Page 13 of Vicious Temptation
What if I did? For just a moment, I let myself entertain Clara’s idea that maybe it would be better to accept an offer from a man who at least respects me enough to ask me in person, rather than being stuck with one of my father’s choices. I sneak a glance over at Gabriel, considering. He’s handsome, gentlemanly, and he seems kind. Based on his choice of car, he’s obviously wealthy enough that my father would probably be very pleased if I chose him as a potential match.
But I think back to him shaking my hand on the porch, and the instant, visceral response I had when my skin brushed against his. The feeling of panic that instantly surged up in me, making me want to run back into the house. It took everything in me to keep going, to walk out to the car, instead of telling him that I was sorry, and couldn’t do this.
A handshake is a million miles removed from all the things I would need to do with a man I married. Things that make me feel like I’m going to crumble into a thousand pieces, trying to imagine how I ever would, now. And no one wants to deal with that. Not that, or the nightmares, or all of the other smaller reactions that color my every day now, every time something reminds me of that one horrible day and night.
I twist my fingers in my shawl, pulling it closer around me. Gabriel glances over at me as he pulls out onto the road, his expression curious.
“Are you cold?” He starts to reach for the temperature knob for the air conditioner. “I can turn it down, if you are?—”
“No.” I shake my head quickly. “No, I’m fine.”
A flicker of confusion passes over his face, but he drops his hand, his focus returning to the road.
“Are there any foods you won’t eat? Or don’t like?” He glances over at me. “I made a reservation at a new Asian fusion place in the city, but I can always try to get something different.”
I blink at him. “A half hour before we get there?”
Gabriel chuckles. “You know as well as I do that money can get you just about anything, if you throw enough at it.”
I do know that. What startles me is that he cares enough about my preference that he would throw money at a last-minute reservation to an exclusive restaurant, just to please me.
“No—your choice sounds fine,” I reassure him quickly. “It’s been a while since I’ve tried anywhere new, so that sounds lovely, actually. Our cook sticks to a pretty regular menu rotation, so something out of the ordinary sounds nice.” My voice is formal, stiff, but I have a feeling he’ll just chalk it up to the awkwardness of getting to know someone new. I hope so, at least.
“Good.” Gabriel smiles. “I’ve heard it’s excellent, so I’m looking forward to giving it a try. I haven’t been out in a while myself, actually. The occasional business dinner, but I stick close to home more often. So this night out is a treat for me, too.”
That does surprise me. He looks young—he can’t be older than his early thirties—and extremely handsome. Between that and his wealth, I would have expected him to be the kind of man who is out at a different restaurant, bar, or club just about every night of the week—with a different girl to go along with it.
I’m not entirely sure what to make of him. But I remind myself that it doesn’t really matter. After tonight, I’ll never see him again.
Gabriel pulls up in front of the restaurant a little while later, the drive going silent until then, other than the hum of the radio in the background, tuned to a pop hits station on low volume. It makes me wonder if he chose the station because he likes it, or because he thought I would, but I don’t ask. I’m curious, but I don’t know if I should be, when I don’t intend for this to go further than just tonight. And I toss the question of whether I should ask back and forth in my head for so long that by the time I start to think maybe I should just go ahead and ask, we’re going through the Lincoln Tunnel and into the city, and Gabriel’s focus is on the traffic.
The restaurant that we stop in front of is a tall, narrow, black stone building with frosted glass doors. He slips out of the driver’s side, coming around to open my door for me as he hands his keys to a valet and then offers me his hand.
My heart thumps in my chest. I don’t want to be rude. But I’m not sure my fragile nerves can handle touching him again.
I get out of the car myself, without taking his hand, and I wait for him to be offended. To say something. To shoot me a look that tells me he noticed, and didn’t like my refusal to take his hand.
But he doesn’t. He doesn’t seem even the slightest bit fazed by it. Instead, he just turns, leading us towards the front door of the restaurant and inside, up to the marble hostess desk where a pretty, thin blonde in a black uniform is standing.
The interior of the restaurant is beautiful. I can hear the soft tinkling of running water from a fountain somewhere, and it smells bright and fresh, like ginger and lemon, wafts of the food from the kitchen mixed in with it. The lighting is soft, recessed into the ceiling, and the entire restaurant is decorated in shades of black, grey, and white marble, the only color the bold swaths of greenery recessed into the walls behind the booths along the edge.
Gabriel gives the hostess his name, and she leads us to a table towards the back of the restaurant, with a view of the city from the large window just beyond it. It’s not especially romantic, per se—not like a booth tucked into the back of the restaurant might have been. Still, the entire aesthetic has a hushed, intimate vibe that makes my pulse beat slightly faster, and my hands feel clammy.
All the same, if this is the first and only date I’m ever going to go on—by my own choice, at least—I’m glad it’s with Gabriel, someone who has only been polite, kind, and respectful to me so far tonight.
I hope that doesn’t change, once I tell him I’m not interested. That rejection doesn’t turn him cruel. I would like to keep tonight as a good memory, of a decent person. It’s felt, over the past few months, as if there are fewer of those in this world than I once believed.
I sink down into my seat, taking the rolled-up napkin off of the table and spreading it over my lap. It gives me something to do with my hands. My shawl slides a little over my shoulders, and if Gabriel finds it odd that I’ve kept it on, he doesn’t say anything. I set my clutch in the seat next to me, and look up as a server in a similar uniform to the one the hostess was wearing approaches us.
“Good evening. Can I start you off with something to drink? Wine, perhaps, or something from our fine sake list? And would you like still water or sparkling?”
“Still,” Gabriel says, and glances at me. I nod, feeling nervous. It’s not that I’ve never been out to a restaurant before or anything like that—Claire and I have gone out from time to time, and my father has taken me out to dinner for special occasions over the years. But I’ve never been out to dinner like this before, alone with a handsome man, one who undoubtedly thinks that this is a date.
“Still for us both,” he confirms. “Bella, do you want something to drink? I’ll have—” He opens a leather-backed folio, scanning down a list. “This sake flight.” He gestures to it, and then glances at me.
A glass of wine sounds good, but I have no idea what to order. I’ve never drank out before, and at home, if I do have a glass with dinner, it’s whatever my father has chosen to pair with our meal. “I’m not sure,” I murmur uncertainly. “Wine, I think, but?—”
“Do you like sweet wine or dry?” the server asks, and I feel another flutter of uncertainty. I wanted to seem poised for this date, not wide-eyed and unsure of myself, but I feel entirely out of my depth. I can only imagine what Gabriel must think of me—a twenty-something unable to even order wine confidently. And then I wonder, on the heels of that thought, why I care. It’s not as if it really matters what he thinks of me at all.