She rounded a pillar after her guides and stopped short. Tucked into a corner between pillars and the step down to the terrace, was a small, round, vacant table, gorgeous with crystal, roses and pink and white linen. Right next to it, in fact, practically jammed against it, was another table, similarly adorned. Only this one wasn’t vacant.
To her intense shock, lounging back in its single chair, his long legs stretched casually before him, Sebastian Nikosto sat perusing a leather-bound menu.
The host pulled out her chair and waited. Sebastian glanced casually up at her from beneath his black brows. His eyes lit with a curious gleam, then he resumed brooding over his menu.
Momentarily thrown, but loath to betray it or start a distressing scene, she hesitated, then submitted herself to be seated. With chagrin she noticed that her chair was positioned to face Sebastian’s.
The head waiter deposited her napkin on her lap and presented her with her menu, while the other waiter fluttered to fill her water glass, offer her hot rolls.
She barely knew what she said to them. Questions clamoured in her head as Sebastian’s dark satanic presence dominated the space. Had the man somehow guessed she’d be coming here after all and arranged this with the restaurant staff?
But how could he have known? Did he have some sort of diabolical clairvoyance?
The head waiter retreated, along with his small entourage. Almost at once a wine waiter advanced, who hovered, exerting polite pressure for her to make a choice. Conscious that this was something she’d never had to do herself before, she opened the wine menu and skimmed page after page of unfamiliar Australian and New Zealand names, hypersensitive to the unnerving presence of her neighbour.
She could feel his eyes on her, boring into her brain as if he knew, damn him, how distracting his presence was, how little she really knew about wine. Out of cowardice she considered rejecting it altogether, then noticed a bottle of red on the neighbouring table, its cork removed.
Allowing the wine to breathe, her uncle would have pronounced with approval.
Pride and prudence warred in her chest, and pride won the day. If Sebastian Nikosto could order wine, so could Ariadne Giorgias.
Still, she’d hardly ever been the person at the restaurant table who’d made the selection, except on a couple of lunch occasions with her girlfriends. Praying she didn’t make a fool of herself, she murmured the most familiar name on the list.
The waiter’s brows rose. ‘Veuve Cliquot. Excellent choice, miss.’
The man whisked away, and she was left to face Sebastian alone. She held her menu up before her face, self-consciously aware he was now leaning forward with his arms folded on the table, watching her like a cougar poised to spring.
She felt a spurt of annoyance. His firm, masculine mouth—on another man she might have even considered it stirring—was gravely set, but there’d been a very slight flicker in one corner as if a smile was willing to break out. Except there was nothing to smile at. For goodness’ sake, the man had just been rejected in marriage. Couldn’t he accept it with dignity?
She was just winding up to say something to challenge him, when the waiter came back with a champagne flute, and presented a bottle with a yellow label for her approval.
As she’d seen her uncle do countless times, she nodded. The man set the glass before her, then without spilling a drop worked off the cork with deft fingers, and poured her a foaming taste.
As coolly as possible, considering she was under scrutiny, she swirled it in the glass, sniffed it, then took a small sip.
The buoyant liquid foamed its way to her stomach like a potent wave.
‘Thank you,’ she said, her eyes watering a little as the waiter topped up her glass. To crush any suspicions Sebastian Nikosto might have that she wasn’t completely at ease and self-assured, she raised the sparkling liquid casually to her lips for a further sip. Bubbles shot up her nose and she couldn’t prevent a sneeze. In the desperate grab for tissues, she reached blindly for her purse and accidentally knocked over her water glass.
Oh, Theos. A flood the size of Niagara Falls swamped her side of the table.
The waiter snapped into emergency mode, fussing over the pool with a napkin, helping her move out from the table to avoid the drips, enquiring if she was all right, if there was anything wrong with the champagne, trying to insist despite her protests that he must summon someone to change the table linen.
Shut up, she wanted to scream, burningly aware of Sebastian Nikosto’s attentive face observing and listening to it all. Get lost.
