“What? I thought you enjoyed church?” He smirked. He opened the door of his Bentley for me, and I stepped out in front of beautiful late 1500s Spanish chapel.
He was up to something. I could feel it and noticed that a few of his goons were back. I thought he had gotten rid of them. But he most likely had local people. They simply nodded to him and opened the chapel doors for me.
The first thing that came to mind was gold. It lined the walls, the ceiling, and the dome in a detailed vine pattern. It framed the priceless art which was well over eight feet high on all sides. The floors were white marble with vines of gold in them.
“So this is where El Dorado is.” I grinned, walking forward. Despite the fact that it was a chapel, hence the iconography, there were no pews. The floor was bare, almost like a mosque. I turned back to him. “Pretty, but why are we here?”
He snapped his fingers, and instinctively I tensed as people came from a room behind the altar, two lifting a short wooden table, another two lifting chairs, and others, candles, followed by silverware. I watched them create a private dinner in the center of the chapel.
“Did I sense panic from you just now?” he whispered from behind me. “What happened to trusting me?”
He wasn’t going to let me live that down.
“Are you going to pull my chair out for me?” I asked, ignoring his damn question.
The waiter retreated as Ethan stepped forward. With one hand he pulled out the chair for me, amusement clear in his green eyes. He then took his place across from me, undoing his suit jacket.
“Red or white, miss?” the waiter asked me, however, Ethan answered him instead.
“Red, the Teso La Monja.”
Nodding, the skinny man went back, and it didn’t escape my notice that everyone who had helped set this dinner up left just as quickly as they had come. Neither of us spoke, we simply waited in this golden heaven. The waiter soon came with the wine and behind him was a chef as well as servers. They placed a spread of traditional Spanish dishes across the table for us. The waiter poured the wine into my glass.
“Fill it for her,” Ethan directed, rotating the glass between his fingers, his eyes squarely on me.
What are you up to? I wanted to ask, but I drank anyway. If we were about to fight, then I wanted to at least get a drink out of it.
“Is there anything else?” They all waited on his word, and he knew that but chose to take a sip of the wine. Licking his lips before setting his glass on the table, he nodded to them.
One by one, they all left, and he relaxed back into his chair.
I drank.
“Aren’t you hungry?” he questioned.
I drank some more, still staring at him. “Are you going to do something stupid right now?”
“Stupid?” He grinned. “Aren’t you the one who wanted a date?”
“Is that what this is?” I glanced at the door. “It doesn’t feel like it.”
“What does it feel like?”
“An ambush.”
A smile spread across his face. “This is the first time I’ve seen you unnerved.”
“This is the first time you haven’t bothered lying to my face, tried to freeze me over with your glare, or threatened to kill me,” I shot back at him.
“In my defense, you came on a bit strong,” he replied, lifting his wine again.
“I came on strong?”
“Are you denying it?”
“In my defense, strength is the only thing you would acknowledge.” I picked up my spoon and dug into the rice and shrimp.
“True.” He began eating from the same dish.