“You’ll be fine.”
“Easy for you to say. You probably came out of the womb knowing which spoon is for soup.”
A shadow crosses over his face, so dark and cold and sudden that I almost shiver. “Not quite.” The hand resting on the console between us flexes and then straightens out again.
Before I can ask what he means, we’re pulling up to Coruscant’s valet stand. The building is a giant egg of black glass and graceful steel. Through the windows, I can see glimpses of the interior: chandeliers dripping crystals, white tablecloths, people who look like they stepped out of aVoguespread.
“I can’t do this.” The valet opens my door, but I stay frozen in my seat. “Bastian, I’m serious. I don’t know how to?—”
“Get out, Eliana.”
I climb out on shaking legs, hyperaware of my off-the-rack outfit that’s two years old and wasn’t even that nice when I bought it.The valet’s eyes slide over me with polite disinterest, but I feel the assessment anyway.She doesn’t belong here.
You’re right about that, buddy.
Bastian appears at my elbow. His hand finds that spot on my lower back again. But instead of guiding me toward the main entrance where a suited doorman waits, he steers me around the side of the building.
“Where are we going?”
“Service entrance.”
“Oh, good,” I snark. “Because I wasn’t feeling quite enough like the help already.”
“Quit pitying yourself. It doesn’t suit you.”
He pushes through an unmarked door into a narrow hallway that smells like fresh bread and brown butter. We pass servers polishing silverware, line cooks prepping their stations, a sommelier examining bottles under the light. No one questions Bastian’s presence—they just nod respectfully and return to their work.
He leads me into a small private room and starts pulling bottles of wine out of a small refrigerator tucked beneath the shelf.
“Uh… what are we doing?” I ask.
“School is in session. Crash course.” He’s popping the cork on one of the bottles and pouring a splash each in two glasses. “The investors we’re meeting are wine obsessives. They’ll judge you within thirty seconds based on how you hold your glass.”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Welcome to high society. It’s even dumber than you could possibly imagine.” He hands me a glass of something that looks like liquid rubies. “Come here.”
I approach warily. When I reach for the glass, he makes a disapproving sound. “Wrong.”
“I haven’t even touched it yet!”
“Exactly. You’re reaching like you’re grabbing a beer at a sports bar.” He sets the glass down. “Try again.”
I reach again, more carefully this time, but apparently still wrong because Bastian steps behind me. His chest presses against my back, solid and warm, and his hand wraps around mine.
“Stem, not bowl.” His fingers adjust my grip. “You’ll warm it otherwise, which will change the temperature and ruin the taste. Hold it like this. Gently. Like a lover.”
His breath ghosts across my ear, and I have to lock my knees to keep from swaying back against him. This is torture. Exquisite, confusing torture.
“Good. Now, swirl.” He guides my hand in a circular motion. As I rotate, the wine climbs the sides of the glass in elegant, swishing waves. “Feel that weight? That’s how you know it’s real. Good wine has presence.”
“Like you?” It was supposed to be a sarcastic joke, a real zinger, but somewhere between my brain and my mouth, the tone of the message got switched around, so it comes out instead like a husky,Marilyn Monroe-esque come-on.
I feel rather than hear his laugh—a rumble in his chest against my spine. “I have presence?”
“You have something,” I mutter in a desperate attempt to avoid this disastrous turn in the conversation. “Mostly, it’s arrogance, but beggars can’t be choosers, I guess.”
I don’t want to wait around to see what his reaction might be, so I drink instead. I bring the glass to my lips and take a healthy swig, the way I usually drink wine—which is to say, like someone who buys it from the grocery store sale rack and chugs it from a coffee mug while binge-watchingLove Island.
