He takes a sip of his drink before answering. “I’m not sure, but I have my suspicions.”
Before I can ask him to elaborate, his phone rings and he apologizes and says he has to take the call. He wanders away with his phone held to his ear and I lean back on the sofa and decide to enjoy my glass of expensive French champagne. Five minutes later, I can feel myself start to get slightly tipsy. It’s a good feeling.
By the time Larry comes back I’m positively merry, and it’s nearly time to leave. I stand and Larry laughs when he sees me wobble on his wife’s shoes.
“What has become of youth these days?” he teases. “One glass of champagne and they’re tripping.”
“I didn’t realize bubbles could be so potent,” I murmur.
He smiles at me with fatherly affection. “Yeah, champagne goes to your head fast.”
“Now he tells me.”
“Don’t drink anything else until you get some food in you,” he advises as he opens the door for me.
Outside it’s cold and I’m glad for the warmth of Jenna’s thick coat. We get into Larry’s car and he starts the engine. I lean my head back on the headrest. The nervousness I felt at the thought of meeting Rocco Rossetti is gone. Instead, I listen to Larry’s voice telling me a story about what his youngest kid, Briana did last night, and feel pleasantly tipsy and benevolent towards the whole world.
Thirty minutes later we arrive at the Four Seasons. Confidently, I get out of the car. This is going to be a good night. I love chocolate fudge cake, and I’ve never had anyone come and pour gooey melted chocolate onto it just before I tuck in. And that grass-fed beef steak and smoked duck salad sounded very good too. I’ve never had smoked duck so that will be another experience I can tick off.
We walk together to the entrance and the doorman greets us and pulls the restaurant door. The hostess takes my coat and leads us into the restaurant. All the tables are full of customers, but we pass them all and end up in another section of the restaurant which is completely empty, except for one table.
As soon as my eyes meet his, all thoughts of food flee. And that other hunger comes back with a vengeance. I feel my knees turn into jelly. He stands as we approach. As we get nearer I feel an intense desire to pee. Before we can reach the table I turn to the hostess. “Where’s the Ladies?”
She indicates with her hand as she speaks, “Turn right out of here, and the first door on your left.”
“Thanks,” I reply, then turning to Larry, and say, “Won’t be long.”
The first door on the left opens into a vast luxurious area tiled with pink marble. My father used to say, you can tell the quality of a restaurant purely by the state of their restrooms. If this restroom was any indication, the food must be heaven.
I use the toilet quickly and gaze at my reflection with some surprise as I wash my hands. In the small mirror inside the backroom bathroom of the store I can’t see myself properly, but I can now. Jenna’s dress has completely transformed me. I look elegant and sophisticated.
After wiping my hands on a luxuriously thick white hand towel, I take a deep breath and head back out to join the men. As soon as the Count sees me, he stands, which forces Larry to stand as well. The idea of Larry standing at my arrival is amusing and I have to force myself not to break out into laughter, but as I arrive at the table I know instantly that something is wrong.
Larry is looking at me with a pleading expression, the pleasant feeling from the glass of champagne evaporates into nothing, and my stomach clenches with nerves.
Chapter 10
Autumn
I take my seat and both men sit down. I turn to Larry. “What’s wrong?”
He glances quickly at the Count, then back to me. “Something urgent has come up, Autumn, and I’ve got to leave, but please do stay and have dinner with the Count.”
My eyes widen with astonishment. “What?”
“It would be a shame for you to miss a lovely dinner because of me, so please do stay. I’ll arrange for a taxi to take you home.” Once again, he pleads with his eyes.
My gaze darts to the Count and my breath catches. He is watching me with a strange intensity, but there is no expression on his face to indicate whether he is agreeable to this new development. I turn back to Larry. “It’s okay, Larry. We’ll have dinner together another day.”
“No, no, please stay and have some food, Autumn. I’d hate it if you went hungry. I feel bad enough as it is.”