‘No, no, it’s all right,’ she hissed at all his mopping and tsking over the sodden spot. ‘It’s nothing. Nothing. I like it damp. Please,’ she added with a heartfelt tug at his sleeve.
At last the guy took the hint, though unhappily, and edged away, casting uncomfortable looks back at her over his shoulder. The sheer irony of it, she kept thinking. Fate was so unfair. After her extensive experience in the grand restaurants of Europe, to appear now in her own country in front of the most unpleasant man she’d ever met as a gauche, clumsy fool was too much.
As soon as the waiter was out of earshot and she’d recovered some of her poise, Sebastian Nikosto drawled, ‘Celebrating?’
She gave him a withering glance. There was an unnerving glimmer in his dark eyes, while that suspicion of a smile still lurked at the corners of his sexy mouth. He might not have personally upset the glass, but in her heart she blamed him. It was his fault for flustering her.
‘That’s none of your concern.’
At least her dress was black, she reflected. No one else had to know how uncomfortable she felt sitting with a wet tablecloth in her lap.
He leaned back in his chair and stretched with luxurious ease. ‘Are you usually this snotty and touchy, Ms Giorgias?’
She drew a sharp breath and retorted, ‘Are you usually this rude and annoying?’
He lifted his brows. ‘Now, how fair is that? Here I am, a harmless guy, rejected by my date and forced to a lonely dinner, when by the most astonishing coincidence…’
She leaned forward. ‘Is it a coincidence?’
He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. ‘You know, just what I was wondering. I don’t usually believe in coincidences. When you showed up here I was—have to admit it—gobsmacked. I have to wonder how it was arranged. It looks like a set-up to me.’ He made a sweeping gesture around at the setting. ‘Here we are, in our own little intimate space, night-lights out there on the harbour, soft music, the terrace…’
She gasped. ‘What are you implying? That I set this up?’ She glared at his solemn face. ‘That’s ridiculous. I didn’t know you were here. Why would I?’
He shrugged, shaking his head. ‘Can’t work it out. Unless you followed me because you felt—ashamed.’
‘Oh, what?’ she said incredulously. She rolled her eyes. ‘I should feel ashamed!’ She glowered at him, remembering the way he’d behaved at their first meeting, even if he had made an apology since. ‘Anyway, it wasn’t a date.’ She leaned forward again and added softly and distinctly, ‘For your information, I wouldn’t go anywhere with a man who had to use a business deal to catch a wife.’
His eyes glinted. ‘Wouldn’t you? But you’d come halfway across the world to meet him.’
The silky insinuation jabbed her and she retorted hotly, ‘No, I would not, not if I had any—’
She pulled herself up in the nick of time. For all that her aunt and uncle had hurt and betrayed her into getting on that plane with their cruel trick, they were still her family. Still all the people she had in the world, though she could never forgive them. There was no way she could admit to Sebastian how cheaply they must have held her in their hearts all these years, even though she’d never before questioned their unconditional love for her.
His eyes sharpened. ‘Not if you had any what?’
For the thousandth time that day she felt tears prick at the backs of her eyes. Blinking fast, she lowered them and turned away an
d pretended to look for something in her purse until the danger passed.
When she looked up Sebastian Nikosto’s alert, intelligent gaze was still fixed interrogatively on her face. ‘You were saying…?’
‘Nothing,’ she said huskily, grateful that food waiters chose that moment to swish up to each of their tables to take their orders.
Relieved that Sebastian’s attention was diverted from her for the moment, she turned her attention to the menu and the efficient young waitress.
Since during her perusal she hadn’t managed to take in a word of the menu, apart from one heartening glimpse of the dessert list, it took her a few moments to read it.
By the time she’d made up her mind, Sebastian had finished ordering his, and his waiter had hurried away. He lounged back in his chair, his long legs stretched out in idle relaxation. Though his gaze only drifted her way intermittently, she could sense his full attention trained on her like a million-megawatt spotlight.
With her cheeks growing uncomfortably hot, in the effort to exclude him she kept her voice at a low murmur. ‘I might start with one or two chocolate truffles, and then the basil bruschetta.’
The woman looked surprised. ‘The chocolate truffles are a dessert, miss.’
‘Of course. I know that. Only one, then. And then could you cut me a really, really thin slice of that ricotta tart with the truffled peaches? Followed by the linguini…’
‘Which one, miss? The broccoli or the prawn?’
She hesitated, weighing it up, then mumbled so softly the waitress had to bend her head to hear, ‘Could I try a small taste of each? And I’ll have the flounder with the artichoke and caper sauce.’
‘That is a whole flounder,’ a deep voice interjected from the other side of the neighbouring table.
Ariadne felt a sharp stab of annoyance. The man must have had supersonic hearing. Not to mention an insufferable nerve. As if he hadn’t spoken, she kept her eyes firmly on the face of the waitress and murmured, ‘And a garden salad to go with that, please. And vegetables.’
‘Anything else, madam? Pommes Paris? Witlof gorgonzola salad with pancetta and Granny Smith apple?’
‘Yes, yes, everything.’ Ariadne leaned her head away from the direction of the Nikosto table and whispered, hoping the waitress would get the message and lower her voice as well. She smiled meaningfully at the young woman, wishing with all her heart that Sebastian Nikosto would implode and disappear. ‘One more thing,’ she said, barely moving her mouth.
The waitress tilted her head to catch her words. ‘Yes, miss?’
Ariadne beckoned until the woman leaned her ear closer. ‘I’m finding that the light is shining in my eyes here. Would you mind helping me to shift around to that side of the table?’
She could see it would be a squeeze, but it would have the advantage of her sitting with her back to Sebastian.
The woman eyed the space doubtfully. ‘I’m not sure your chair will fit on this side, miss. It might be an obstruction when we try to serve the gentleman.’
The deep smooth voice intruded again. ‘What if the young lady moves over here?’
Ariadne allowed herself a freezing glance at him.
He was indicating the space beside him, his dark eyes agleam, his smile exuding innocence and goodwill. ‘Then she’d be facing away from the light, and she’d be able to enjoy the view. Since we’re practically dinner partners already…’ His eyes dwelled on Ariadne’s face with a sensual, velvet intensity. ‘I’d love to have you join me, Miss Giorgias.’ His voice was awash with sincerity. ‘And you’d be rescued from that wet tablecloth.’
The waitress’s eyes warmed when she saw Sebastian. ‘Oh, do you know each other?’
‘God, yes,’ he said heartily. ‘Our families have known each other for ever, haven’t they, Ariadne?’
Turning to Ariadne, the waitress caught sight of her tablecloth and her drooly expression changed to horror. ‘Miss,’ she exclaimed, ‘this cloth is soaked.’ She tested the sodden patch. ‘Oh. You should have said. This table will have to be reset.’
She swivelled about, and had begun telegraphing across the room for reinforcements when Sebastian murmured something to her and pointed towards the lights.
Easily distracted if the distraction happened to be lean, dark-eyed with stunning cheekbones and a sexy, mocking mouth, the waitress turned to Ariadne, her eyes alight with meaning. ‘What do you think, miss? Wouldn’t you like to move?’ With a lilt of her brows she indicated Sebastian. ‘You shouldn’t be bothered by the light over there.’
Ariadne was cornered in more ways than one, and her simmering gaze met Sebastian Nikosto’s with sardonic appreciation. She wasn’t sure how many of the staff he’d bribed, but that smile was anything but innocent. A refusal would make her look downright nasty, her request to move petty and insincere.
‘Do you always have to have your own way?’
‘I find it best.’
She glowered at him. ‘Your tie’s crooked.’
‘Is it?’ He smiled, as if he knew, damn him, how handsome it made him. ‘Why don’t you come over here and fix it for me?’
She folded her arms across her chest. ‘I think you must enjoy punishment. I’ve already rejected you once this evening.’
His eyes glinted. ‘You could always change your mind, though. I’m willing to bet you’re pretty good at that.’
Her guilty past rushed to the surface. ‘Why? What have you heard?’
His brows lifted with amused curiosity. ‘What should I have heard? See? We’re already talking. You might as well come on over.’ He patted the spot next to him.
