“Her name was Francesca.”
“You never disappoint, Bastian.”
“Likewise.”
Gawking, Eliana turns to look at me fully. “Was that acompliment,or do my ears deceive me?”
“An observation, nothing more.”
“From Bastian Hale, that’s basically a marriage proposal. Someone play the bridal march.”
The elevator opens before I can respond, probably for the best. But as we walk toward the parking garage, I can’t help but feel that something fundamental has shifted. Something cosmic, tectonic, somethinghuge. Aleksei’s visit has cracked something open in me, some carefully maintained barrier between past and present.
And Eliana Hunter, of all fucking people on the planet, is walking right through the gap.
Everything decays eventually, little brother.
Not if I can help it.
15
ELIANA
tan·nins: /'tan?nz/: noun
1: astringent compounds in wine that create a dry, puckering sensation but provide structure and aging potential.
2: you thought it tasted bad; turns out, it’s better than you ever imagined.
It’s not the things Bastian says that befuddle me. Well, notjustthe things he says. It’s thewayhe says them that does something insane and inexplicable to my frontal lobe.
When he growls,Get your coat, Hunter. You’re coming with me,I’m suddenly no longer an adult woman in possession of things like “common sense” or “social skills.” I’m a cavewoman. A Neanderthal. My brain has devolved approximately forty thousand years, and all I can think is,Big man say go. Me go with big man.
It’s mortifying.
Even more mortifying? The way my stupid, treacherous body responds when he places his hand on the small of my backto shepherd me toward his car. It’s barely a touch—just his fingertips through my coat—but my nerve endings light up like someone set off Fourth of July fireworks under my skin. I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from making a sound that would be wildly inappropriate for a parking garage.
“You’re shaking,” Bastian observes as we reach his car—a sleek black Audi.
“Am I?” I ask, trying and failing to keep said shake out of my voice.
“Mm.” He opens the passenger door for me—an unexpectedly gentlemanly gesture that scrambles my circuits even further. “Practically vibrating.”
“That’s just the hypothermia from being imprisoned in your walk-in freezer,” I mutter. I slide into the seat and my Ann Taylor-clad ass makes an unladylike squelch on the German leather.
He closes my door and walks around to the driver’s side. When he settles behind the wheel, the car suddenly feels too small. Like all the oxygen has been replaced with his cologne and testosterone and whatever pheromone he emits that makes me want to do deeply unwise things.
“So,” I say as he pulls out of the garage, “are you going to tell me what’s really going on? Because I gotta say, I’m a little confused. This morning, you wanted to murder me and stash my corpse alongside the frozen sides of beef. Now, I’m your plus-one to some fancy-pants event?”
“It’s an investor wine tasting at Coruscant.” He navigates Chicago traffic with one hand. The other rests on the console between us. I can’t stop looking at it again and again, like it’sgonna do something risqué if I take my eyes off it. “You’re my project manager. Try not to embarrass either of us.”
Coruscant.The crème de la crème of Chicago fine dining. The sort of place that tells movie stars to take a hike. Even saying the name out loud makes me feel poor.
“I don’t think I can afford to eat there,” I mumble.
“You can now,” Bastian replies.
“Okay, fine, yes, your generosity has changed my station in life and I am eternally grateful—truly, I worship at your feet—but seriously, I don’t know the right forks to use or how to pronounce the wine names or?—”
