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It was huge.
Gorgeous. Rich. Perfect.
After they were alone again, a small portable table rested between their two chairs, complete with a white linen tablecloth, roses, a bottle of Shiraz, two wine glasses, coffee, and chocolate mousse cake. He uncovered a plate, stealing a quick glance at her. It was roast beef, roasted vegetables, and brown gravy. Her favorite meal.
He hadn’t forgotten.
Licking her lips, she hesitated. “Coincidence?”
“No.” He lowered his head and straightened his coat sleeves. Underneath, he wore a buttoned-up white dress shirt, which she’d bet her whole bank account was free of even a single rebellious wrinkle. “Truth be told, I had cook prepare it every night in case you came to supper. That’s part of the reason I insisted you join me tonight. If I had to eat one more plate of room temperature roast beef…”
A laugh escaped her. She couldn’t help it. He quickly lifted his head, as if the sound of her laugh had jarred him. She cut herself off immediately, because he was looking at her as if he’d seen a ghost. “What?”
“Nothing.” He swallowed hard. “It’s just…your laugh. It’s haunted me all these years, and hearing it now…it’s as beautiful as I remembered. Maybe more so. Just like you are. You’re stunning, Alicia. Absolutely stunning.”
“Oh. Uh…thanks.” She sat still, unsure of why his soft words affected her so deeply, so fully, but unable to deny that they did. Her heart warmed, and her cheeks flushed, and she couldn’t look away from him. “I don’t know if yours is the same or not. You haven’t really laughed yet. Not a real one. When’s the last time you did?”
He frowned. “I don’t know. It’s not exactly something I keep track of.”
“Of course you don’t.” Because that wasn’t what was important to him. His own happiness—why should that matter to him? She had a feeling he was always far too concerned with everyone else to worry about himself. And for some reason, that bugged her.
It shouldn’t, but it did. She shouldn’t care. Dammit. In many ways, she felt kind of sorry for him. He’d given up any semblance of a normal life in order to serve his country. There was something to be said about that, no matter how mad she was at him.
Weird that he didn’t know about the airport. She’d bet he remembered every bad thing he’d done in the last ten years. “When’s the last time you let someone down?”
“Three days ago,” he said quickly. “When I brought you here against your will.”
Well, crap. That was a good answer. “You could fix it. You could set me free.”
He tightened his grip on his scotch and tossed it back without a sign of hesitation. “No. What’s done is done. I can’t let you go till we see this thing through. It’s in the books now. Recorded in history. Unfortunately, and I hope you believe me, there’s no way out of this.”
She sat forward, her heart squeezing tight. “Wait a second. You’re telling me I’ll be forever remembered in your history for the fact that I had sex with you in a bar and was held in the castle afterward?”
He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Uh…”
“I could kill you right now,” she growled.
“Understandable,” he said slowly, eyeing her as if watching for any sign of her actually attempting to do so. “But instead, how about we eat, and you tell me more about Baker.”
She pointed a finger at him. “Don’t try to distract me from this mess with offers of a contract once this is over. It won’t work.”
“I didn’t offer a contract of any sort,” he said immediately. “I told you, I won’t lie to you. Don’t think my agreement to discuss your company, or my guilt over detaining you, will make me agree to a business deal. I don’t let business and pleasure interfere with one another like that.”
“So you mean, you don’t have sex in nightclubs with all the women who come to your country to present cases to you?”
Flexing his jaw, he rested a hand on her knee possessively. “You know I don’t. That was just because it was you.”
She trembled at the feel of his hand on her. It was too much. “Please don’t think—”
“And you have every right to be angry, but I can’t be upset or regretful over something that brought you back into my life. Clearly, someone intercepted your letters—”
She snorted.
“And despite your inability to believe that, I’ve thought about you a lot over the years, and you’ve always been special to me. I would like to take this time to get to know you, to see if maybe we can be friends again. Perhaps we could let the past go?”
So many things ran through her mind in that moment. The way they’d met, and how handsome he’d looked at the skating rink in Rockefeller Center on that long ago night. How he’d made her laugh back then, and how she’d done the same for him, and how sad it made her that he’d forgotten how to laugh in her absence. How happy and safe she’d been when he held her close and kissed her sweetly, and how she hadn’t felt safe like that ever since. She’d been so sure he was her soul mate, no matter how young they’d been at the time, that he was the love of her life…
And she’d been devastated to find out she was wrong.