She exhaled a long, incredulous breath. Couldn’t this man take no for an answer? On the other hand, her tablecloth was wet. And it couldn’t hurt just to eat dinner with him, could it? He wasn’t likely to whisk her away to his fortress and force her into a wedding ceremony at gunpoint in the dead of night.
‘Oh, all right,’ she said. ‘Anything for peace.’ The concession was barely wrung from her before Sebastian sprang up and, with help from the waitress, whisked her, her chair and place setting to the Nikosto table.
‘There, isn’t that better?’ His eyes gleamed. ‘Now we won’t have to shout at each other to be heard.’
‘I never shout,’ she said coldly.
‘No, and you never smile. I’m looking forward to removing that sulky expression.’
She smiled at him just to prove he was wrong, but, after all the horrors of the day, somehow the criticism wounded her already abused feelings. She clung to the smile as tightly as she could, her gaze fixed on a ferry chugging across the harbour in a blaze of lights while she fought the fatal thickening in her throat.
The silence grew charged. After a long tense minute he said gently, ‘Ah… Now that I think about it, it might just be the shape of your lips.’ He leaned closer and traced the outline of her lips with one lean finger, not quite touching them. ‘They have that little pout. And they’re very sensuous.’
His voice soaked through her nerve fibres like kitro.
CHAPTER FOUR
DINNER had a dizzily mounting tension, not unlike a ritual dance in which each move and countermove weren’t known in advance, but had to be guessed at by the dancers.
Ariadne felt weird to be dining with a man she’d so recently refused in marriage, but probably as part of some diabolical master plan Sebastian made no reference to it at all. He drew her along in conversation, smoothly and skilfully, even warmly, though not about the sensitive issues between them. He just skirted the edges of those. Flirted the edges. Despite the chilly start, the temperature managed to pick itself up off the floor.
Still, the subject lurked in every glance and nuance of the conversation. What sort of man persisted in charming a woman after he’d been rejected so finally and utterly? Shouldn’t he have slunk off into the night? Perhaps he was hoping to change her mind.
And he did have charm. With every comforting mouthful of the heavenly Hyatt food, she fel
t increasingly aware she didn’t dislike him as violently as she’d at first thought. Perhaps he wasn’t a barracuda. More a smooth, sleek stingray with a devastating five o’clock shadow. And midnight satin eyes that made her pulse quicken. And a mouth to ravish a woman’s dreams.
Her conscience wasn’t quite at ease with the new situation, but she quelled it by thinking of it as an emergency. Now she was cast adrift upon the world, for the moment this small table, in this pool of light, with this smoothly determined, dangerous and—she had to admit—extremely attractive man, was all she had to cling to.
It was risky though, feeling this rocky and emotional in the presence of a handsome man and a bottle of champagne. Heart-sore, tired people with jet lag could easily switch from sexy enchanting laughter to tears. To prove it, there was a small jazz band across the room, and a singer with a voice like dark honey plucked at her heartstrings with every line of every plaintive old love ballad she sang. Cry me a river, she sobbed. Willow weep for me.
The setting might have been exciting, and picturesque, with the constantly changing light show on the harbour as traffic streamed across the bridge, and ferries chugged in and out of the Quay lit up like Christmas, but she didn’t feel she belonged. She felt so out of place, it was no wonder she was finding solace in the company of her despised bridegroom. Aspiring bridegroom.
Every so often she reminded herself this was her country too, but had trouble convincing herself.
She withdrew her gaze from the harbour lights to contemplate Sebastian. If he was regretting transferring her to his table, he wasn’t showing it.
His sexy mouth was grave, but there was an unsettling warmth in his dark eyes whenever they rested on her, making her insides curl over with an exhilarating suspense. Meeting his eyes ran her the risk of being scorched. She knew she was flirting with danger, yet she couldn’t seem to resist it.
And what with the warm summer air floating in from the terrace, she was getting overheated. ‘It’s hot in here,’ she breathed to Sebastian. ‘Don’t you feel hot?’ She took off her feathery wrap and draped it over the back of her chair.
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