Dinner with the unknown
984 Words
Lila spent most of Saturday trying not to think about him.
Which, of course, meant she thought about him constantly.
She re-alphabetized the fiction shelf. Twice. She wiped down every surface in the shop, even the corners that hadn't seen a customer since winter. She made three cups of tea, abandoned them all halfway through, and avoided checking her email—even though a part of her wanted to see if Ashton’s proposal had come through.
It hadn’t. Not yet. And that made her even more restless.
So when the bell above the door jingled around five-thirty and in walked Zara—her best friend and official bringer of gossip—Lila felt a wave of relief.
“Okay, why do you look like you've been pacing in your own mind for six hours?” Zara asked, hanging her denim jacket on the hook near the counter.
“I haven’t.”
Zara tilted her head. “You always clean the shop when you're stressed. And there's lemon in the diffuser. That's your anxiety scent.”
Lila groaned. “You know me too well.”
“I’m a bartender. Reading people is half the job.” Zara leaned on the counter, eyes narrowed. “So… billionaire boy again?”
Lila sighed. “He came back.”
“Ooh, with flowers or just ego?”
“With an offer. And an almost-charming smile.”
“Dangerous combo,” Zara said, picking at a muffin sample. “Did you tell him to shove it?”
“I almost did. But then he asked me to dinner.”
Zara’s eyebrows hit her hairline. “He what?”
“Not officially. It was more like… a hypothetical question wrapped in charm and billionaire confidence.”
Zara grinned. “You like him.”
“I don’t even know him.”
“Exactly. That’s what makes it interesting.”
Lila turned to the window, arms folded tightly. Outside, the street was bathed in soft golden light. The end-of-day kind that made everything feel cinematic. A little more romantic than it should be.
“I don’t trust him,” she murmured.
“Maybe you don’t need to. Yet.”
“I shouldn’t even be considering this. He’s trying to buy my shop.”
“And you’re still saying no. So maybe this dinner is just... curiosity.”
Lila didn’t answer. But when her phone buzzed a few minutes later with an email notification—subject line: Dinner, if you're still curious—her heart did a tiny somersault.
Inside was a short message:
> Sunday. 7 p.m. Vitale on 5th. Just dinner. No contracts. No persuasion. You can even bring your lawyer if that makes you feel better.
—A
Zara peeked over her shoulder and whistled. “He’s smooth.”
Lila didn’t disagree. She stared at the screen a while longer before typing back:
> One dinner. I pick the wine.
---
Sunday evening arrived too quickly. Lila stood in front of her mirror, smoothing her hands over a dark green wrap dress she hadn’t worn in over a year. It wasn’t fancy, but it fit well and made her feel like herself—if herself had better lighting and slightly more cleavage.
At precisely 6:58 p.m., she stepped into Vitale’s, a softly lit Italian restaurant that smelled like truffle oil and candle wax. She spotted Ashton immediately, seated at a corner table beneath a flickering chandelier, black button-down rolled at the sleeves, blazer slung over the back of his chair.
He stood when he saw her. “You came.”
“I was promised wine.”
He smiled. “You’ll get the best bottle in the house.”
She sat across from him, noticing the way his eyes softened, just slightly, when they met hers. Not calculating. Not cold. Just... curious.
“I have to admit,” she said, picking up her menu, “I thought you’d be more insistent. Pushy. You know, the full billionaire charm offensive.”
“That was Plan A,” Ashton replied. “But then I realized something.”
“Oh?”
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “You don’t like being sold to. You like being spoken to.”
Lila blinked. “Accurate.”
“So, I figured we’d just talk. No shop talk unless you bring it up.”
She raised a brow. “Just talk? Over pasta?”
“Scandalous, I know.”
The waitress arrived and took their orders, and true to his word, Ashton let her choose the wine. A dry red with a strange name and a story behind it—Lila liked that part. The story.
Over the next hour, the conversation unfolded in unexpected directions. They talked about music—he liked jazz, she preferred indie folk. Books—he admitted to never finishing The Great Gatsby, which Lila declared a literary crime. And dogs—he didn’t have one, but he described a childhood retriever named Bear with such warmth that she almost forgave the Gatsby thing.
At one point, he laughed. A real, unguarded sound that surprised her. She found herself smiling without meaning to.
“So,” she said, twirling her wine glass, “why does a man with everything want one little bookstore?”
Ashton looked at her, all the humor gone from his face, replaced by something quieter.
“Because it’s the only place on the block I don’t understand,” he said. “And I’m not sure if I want to own it—or just know what makes it so… untouchable.”
Lila’s chest tightened, just a little. Not from fear. But from something deeper.
“I don’t know if I can explain it,” she said.
“Then maybe I’ll just keep coming back,” he replied, “until I figure it out.”
And somehow, that scared her more than any offer ever could.
- Writer
