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“What if I am?”
Slowly, I get to my feet. The sun is slanting down on top of us, turning his hair into a molten mess of gold and cinnamon. “Don’t toy with me.”
He smiles and my heart shudders.So much for my aversion to tall, handsome, broody men.“I wouldn’t dream of it. You do plenty of that to yourself.”
“Ha. Ha. Ha.”
He adjusts his posture and tilts his head to the side to look at me from a new angle. “You’re right—youhavebeen cooped up here for a long time and you haven’t tried to escape. It’s only fair that I reward good behavior.”
I desperately want to say something snarky but I bite my tongue. If he’s gonna offer me an opportunity to leave the estate, I’m sure as hell not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth. “Where would we go?”
“I figured you’d know exactly what you wanted to do.”
I answer without thinking. “I mean, I don’tdomuch.” He cracks up at that one.Idiot, think before you speak.“What Imeanis—”
“What you mean is your life isn’t that interesting.”
“Hey! It’s plenty interesting. I travel a lot. I’ve been to eighty-seven different countries. I’ve met tons of interesting people and done really cool things and—”
“And when you’re done traveling?” he interrupts. “What then?”
I blink at him.
“You’re just here to mess with me, aren’t you?” I snap, shoving past him. “You havenointention of taking me anywhere. You just want to make me feel—”
“Have you been to Sakura?”
I stop short and turn on the spot. “Sakura?” I repeat. “As in the Japanese restaurant that has a three-month long waitlist to get in?”
“That’s the one. Would you like to go?”
Of course I want to go; I’m just not sure if Ishould. We’ve been doing this whole back-and-forth thing for a while now and it’s starting to feel dangerous. Do I really want to be taken to an exclusive, romantic restaurant with a man that I know is not good for me?
The logical part of my brain is saying no.
The emotional part of my brain is saying,What time are we leaving and what should I wear?
And despite all the very salient points that my sensible side is throwing at me right now, the one thing that I keep coming back to is this: I’ve never opened up to anyone the way I’ve opened up to Uri. Because despite all that control and bravado, there’s a deeply complicated, deeply compassionate man who’s just trying to look after his family.
I bite my bottom lip and glance at him. “What about the whole ‘three-month waitlist’ part?”
He scoffs. “There’s no waiting list for me.”
“Right, you’re Mr. Big Shot. I forgot.”
He rolls his eyes. “Why don’t you go upstairs and pretty yourself up? Sakura has a dress code.”
A new wave of insecurity rushes through me. “Um, I, um… don’t have anything to wear.” Even if I had access to my full wardrobe right now, I doubt I’d have anything appropriate to wear. Do I even own a cocktail dress? A fancy outfit?
But Uri waves his hand in my face unconcernedly. “I’ll send something up for you in half an hour or so.”
I balk. “Half an hour?”
He’s looking down at this phone and typing fast. “Uh-huh.”
I narrow my eyes, not that it does any good because he’s still not looking at me. “You don’t have a stash of clothes that your one-night stands left behind, do you? Because I amnotwearing any of their dresses.”
That gets his attention. Except he doesn’t look annoyed so much as endlessly amused. “Why not? Most of my one-night-stands had excellent taste.”
