“This is amazing. Are you sure this is the same stuff from the can?”
Kate giggled. “Yes, but it’s so much better, right?”
A bit later, the waiters brought out a single duck egg on a cast-iron spoon for each of them. Grant studied it. Kate picked hers up.
“You put it on toast,” she said.
He slid his sizzling duck egg onto the small piece of toast glistening with truffle butter oil, then he ate it in one bite. It was delicious. He wished he had ten more spoons exactly like it.
While waiting on the next course, Grant had his arm casually behind Kate, resting on the top of the cushion. They were slightly hidden in the high-backed banquette. As they talked, he watched the windows and doors, just in case something attacked them.
“You’re so vigilant,” Kate said, giggling.
She was clearly drunk, Grant decided. At least the meal was almost done, or at least, he assumed it was. He had lost count of the courses. Kate rested against him. The curve of her body fit perfectly against his chest.
“I love being with you,” he murmured to her.
She smiled up at him and snuggled against his chest and sipped her wine, telling him about the different restaurants she’d been to.
“I’ve got a friend who has a traveling blog,” she said to him. “She travels to Michelin-star restaurants, one every week. She eats and takes beautiful photographs of each dish and then writes really detailed reviews about what she ate. She used to be fun to go out with, but the last time I went with her, she wouldn’t let me talk. She had to concentrate to make notes.”
“What’s the point of going to a restaurant if you aren’t going to talk to the person you’re with?” he asked.
“Exactly!” Kate said. She punctuated the statement with her glass. Grant took it away from her before she could spill it all over him. As the servers cleared away their next course, a man got up from a far table and made his way over to them. Grant immediately had his hackles up. Kate looked slightly alarmed, he thought. He wished he had his gun. He didn’t like the way the man looked at Kate, and he stood up to confront the intruder.
Chapter 21
Kate
Grant had jumped up and looked as if he was either going to start a fight or finish one. Of course this was happening, she thought, annoyed that her perfect evening was about to be ruined.
Jean Claude walked over to the table she was sharing with Grant. His beard and high-end, disgruntled look was in sharp contrast to Grant’s clean-cut conservative look.
She had had a whirlwind romance with Jean Claude during her Master of Fine Arts program the summer before her very bad decision, and now here he was. He had a lithe long-distance-biker’s body and a heavy tan. The two of them had jetted around Europe, going to art shows and yacht parties. Kate could never take him seriously, but he was fun to flirt with.
“I thought you hated Geneva,” she said to him.
“I heard about the famous watch,” he told her. “Thought you might be here, maybe in need of rescuing. I see you’ve got this big hulking brute following you around.”
“Ignore him,” Kate told Grant. “He’s a trustifarian.”
“So you take up with murderers now, do you, Kate?” Jean Claude gave Grant a nasty look and addressed him. “Conquistador.”
Grant’s face was blanched white. The glass in his hand shattered, but he didn’t seem to notice the blood.
“Don’t listen to him,” she told Grant, trying to defuse the situation.
“You should be in prison,” Jean Claude spat at Grant.
“Go away, Jean Claude,” Kate said too loudly. Goodness, she was drunk.
“Sleeping with your father’s assistant,” Jean Claude said to Grant, ignoring Kate. “Typical. You’re exactly like your mother—trash.”
“Why are you being like this?” she hissed at Jean Claude. “You don’t even like me that much.”
He acted horribly offended. “I love you,” he told her.
Kate rolled her eyes.
