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If I saw a turkey sitting in the middle of the table, I might fall in love with Nico right then and there.
As I stepped down off the final stair, I looked around at what he called the lower level. No wonder he didn’t call it a basement. Those looked like my parents’ back in Brooklyn with the hideous old-fashioned paneling. This looked like some high-end man cave.
“Welcome to my secret hideout. Let me show you around.”
Nico, dressed in his dark grey suit pants and white dress shirt from earlier in the day, took me by the hand and began walking through the room. Pointing at the tan wall across from us with a picture of him on some mountain, he said, “That was the time my friends and I decided to climb the highest peak in Vermont. Have you ever been up there?”
I nodded as I remembered my family’s summer vacation to Canada when I was twelve. “Only passing through. The mountains are very pointy compared to the ones we have here.”
He stopped and studied my expression for a long moment before smiling. “Now that I think of it, they are, aren’t they? We weren’t prepared to tackle any mountain, much less the highest summit in the state, so we didn’t pay much attention to how they looked. We were more focused on just getting down alive. That picture was taken on the way up. If they took a picture on the way back, it would have looked very different, that’s for sure.”
I studied him standing there in the outdoors looking so strong and confident and liked that version of him. Perhaps he hadn’t always been some mean guy who preferred his office to the outside world.
As he walked me over to the mahogany wood bar, I marveled at how impressive it looked. “I think this is nicer than most places my friends and I go to hang out. No wood paneling here, I guess.”
Nico shook his head and walked behind the bar to pour us both a glass of red wine. “I had this part of the house completely demolished and redone when I moved in. It wasn’t paneling down here, but wall to wall carpeting that reminded me of tall grass. It was an ugly green and I swear it covered your feet. Nasty stuff.”
Handing me my glass, he made a toast. “To you and me in my secret hideout.”
“It’s beautiful down here, Nico. I’ve never seen a man cave this nice,” I said before taking a sip of wine.
With a smile, he shook his head. “Man cave sounds so typical. Like I have some kind of recliner and I watch sports on a big screen TV. This is a hideout. Any time I don’t want to deal with the world, I come here and become invisible to the rest of the planet.”
“Why do you want to turn your back on the world?”
The sexy man in front of me changed into that miserable soul I’d known for most of my time in this place for just a moment before he forced a smile. “The world wants me to be one way, so that’s the way I have to be. In this place, though, I get to be just Nico. No pressure. No expectations. Just me.”
I wanted to ask why he thought he couldn’t be this wonderful man so the rest of the world could see what I saw, but instead I simply smiled and took another sip of wine. “So are we hiding out tonight? I thought I smelled fresh baked bread when I was walking down the stairs. Did my nose lie to me?”
“No, it didn’t. Let me show you the other side of my hideout where we’ll have dinner from the finest restaurant in town. I had them make their specialty, so I hope you like duck.”
He took me by the hand and began walking to the other side of the lower level as I quietly admitted the truth about dinner. “I’ve never had duck.”
I turned my head as I waited for him to express shock that I’d never eaten what seemed commonplace to him, but then I heard him say, “Great! I always like when I get to introduce people to this meal. I promise you it’s the best you’ll ever have.”
When we stopped in front of an intimate table set for two and covered with dishes filled with our dinner, I asked, “Why aren’t you always like this? I have to know. Because for ninety percent of the time I’ve been in this house, you’ve been doing your best ogre impression. Now you’re like a completely different man. Why?”
He dipped his head to kiss me softly on the lips and whispered, “Maybe this is who I really am and the ogre is just an act. Or maybe this is your effect on me and I’m a changed man.”
Instead of telling me which was the truth, he escorted me to my seat on the other side of the table and then took his seat. When one of his staff appeared from a room behind me, I knew I wouldn’t be getting my answer anytime soon.
Dinner tastedas incredible as he promised, but I sensed something different about Nico as we made small talk about the weather and how wonderfully the card for Grace’s mother turned out.
True, I didn’t know him well yet, but with every word, I felt like a wall was going up between us.
But why?
“The duck was delicious, Nico. I guess I should have tried it before this since I loved it.”
“I’m happy you waited until tonight. I loved seeing you take that first bite. You looked like you weren’t sure you wanted to keep eating or spit it out,” he said with a laugh.
My cheeks instantly heated up from a blush of embarrassment. “No, not at all. God, I hope it didn’t look like that. Now I feel silly.”
He stood up from the table to come around behind my chair. Leaning over, he whispered in my ear, “Enough talk about duck. Let’s move on to the rest of our night.”
Taking my hand, he led me to yet another room in his hideout. This one had furniture that made it look like a living room, but unlike the one upstairs in the main level of the house, Nico’s hidden one felt less stuffy.
That worked for me since I looked like I was dressed to hang out on a Thursday night at home, but he still looked like the businessman he always seemed to be. Well, except for last night.
