“Oh yeah, they’re good.” He shrugged, looking a little embarrassed. “These flashy places don’t really do it for me. Overpriced food, undersized portions. Gimme a burger any day.”

She laughed, feeling at ease for the first time tonight. New and improved Alex would have let her date choose where to eat, but Michael had told her to pick a place, and Brady was an awesome chef. “I know. Gage is a big foodie, so he’s always dragging me to restaurants with stuff like veal cheeks and charred orange and—”

“Seaweed and shit.”

“Yes!”

He chuckled and she joined in. Three days before the New Year and the restaurant was cheerfully festive with beautiful wreaths adorning the antique mirrors. It was also packed with Prius-driving, cigarette-pants-wearing, Wilco-ticket-stubs-in-the-pockets-of-their-ironic-bowling-shirts hipsters.

“Gage is all loved up with the chef,” she whispered, to keep her traitor talk out of the hearing range of Brady’s server spies, “so I thought it might be a good place, but . . .”

“Next time, we’ll get a burger.”

Next time? Score! But she needed to rein in her runaway thoughts. It ain’t over till the gingerbread pudding has made an appearance.

His phone pinged—again—and his expression morphed to cop-serious. “Got to take this, sweets, back in a sec. You choose whatever you want off the menu.”

Gee, thanks, mister.

He headed off toward the restrooms, and her heart sank a little. Had he designated a buddy to dial in for rescue at a certain point into the date? Like “call a friend,” but in reverse?

Time for her own check-in. She conference texted her posse: Gage, who was on shift at Engine Company 6, where they both worked, and her friends/future sisters-in-law Darcy and Kinsey. Otherwise known as Team Get Alex Laid.

He’ s left the table 2X in 10 mins. Either his gun’s digging into his tiny bladder or he’s on a “coke” break in the can.

Five seconds later from her brother: stop looking for faults.

He keeps staring at my tits.

Darcy chimed in with: That’s what they’re fucking for!

Touché.

Next up on deck was Kinsey, who could usually be relied upon for a healthy jolt of common sense. Bring out your inner sexpot. Suck on a straw.

Real subtle, Alex texted back.

Subtle does not lead to man-made orgasms! Gage again.

Alex found it rather priceless how people channeled the love child of Yoda and Oprah the second they bagged a regular sex partner. But after twenty-six years on this planet, she wanted what they had with a heady desperation that sometimes left her breathless.

She wanted to be smugly in love.

The next buzz had a smile tugging her lips at the prospect of more oh-so-sage advice. But the new message wasn’t from her best peeps.

Her pulse rate skyrocketed as it always did when she heard his name or saw him on TV or spent a single moment in his presence. Of course he had no idea how much he affected her. She planned to keep it that way.

Try the quail, the text said. It’s excellent.

He was here. In the restaurant. Either that or he had surveillance trained on her, which, given her past behavior tainting the good name of the CFD, might not be so far-fetched. Another message came in.

Check your six.

If she ignored him, it would look like she cared, and yet the idea of turning her head because he issued an order was equally galling.

Deciding that following his “suggestion” sat with her better than letting him think his presence bothered her, she twisted her shoulders and met the raw blue gaze of Mayor Eli Cooper. He was seated alone in a booth near the back, paperwork and an iPad laid out before him, long fingers curled around a tumbler of scotch.

He didn’t smile. She wouldn’t have believed it if he did. There was something silkily predatory about him, like a lazy python lying in the sun ready to uncoil and strike at any moment. Before he straightened to his full six two, she just knew he would come to her table.

Hell and damn.

Watching him walk over, Alex mused that Eli Cooper was the sort of man who knew how to use his physicality. Beneath his handmade shirts and tailored suits, a street fighter hummed through every loose-limbed motion. But that impression did not extend to his face, which was structurally perfect. Skyscraper-high cheekbones. Superhero jaw. A mouth that should have a government warning. There were no signs of past trouble with a jealous husband or an abandoned girlfriend. No one had ever broken his nose. No one had busted his lip.

Strange, because her first instinct on seeing him was to roundhouse kick him into the next millennium.

“Alexandra,” he drawled. It was never Alex with him, which everybody and their aunt called her, but her full name. Just another dig that ensured her XX chromosomes would not be forgotten.

“Mr. Mayor.”

He sat without invitation. “How’s your date going?”

“Fabulous. Probably won’t appreciate a threesome, though.”

The words were barely spoken, and she longed to bite them back. That well-worn smirk, like a stray comma at the corner of his full-lipped mouth, activated.

“No one would like to share you, I imagine, Alexandra. However, you’re so difficult you’d probably need several CPD officers to handle you.”

Passing over the fact he knew her date was Chicago blue, she gusted a bored sigh.

“Slow night on the campaign trail? I would think you’d want to get out there if your latest approval numbers are anything to go by.” She tsked. “Less than two months to the election and you’re hovering under forty percent.”

“All that matters are the numbers on the night.”

“Still, I’m sure you have babies to kiss, MILFs to ogle.” Donor dicks to suck. “Don’t let me stop you.”

“Given your recent popularity, I should have you stump for me, but there’s no telling what might come out of your mouth from one second to the next.”

Alex raised her fruity Cab to her unpredictable mouth and took a ladylike sip instead of her usual gulp. Now would be a fabulous time for her date to reappear.

“You never fail to bring out the worst in me, Mr. Mayor.”

“Oh, it doesn’t take much to get you riled, Alexandra. All that passion looking for an outlet.”

There he went again. Alexandra. But this time, it didn’t feel like a dig. It felt like . . . a caress. She lowered her glass of wine to the distressed mahogany table and stared at it accusingly because that was just, well, loco.

Done blaming the alcohol for that ludicrous flight of fancy, she lifted her chin and thought she saw his gaze snap up as if he’d been looking at her chest. Not likely. Except to disapprove. Every fiber of Eli Cooper’s exalted being disapproved of her, from his perfectly pedicured feet to his overly produced hair.

So the man was an exceptionally good-looking son of a bitch. The gods had been generous, giving him a strong brow beneath that wavy black hair. Ice-blue eyes that hinted at secrets and numerous ways of uncovering hers. A dimple, too. Not that she’d ever seen it up close because he had never smiled at her, not a real smile, anyway. But she’d seen it on TV, a sunshine pop in the hard plane of his cheek. Practically every woman in Chicago had a lady boner for him, even the ones who hated his politics. Put her in the latter camp—not the lady boner part, just the politics-hating.

“Feel free to call me Firefighter Dempsey or plain Dempsey. That seems more appropriate for a boss-employee relationship.”

His brows rose. “You consider me your boss?”

“I consider you an asshole.”

He laughed, a deep, rich bass that corkscrewed down her spine with a pleasurable thrill she resented. Fascinating how an essentially nice person like herself could turn nasty so suddenly, but then she always felt slightly unhinged around him.