“You’ve been running away?”
He nods, his hands slowly twisting around his empty glass. “I am on vacation but the reason for the vacation is that I need a break.”
“If you just lost your brother, that’s understandable.”
“Yes. I suppose. But in this business, we don’t have time to grieve. You see, I wasn’t poised to take over the company. My brother was. Alex was his name. Is his name. See? Fuck. Sometimes I’m not sure if he’s alive or dead.”
The sight of Viktor pretending not to be Viktor and yet suffering this loss all the same is breaking me up inside. No matter how hard he’s trying to be someone else, the pain doesn’t take a vacation. The pain remembers who you are. Like Liam Neeson, the pain will always find you.
“Anyway, it was always Alex’s job and not mine and now, well everything has changed.” Around and around the glass goes. “Now the job is mine and I’m stuck with it. Drowning in it, if I may be so honest. I’m just not…not good enough or strong enough for it.”
“I highly doubt that. I know we don’t really know each other but I think you might be the strongest, most capable man I’ve ever met.” He doesn’t seem to believe it. I go on, “But if you don’t want the…job…can’t you quit?”
“People in this line of work don’t usually quit. Not unless it is a danger to their health. And, well…let’s just say I’ve seen firsthand what that danger is. I see what awaits me.”
“Another drink?” the waitress says cheerfully, interrupting our conversation like someone shining a buzzing fluorescent light in a dark room.
“Could I get a glass of the house red?” I ask her.
“Sure thing.” She looks to Viktor and he just nods and taps his glass.
She walks off, leaving us alone again.
“Are you going to finish that?” he nods at my nearly full glass of aquavit.
“No,” I tell him, pushing it across the table toward him. “It seems the bum is still divided on this one.”
“It’s too bad I’m not here for that much longer, I think you’d be quick to pick up Swedish.”
“Yeah,” I say softly, my heart dipping inside my chest. “It is too bad. So when do you think you’ll go to LA?”
“When the car is fixed. I ordered in a part today from a store in Bakersfield. Should come up on Monday. I can just get it in there and go.”
“You could use Pike’s garage, I’m sure that will be a lot easier than tinkering in La Quinta’s parking lot.”
“I might take him up on that. But that still leaves me tonight and tomorrow. Tomorrow is Sunday. Do you want to spend your Sunday with me?”
Yes. Yes I want to spend Sunday with you and every day after that.
“I have work.”
“What time?”
“Seven to three.”
“So then I can’t keep you out too late tonight then, can I?”
I think you’re worth all the sleep-deprivation in the world.
“Or maybe,” he continues, his eyes lazily drifting down from my gaze toward my lips, then down my neck, then sliding across my chest. My skin dances from the intensity of it all, at the way he so easily affects me. “Maybe you’ll spend the night at work. You won’t even need to go home. Can’t promise you that you won’t be exhausted though.”
Damn.
Damn.
“Here’s your drinks.”
Damn it!
The waitress appears sliding a glass of wine toward me and another glass of aquavit toward Viktor and while I smile politely my eyes are telling her she’s interrupting something really important.
I think she gets it because she gingerly says, “I should let you two know that the food will be out shortly.” Then she scurries off.
“So what was it like growing up here?” Viktor asks and everything inside me just sinks. We were so close to getting into that flirty sexy talk, the kind that teases with everything promising to come, and now he’s reverted back to small talk.
But I like talking with Viktor. About anything, even small talk about my boring life. Even though he’s pretending to be someone else and even though I’m pretending that I don’t know he’s pretending. I just like being around him, period.
And honestly, I don’t really care that he’s a prince. I easily buy into his fake persona because that other stuff doesn’t interest me. As someone who is just passing through town, everything else that he is to the world doesn’t matter because for right now he’s here and he’s with me and this is the first time in a long time, maybe ever, that I actually feel like someone wants to be with me, wants to talk to me. And yes, wants to sleep with me. I just hope he’s not pretending that part too.
Then dinner is served, and I tell him about my life and he tells me more about his, and then it slowly dawns on me that I absolutely can’t betray this man. I know that an article would pay for things we desperately need, I know that it would kickstart my career, the one that’s been put on the backburner. I know it would change things for me, for my brothers and sisters, in a positive way.