My stomach is in knots. “I won’t exactly go hungry, Larry. I was planning to order a large pizza and eat most of it.”
Larry starts to look desperate. “Autumn, you’re already here. You might as well stay and eat here.”
I stare at Larry curiously. He has never begged me to do something before and it’s clear he desperately wants me to stay and have dinner here. Why? Does he think it’s something I could never afford otherwise? Or is it because he doesn’t want to upset the Count? I’m going with the latter. I turn towards the Count. “What do you think?”
His eyes are mesmerizing. For a few seconds, he does not speak and I am lost in his blue gaze. Then he opens his mouth and quietly says just one word. “Stay.”
The word is like a stone thrown into a lake. It causes ripples inside me. I feel the power and authority in that word and the need to obey the command. Even though I’m not comfortable with the idea of having dinner with him alone, I feel unable to disobey him. Next to me I sense Larry shifting uncomfortably, but I cannot tear my eyes away from Rocco Rossetti. My limbs feel frozen and I feel entranced. Then my mouth opens and I whisper, “Okay.”
His mouth twists slightly into a smile. Then Larry speaks, and I am suddenly freed from the hypnotic spell of his intense gaze. I turn blindly towards him. He smiles gratefully at me. “Thank you, Autumn. The restaurant owns a fleet of taxis so I’ll book one for you now.”
I nod speechlessly.
He stands and looks at Rocco Rossetti. “Dinner’s on me next time, Count.”
The Count nods. His demeanor is that of an important man dismissing a servant.
Larry looks at me. “Please text me when you get home, Autumn, so I know you got home safely.”
I nod.
“Well, goodnight to both of you then.”
“Goodnight, Larry,” I say.
The Count only nods.
Then Larry almost sprints out of the room.
Once he is gone, I turn slowly back towards the Count. “Do you have something to do with Larry’s emergency?”
One eyebrow rises. “What do you think?”
“I think… yes.”
“Well done,” he murmurs.
I feel my heart begin to pound. “Why do you want to have dinner with me?”
He leans forward and his eyes sparkle like sapphires under a spotlight. “Why do you think?”
“Because you want to sleep with me?” My voice is hoarse, barely a whisper.
He looks amused. “Obviously, but I am also intrigued by you.”
My eyes widen with disbelief. “You are intrigued by me?”
“You wouldn’t be here, otherwise,” he replies, reaching for the wine menu. “White or red?”
“White,” I say automatically. Just then a waiter, a painfully thin man with sandy brown hair, responds to his action of reaching for the menu by arriving by his side.
“The usual,” he tells the waiter as he hands the menu to him without having looked at it, or even opened it.
“Thank you, Count Rossetti,” the waiter says, and with a courteous nod he withdraws.
The Count turns his piercing, intense attention back to me.
I swallow hard. “I suppose you come here often.”
“When I am around,” he says simply.
I look around me at all the empty tables around us. “Strange, all these tables are unoccupied while the other dining area is completely booked out?”
“I don’t like crowds. When I dine here, I always book the whole area.”
“They let you do that?” I ask, surprised.
A flash of amusement passes over his eyes, probably at the thought of anyone ‘letting’ him do something. “I own this restaurant. I needed somewhere good to eat out.”
Of course he did, but before I can reply the waiter comes back with the wine. I can tell just by looking at the label that it is an old wine. A special wine. Silently, the waiter uncorks the bottle and quarter-fills our glasses with the straw-colored liquid. The glasses immediately mist. Then he places the bottle into a silver ice bucket and withdraws.
The Count lifts his glass towards me in a silent toast. Gripping the stem of my wine glass I take a sip. The wine is cold on my tongue, but as it starts to warm to the temperature in my mouth, it tastes like no wine I have ever tasted before. I used to laugh at the wine connoisseurs who would claim they could taste cappuccino with a hint of charcoal, or elderberry with pencil shavings. I always thought they were just being pretentious, but now…
Now, I feel as if I have become one of them.
