That simple touch sent yet another jolt through me that I desperately tried to ignore.
“What would you like to drink?” he asked when the waiter came over to take our order.
“Whatever wine you recommend,” I said, reaching for the food menu to avoid looking at him. “You seem to have good taste in some things.”
He chucked and turned to the waiter. “The 2015 Barolo.”
“Good choice,” I muttered.
“Yeah? Why don’t you impress me by ordering the starters?” He leaned forward on the table.
“You serious?” I asked, incredulously. “Like order even for you?”
“I’m allergic to shellfish,” he warned, with a gleam in his eyes.
I pounded right on that. “Should we start with the prawns in white wine?”
He leaned back in his chair, the gleam in his eyes even brighter now. “Did no one ever teach you to be polite to your host?”
“They did,” I gushed, once again feeling my senses awaken with this banter. I didn’t want it to be so, but this night was starting to feel like it could even be fun. Even if it was with my family’s enemy. “They just forgot to tell me what the protocol was around my kidnappers.”
Arko looked like he already had something fun to throw my way, but just then, the waiter arrived.
He poured us our glasses, and I didn’t know what it was that made me—the anticipation for the night ahead, the traitorous feeling singing through my heart, the anxiety of it all—but I took a few large sips.
“Careful,” he warned. “I like my dinner companions coherent.”
“Worried I’ll embarrass you?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Worried you won’t remember our first date.”
“This isn’t a date,” I snapped, and picked up the menu to place our order.
He didn’t interrupt me even once, not even when I ordered the prawns just to mess with him.
He just sipped his wine and watched me over the rim of his glass. The whole, entire time.
Just then, the manager arrived to check if everything was alright at the table. I watched, feeling slightly out of place, as Arko held an entire conversation in Italian.
I didn’t know that about him… that he spoke Italian. I couldn’t tell why it stuck with me, that little detail. God, I hated it. But Arko Pavlov was turning out to be cultured in ways I’d never expected.
“You speak Italian well,” I admitted, after the waiter left.
“My mother was Italian,” he said, surprising me with yet another personal detail. “She insisted we learn.”
“My mother was Russian,” I offered without thinking. “But she died when I was young.”
I saw a flicker of sadness in his eyes.
“Mine too,” he said softly.
For a moment, we sat in silence, connected by that shared loss. Then I remembered who he was, who I was, and why we were here.
“So,” I said, setting my glass down before the air between us got any more serious. I didn’t know why, but being vulnerable around Arko and seeing him connect at the same frequency had kind of thrown me off, and I needed us to reach safer waters. “You set the menu here yourself?”
“I did,” he smiled.
“How did you decide on the dishes around here?”
