His tongue played with his bottom teeth. “Like I say, under all the joking around I’m a pretty dour guy.”
“The dourest,” she said, in an exaggerated Scottish accent.
“What language are you up to now? Is this the wild woman who speaks in four languages?” He reached over and topped up her glass. Back to his usual level of superficial flirting but that was okay. Small steps. “Well,” he said, lifting his water, “here’s to 1999.”
“To 1999.” She clinked, smiling. “You’re not drinking?”
“Wine isn’t my thing.”
“But we drank it in France.”
“I had a sip or two but I mostly bought it for you. You don’t want it?” he said, nodding at the bottle.
“A little late to ask, isn’t it? I don’t want all of it.”
He smiled, pain still heavy in his eyes, and pushed the bottle across the table. “I’ll let you fill your own glass.”
She’d hardly tasted the wine, hardly noticed herself drinking or Jamie refilling it, but she felt it warming and relaxing her—not that she could blame the alcohol for every part that was heating up. She pushed her glass away. Tempting as that path was, she had to stay sharp.
“Do you not drink at all?” she said.
“Never.”
“Because you might reveal something about yourself?”
His mouth twitched. “Because I like to be in control.”
“Me, too. But I like to escape, as well.”
He swirled his water again and watched it settle. “So when you say you can glimpse my thoughts...?”
Maybe it was the wine but she felt bold enough to answer truthfully. “Sometimes there’s this flicker of something in your expression but it’s gone so quickly that at first I wondered if I was imagining it. But I’ve seen it a lot now and I know I’m not.”
He tilted his head, his eyes glinting in the firelight. “And here’s me thinking I was the one being all clever and figuringyouout.”
“You’ve been trying to figure me out?”
“I have.”
“And what have you figured out?”
“Ah.” He laughed, rubbed his chin with a scratching sound and leaned back in his chair, his eyes locked on hers. “That would be giving away my advantage.”
“What advantage?”
“Good question.”
“Go on,” she said, intrigue pulling at her. “I gave away my advantage.”
“Well... I know that smart humor makes you smile—or laugh, if I’m lucky—but it has to be sophisticated, not dirty or cruel.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that one.”
He righted his chair with a clatter and leaned in, as if he were reading her thoughts in her pupils. “Talk of faraway places makes your eyes sparkle. Injustice and bigotry make them narrow. The past makes them sad.” He spoke slowly, dropping his voice to a deep roll as mesmerizing as his narrowed eyes. “Even after the crap the world has dished you, you still passionately want to believe that it’s a good place, full of good people who can be trusted. When something happens to throw that perception, it unsettles you. And right now you’re feeling mightily unsettled. You want to be able to trust people but there are so few you’re certain of.”
She swallowed. All this time she’d been trying to dig under his facade, and he’d been tapping her mind like a brain scan. How much of it was the truth?
He didn’t move, his gaze and voice keeping her locked in place. “I also know there’s a battle constantly raging in you, like that permanent storm on Jupiter. You’re terrified and you want to hide from all this but you also desperately want to protect your friends, and see justice done for your fiancé and secure your own safety.”