For I can taste and smell not just the grapes, but the oak barrels the wine has been kept in, and even the earth they have been grown in. It is as if all my senses have been sharpened. As the aromatic, velvety wine swirls in my mouth the sensation is one of sheer opulence and decadence. I know I am not imagining it, so it must be him. I am so attuned and aware of him that all my perceptions have become more sensitive and sharper.
“Like it?” he asks softly.
“I have never tasted anything so delicious,” I reply truthfully.
He smiles, but strangely, his beautiful face seems almost sad. “You must take a bottle back with you.”
“I’m pretty certain I can’t afford to do any such thing,” I reply.
“It’s a gift from me to you.”
“Why?”
He shrugs. “Why not? I have more than I can ever spend.”
I put the glass down and lean back. There is so much I want to know about him. “So… what is a Count doing in a sleepy place like Hunter’s Cross when the most glamorous cities beckon?”
“I enjoy living on mountains away from prying eyes, and when this mountain and surrounding land came up for sale… it suited me perfectly so I bought it.”
“The whole mountain belongs to you?” I ask, astonished. He seems to belong to a different world than me. A mysterious world where money is no object and beautiful people flittered around the world, owning fine restaurants because they needed somewhere good to eat, offered ludicrous sums of money for unknown artists, and owned whole mountains because they liked seclusion.
He nods and I think of my painting, of the crumbling castle built into the mountain, and as if he can read my mind he asks, “Have you finished your painting?”
“Yes, but I’m afraid it’s still not for sale.”
A strange expression crosses his eyes, but he doesn’t push further. “Perhaps you’d like to look at the menu.”
Chapter 11
Autumn
I pull the menu towards me, but find that I can’t concentrate at all. The words swim as if I am inside the magical world of Harry Potter. I look up and he is watching me. His eyes are like crushed gems. At that moment, the desire to go to him and kiss him is so strong that it actually shocks me. I stare at him. I lick my bottom lip and instantly his gaze makes an excursion to my mouth… and lingers there.
The sexual attraction is incredible. I can feel my body trembling with desire for him. I have never ever in my life wanted someone as much I want him. I want to climb into his lap and suck his tongue and let him take me. Right now. Right here on this table.
“Ready to order?” he asks smoothly.
Unable to speak, I nod.
He lifts a long, elegant finger and a waiter materializes at his side. “Are you ready to order, Ma’am?” he asks politely.
“I’ll have the smoked duck and pomegranate salad to start, and the rib-eye steak as my main,” I mumble, hoping the menu has not changed.
“Very good. Rare, medium, or well done?” the waiter asks.
“Well done.” To make sure he gets it, I add, “almost burnt.”
He flinches slightly. Obviously, he doesn’t approve of overdone meat, but he nods politely, then angles his body towards the Count.
“The usual,” the Count says quietly, never taking his eyes off me.
The waiter thanks him and slinks away, and I am left alone with him again. Something shimmers between us and I feel myself being helplessly drawn to him. Unmet desire throbs inside my body. My brain searches for something to say, something that will break the spell of his eyes, his person.
“Larry tells me the road leading up to your mountain is very narrow and dangerous, how did you get the cranes, trucks full of equipment and building materials up there?” I whisper hoarsely.
“The road was originally built to accommodate them.”
“And you narrowed it afterwards?” I ask incredulously.
“Yes.”
I look at him in amazement. “Why not just build big gates?”
“The higher the gates the more curiosity they evoke. A pot-holed, dangerous road suits me better.”
“You’re strange, you know that?”
He laughs suddenly, and I stare at him with astonishment. In laughter, he is indescribably beautiful. His teeth are an orthodontist’s wet dream, straight and white and his whole face seems to glow with ethereal beauty. The longer I spend in his company the more I feel as if I am a moth and he is a flame. I can’t stop myself from flying towards him, but he is going to incinerate me. All that will be left will be the ashes of my desire for this sensuously beautiful, mysterious, and I am certain, dangerous man.
