Page 18 of Toxic Temptation
I’m torn between rolling my eyes and laughing, so I split the difference by doing neither. Instead, I look down at my menu.
I’m not really reading, though. It’s been too ridiculous of a day to pretend like I’m capable of that. Words likeformaggioandsalmone alla grigliaare scarcely more than meaninglessscribbles. The letters are wriggling around on the page like live bait.
There’s also the lingering problem of the man who has caused today’s emotional blunt force trauma to the brain. I can’t ignore him no matter how hard I try. Every time I double down my focus on the menu items, he shifts or sighs or simplyexists, and my attention goes veering right back to him.
That hand of his rests on the table, twisting a ring around and around his finger. It’s very large. The hand, not the ring. Well, the ring, too. But mostly the hand.
Jesus, I’m not making any sense. I’m shell-shocked, exhausted, or both.
A waiter approaches and clears his throat. I look up gratefully, but he does not look like he’s going to intervene in this Stockholm-Syndrome-in-the-making. If he’s eighteen years old, then I’m eighty.
“Have you decided?” he asks in a voice that cracks from husky to high halfway through.
“The lady will have the lobster risotto and the seared branzino,” Kovan says without consulting me. I open my mouth to object on sheer feminist-y principle, but he couldn’t care less. “And I’ll take the ribeye, medium rare.”
“Anything to drink?”
Kovan looks over the top of his menu at me. “Wine?” he asks.
“I don’t drink.”
His eyebrow arches. “Ever?”
“Not when I’m being held against my will, at least.”
“I’m not holding you against your will anymore.”
I blink at him. “What?”
“You could walk out right now,” he says, leaning back in his chair like he’s discussing the weather. “I wouldn’t stop you.”
My heart does this stupid little skip. “Then why am I here?”
“You tell me.”
I glance up. The waiter, astonishingly, is still here, but the elevator music in his head must be turned up to deafening levels, because he says nothing about any of the stuff he just overheard.
Kovan’s mouth twists up in a wry smile. He looks at the boy. “We’ll get a bottle of whatever’s handy.”
He nods, bows, and retreats.
I scowl at Kovan. “That was presumptuous. What if I was a vegetarian?”
“Are you?”
“No, but that’s not the point.”
“Then what is the point, Vesper?”
The amused ease with which he says my name makes my stomach flutter. Like he’s tasting it, rolling it around on his tongue to see if he likes the flavor. Like he’s weighing whether or not to have another bite.
I press my thighs together under the table and hate myself for it.
“The point is common courtesy,” I say. “Most people ask before ordering for someone else.”
“I’m not?—”
“If you finish that sentence with ‘most people,’ I’m going to throw up on the table.”
