.”
“Why not? Afraid I’m right?”
“I know you’re wrong.”
“Off you go, then. One lap, and pay attention. And no crossing your arms over your chest or sneaking around.”
“Get off the grass.”
Gina made a chicken sound.
Charlie rolled her eyes. “How old are you?”
“How scared are you?”
“I’m not scared.”
“Then put your moneymaker where your mouth is, lady,” Gina said.
A surge of annoyance brought Charlie to her feet. “Fine. I’ll do it. But be ready to eat your words.”
Gina gave her a finger wave. “I want an accurate tally. No fudging.”
Charlie snorted as she turned from the table. Gina was an idiot. Well intentioned, but an idiot nonetheless. Charlie had lived with this body and this face for thirty-two years. As she’d said, she knew her place in the dating food chain. And it certainly wasn’t at the top.
A server was backing away from the next table and she waited until he’d passed before taking her first step. Immediately she felt the subtle sway of her breasts against the top and had to quell the urge to cross her arms over her chest.
She lifted her chin and walked toward the first table for four. It was full of men in suits who had clearly come straight from the office, and all four of them glanced at her as she walked past. Two of them fixated on her breasts, the other two on her legs. There was no mistaking their interest and Charlie felt an odd squirm of… something in the pit of her stomach.
Okay, clearly a fluke.
The next table boasted six couples. Two men and one of the women gave her a fully body scan. Out of the corner of her eye she saw one of the men turn his head to check out her ass as she passed.
She frowned, adding two more to her tally. Gina hadn’t told her to count women, after all.
Next up was a family grouping—three generations, if she was any judge.
No takers here, I’m sure.
She