I reach blindly for my wine glass and take another sip. The wine touches my tongue and another explosion of tastes and smells overwhelms me. Go easy, Autumn. Go easy, I tell myself. It is hard for me to believe I’m not in reality trapped inside a dream because everything feels so fantastical and exaggerated. The desire for him, his beauty, the way all the colors around me seem more vivid, the way I am reacting to the wine in my mouth, the heightened sensations I feel, or the way my fingertips are tingling.
“Tell me about you,” he coaxes, charm oozing out of every pore.
I normally don’t like talking about myself, but to my surprise, I immediately start blabbing out my whole history. Like a quickly running brook, I tell him about my parents, how they were both killed in a car crash while I was in college, my utter devastation when I rushed back and saw those two coffins. He stares at me avidly. There’s no murmur of condolence, but it’s not necessary. No one has paid me such rapt attention before. His focus is laser like. As if I am the most important person in the world. No scratch that, as if I am the only person in the world.
I tell him about my art, about Sam, about how I moved here so I could paint. Once when I’m talking about Larry, his eyes flash. I cannot tell what that fleeting, but intense expression is. It looked like rage or possessiveness, but surely it can’t have been either emotion. His relationship with Larry is one of buyer and seller, and what can he possibly be possessive about? He does not interrupt me and I continue talking.
When the waiter arrives, it is as if I am shaken out of a hypnotic trance. I stop abruptly mid-sentence and look around at him in a daze. He puts our starters in front of us. I stare at it. It is like a mini work of art. The blush of the smoked duck’s flesh against the green on one of the leaves and the pomegranates gleaming like little rubies in between.
“Buon appetito,” I hear the Count say softly.
I look up curiously. “Are you Italian?”
“No, I’m actually descended from an ancient German lineage.”
“Why do you have an Italian name?”
“My ancestors moved to Italy in the fifteenth century, and because they were pale with red hair, they were given the name Rossetti.”
My eyes move to his shining blond hair. It is unusual to see a man who is blond, let alone one who is so blond h
e looks almost unreal. The strange thing about him is his eyelashes and eyebrows are not fair, but dark brown, which almost makes it look as if he is wearing mascara, but I can see he is not. Even the suggestion he might be is laughable. There is nothing remotely feminine about him. In fact, he bristles with danger. Simmering just under his skin is something dark and unknowable. Something lethal… and something that lures me to him. The attraction is fatal, but I cannot resist it.
“I’d like to paint you,” I blurt out.
A secretive look comes into his face, then he lifts his fork and smiles. “I’d like nothing better.”
A wild joy rushes through my veins, as I follow suit and lift my fork. Larry did not exaggerate. The salad is absolutely, totally, and utterly delicious. My heart throbs so loudly I can hear it, my fingertips tingle, and my tongue is in heaven as I eat my food. It is a strange and exhilarating experience.
Chapter 12
Autumn
I have never seen a man eat in such a dignified way. He loads small amounts of the almost transparent layer of his beef carpaccio onto the back of his fork and slips the meat between his lips. Once inside his mouth, his chewing is almost imperceptible.
Time flies. We speak, but I’m in such a state of anticipation and desire, I can’t even remember what we talk about. The second course arrives, with it comes a different bottle of wine. Red this time, and the label is yellowed with age. Dark-red liquid splashes into my glass. The waiters withdraw and the Count makes a gesture with his open palm to indicate I should try the wine. The first taste is aromatic, seductive, rich.
It appears the Count has ordered the same dish as me, but his is rare. As he cuts into the meat, thin blood seeps through and pools on his plate. Normally, I would shudder to see it, but tonight everything seems vividly beautiful. Even the blood on his plate.
The Other Side Of Midnight Page 4