But this man…this gorgeous, funny, sweet, cocky, forward man, I can’t do that to him. Even if he leaves in a day or two and I never have contact with him again, I can’t betray his trust, even if he doesn’t realize he’s trusting me with something so big.
The minute I decide that, the weight lifts off me. Something in my chest becomes lighter. Now I can just relax and enjoy the rest of the night, which now seems to be dessert in the literal sense.
“Chocolate lava cake,” the waitress says, sliding the plate toward us.
We’re doing the cheesy couple thing where we’re both sharing the one piece, with the one plate in the middle of the table between us.
“I didn’t think I’d be able to have a bite after all that steak but now that I’m looking at it,” I tell him, my fork poised to dig in.
He takes his fork and taps my fork out of the way.
I look up and meet his eyes. He gives me a wicked smile.
“I only want a taste,” he says, his voice growing low and rough, causing my stomach to flip.
Cue the innuendo. “Is that so?”
“I don’t want to spoil my appetite for later.”
I feel my brow lift.
He just keeps giving me that panty-melting grin. He knows exactly what he’s doing.
He slices into the cake with zeal, chopping off the corner.
Silly Swede, don’t they have lava cakes back home?
I slice right into the middle, the best part.
With a little too much zeal.
Some of the hot melted chocolate in the middle goes spilling outward on the table, edging toward my lap.
“I’ve got it,” he says, reaching over to the end of the table where a stack of napkins is behind my purse. He yanks them out of the holder, passing them to me, and his motions cause my purse to jerk forward, the phone to flip off the top of it and land on the table, right beside the cake.
Face up.
Showing the voice memo.
Recording us.
Oh.
Fuck.
No.
My fingers grip the napkins and suddenly I’ve forgotten all about the cake.
Fucking hell. Fucking hell, please don’t let him see that, please don’t let him realize what that is, please don’t –
“What is this?” he asks, his brows coming together as he stares at it, watching the counter roll onwards, the red waves dancing on the graph as they record the sound of his voice. He glances up at me and there’s fear etched all across his face.
I think I must look the same. Because I am scared shitless.
“What is this?” he repeats, picking up my phone, staring at it. He presses the red button to stop and then displays the screen to me. “Why were you recording this for…” he looks at it again, “the last hour and a half. Our entire dinner?”
No, no, no, no, no, no.
“It’s an accident,” I tell him feebly. Not the best excuse but the only one I have.
He stares at me so deeply, with so much bold ferocity, that I shrink back.
“You’re lying,” he says. His eyes may be made of fire right now, but his voice has turned cold.
I feel that cold in my bones.
“You’re lying,” he says again, his grip tightening around my phone. “I can tell. Why were you recording this? Us? Tell me, Maggie.”
I lick my lips. My mouth feels like sand.
I’m trying to think fast but the evening and the wine and the steak and everything and I’m just…I’ve got nothing.
It was an accident. Tell him it was an accident again.
But he won’t believe it. I know he won’t.
He’s seeing right through me. Right to my rotten core.
“I didn’t mean to,” I whisper to him. “I’m sorry.”
“Didn’t mean to? How did you not mean to?”
“I…okay, so I was but then I decided not to. I decided not to.”
“Why. The fuck. Were you. Recording us?” he asks, his words sharp blades hitting between all my ribs. “Do you know who I am?”
I can only blink at him. My eyes tell him everything.
“Well, fuck,” he swears, pushing himself back against the seat, arms braced against the table, the muscles in his forearms popping like he’s holding himself back from something, a vein in his forehead looking dangerous. “You know,” he says to himself. “And you knew. This whole time, you knew who I was.”
“No,” I say adamantly, finding my voice. “I didn’t know. I swear, I didn’t know. You have to believe me.”
“Bullshit, Maggie,” he says. “And fuck your bullshit.”
“Viktor, please.”
His eyes flash as they fly to mine. “Oh my god. And you just called me Viktor.” He shuts his eyes, shakes his head. “So much for everything.”