Victor comes around to my side of the car and I loop my arm through his again as he walks me inside.
The restaurant is two stories with a balcony upstairs overlooking the bottom floor. The conversation all around me sounds like a constant humming, but it’s not so packed that every table is full. Other than the voices, it’s quiet in here with low lighting and semi-dark walls to create a tranquil atmosphere. Victor pulls me alongside him gently as we follow the waiter to a circular-shaped booth with shiny black leather seats near the back. I sit down first and then Victor slides in next to me.
The waiter presents us with two leather-bound menus, but before he can place mine fully on the table in front of me, I sweep my hand toward it, waving it away with a look of boredom. “I won’t be eating,” I say as if food might somehow ruin my path to enlightenment. “But I will be having wine.”
The waiter looks at the menu in his hand and then back at me briefly, appearing confused.
Victor gives me a look which I can’t quite place, but I know it’s not a good one. He opens his menu and after studying it for a moment, hands it back to the waiter and says, “La Serena Brunello di Montalcino.” The waiter nods, takes the menu, which is apparently the wine menu and I’m about to die from embarrassment, and he walks away.
“Sorry,” I whisper.
Victor’s eyes lock on me warningly. It takes me a second, but I understand what I’m doing wrong and wipe that embarrassed look off my face fast, straightening my back against the seat and crossing my legs beneath the table. I set my purse on the table at my right.
This staying in character is stuff harder than I thought, but now that I’ve already screwed up twice within minutes, I’m more determined than ever to get it right.
In seconds, I fully become Izabel Seyfried.
I reach into my purse and pull out a compact mirror and a tube of rose-colored lipstick and begin applying it at the table. I make sure to stare at myself a lot, turning my head subtly at different angles and gently pursing my lips.
“Put the lipstick away,” Victor says as the rich a**hole and not the man I know.
I glare softly at him and do as he says, but take my time about it.
The waiter comes back to our booth with a bottle of wine and with both hands puts it into Victor’s view. Victor visually inspects it and then nods to the waiter, who then pulls the cork and places it on the table in front of Victor. He inspects that, too, and while I’m quietly wondering why so much effort is being put into this on both of their parts, I say nothing and pretend not to care. The waiter pours a small amount into Victor’s glass first and then takes a step back. Victor swirls the wine around in the glass for a moment and then brings it to his nose and sniffs it before taking a sip. After Victor approves, the waiter fills my glass first and then Victor’s.
I don’t look the waiter in the eyes because like the valet, he’s not worthy of my precious attention.
Victor declines food for the both of us and the waiter leaves our table.
“I never enjoy this city when I come here,” he says, taking a sip of his wine.
I fit my fingers delicately around the swell of my glass and do the same, afterwards placing it carefully back on the table.
“Well, I personally would prefer New York, or France,” I say, having no idea where I’m going with this.
“I didn’t ask you what you’d prefer.” He doesn’t look at me.
He sets his glass down.
“Why bring me out with you then?” I ask, cocking my head. “I was only trying to engage you in conversation.” I look away, crossing my arms over my chest.
Victor looks right at me. “Izabel, don’t sit with your arms crossed like that. It makes you look like a stubborn child.”
Slowly, my arms fall away and I fold my hands together within my lap, straightening my back.
“Come here,” he says in a gentler tone.
I slide over the few inches separating us and sit right next to him.
His fingers dance along the back of my neck as he pulls my head toward him. My heart pounds erratically when he brushes his lips against the side of my face. Suddenly, I feel his other hand slip in-between my thighs and up my dress. My breath hitches. Do I part them? Do I freeze up and lock them in place? I know what I want to do, but I don’t know what I should do and my mind is about to run away with me.
“I have a surprise for you tonight,” he whispers onto my ear.
His hand moves closer to the warmth between my legs.
I gasp quietly, trying not to let him know, though I’m positive he definitely knows.
“What kind of surprise?” I ask, my head tilted back, resting in his hand.
Just then another couple walks up to the table, a tall blonde-haired woman with mile-long nak*d legs and an even taller man with his hand around the back of her waist.
Victor stands up to greet them. I stay right where I’m at, staying in character, yet at the same time not really having to pretend to be disappointed by their presence because I was enjoying the moment with Victor before we were interrupted; for a few minutes I had forgotten why we were even here.
“Aria,” the woman introduces herself.
“A pleasure,” I say with obvious distaste.
She sits down on the other side of the rounded booth. The man takes the outside seat after her, just as Victor sits.
“It has been a while, Victor,” the man says with an accent that I can’t place.
How do they know each other?
“Yes, it has, my friend,” Victor says as he gestures for the waiter.
The waiter comes right over and takes the man’s wine order.
“Izabel,” Victor says, “this is my old friend Fredrik from Sweden. He’ll be running my offices in Stockholm when the expansion goes into effect next month.”
“Oh, I see,” I say, taking another sip of my wine, sizing ‘Aria’ up as I look at her over the rim of my glass.
Her br**sts are practically busting out of the top of her dress and I feel inadequate all of a sudden. But I don’t let it show. I am the most beautiful and most important girl in the room, I remind myself. It doesn’t matter in the slightest that her double-D’s dwarf my C’s or that she’s quite beautiful and has the most magnetic blue eyes I’ve ever seen on a woman before.
I round my chin proudly and look away from her.
“I said we’ll leave when I’m ready. And stop talking or you can sit on your knees underneath the table between mine.”
I swallow hard, a look of shock consuming my features. Seeing Fredrik in my peripheral vision, I gather my composure quickly.
I set my purse back on the table and relent to Victor fully.
And once again, I’m trying to swim my way out of my dirty thoughts.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO