Shadow’s Edge

she said lightly, testing him.

His answering smile was proof enough, but his words were total confirmation.

“Why bother with the ridiculous business of titles? It’s all so...” He snapped his fingers, searching for a word. “Gauche. Tres gauche, in fact...wouldn’t you agree?”

He leaned forward over the table, steepled his fingertips under his chin, and held her gaze. For one brief moment she imagined he heard her heart pounding in her chest.

“Quite,” she replied, her mind working furiously.

How did he hear the conversation with Geoffrey? How was that possible? They had been a hundred feet away...at least. And whispering.

Her stomach turned over with a twinge of intuition she promptly ignored. There was no one else who could do what she did; no one she’d ever met had those kinds of sensory gifts. He was just another man.

And her mother’s cryptic warnings...well, her mother used to drink a lot.

She pushed a stray tendril of hair away from her cheek with the back of her hand and motioned toward the wine list. “May I assist you with a wine selection, Leander?” she said smoothly. “Do you see anything you like?”

Why had he been staring at her at the store? Had he been staring at her? What was he doing here? Was she just crazy—was the whole thing her imagination?

His smile deepened, dimpling his cheeks. “Why, yes, Miss...?” he lifted his eyebrows, waiting.

“Jenna,” she replied.

“Jenna,” he repeated slowly. His intense gaze flickered over her figure, once. It came back to rest on her face and a muscle in his jaw twitched. “Yes, I do believe there is something I like.”

Under the proper English accent, Jenna detected a slight cadence to his voice, something lilting and familiar, a nuance she couldn’t place. The way he was looking at her made her stomach do something strange.

“Wonderful.” She cursed her voice for cracking. “What may I bring you this evening?”

Coincidence? Her imagination? Who were the other two? And what was that heavenly smell coming off his skin?

“The ’61 Latour.”

And then she stopped thinking and just blinked at him, trying not to let her mouth hang open. The waiter came and set a silver tray of flatbread and warm rosemary sourdough rolls ensconced in ivory linen upon the table.

“Sparkling or still water for you, sir?” the waiter asked.

Leander’s eyes did not move away from Jenna’s face. “Rien, merci,” he said, his voice silky smooth.

The waiter glanced over at Jenna, then inclined his head and retreated.

“The ’61 Latour,” Jenna repeated stiffly, her lips puckering. “A fine choice.”

At seven thousand nine hundred eighty dollars, it was by far the most expensive bottle on their thirty-nine- page wine list.

It was only there to add gravitas to the wine program; no one in their right mind would spend that much money on such a rare wine at a restaurant. He’d have no way of knowing if it had even been cellared properly. A true collector, someone with both the pocketbook and the palate to appreciate a thing so rare and valuable, would purchase it through a reputable auction house or directly from the chateau, ensuring the chain of care and the wine’s integrity.

Even the movie people and the rappers, who were the restaurant’s greatest consumers of fine wine with the least appreciation for it, wouldn’t go for the Latour. It would be the Moelleux or the Screaming Eagle.

Besides, with even the most careful cellaring, a 1961 vintage was most probably past its prime—years past, in fact. It was ridiculous. It was beyond ridiculous.

Leander lifted his eyebrows. “Do I detect a hint of surprise?”

“Surprise?” she repeated, the two syllables lengthened with disdain.

He had interpreted her ridicule as surprise? As shock? As—heaven forbid—awe?

So: another egotistical, entitled jerk who liked to throw his money around like confetti to impress the unwashed masses. She guessed he treated women in a similar fashion. He probably thought her dim-witted and out of her league. Number four for the day.

With a poof that was almost audible, Jenna’s patience evaporated.

“Of course I’m not surprised. It’s the perfect choice for you,” she said, the slightest accent on the last word. She ignored the ghost of her mother’s warning voice in her head and granted him a smile, small and deliberate.

A fleeting frown crossed his features. It was quickly replaced by an expression of placid neutrality.

“For me?”

He leaned back into the soft leather of the booth and draped one arm casually over the top of the banquette, his gaze never leaving her face. The muscle in his jaw twitched once again.

The waiter materialized silently at the tableside and presented an oval platter with three mouthfuls of food nestled in tiny silver spoons all surrounded by an elaborate drizzled pattern of cucumber-infused froth.

“The amuse-bouche, sir.” He pointed out the bite-sized portions. “Kumamoto oyster with cucumber gelee, mille-feuille of smoked salmon with Osetra caviar, roulade of bluefin tuna with pickled fennel.”

He reached to set down the plate in front of Leander just as Geoffrey appeared, wearing a smile that would have looked at home on a shark.

“And how is the wine selection coming along, Your Graceful Lordship? Would you care to hear any of this evening’s specials?”

Neither Jenna or Leander acknowledged him. Their eyes were still locked together.

“Yes,” Jenna said acidly, “it suits you perfectly. The ’61 Latour is the ultimate penis wine.”

Geoffrey gasped, the waiter fumbled the plate of amuse-bouche and sent it clattering down against the table, but Leander remained taut in his chair, gazing at her, a wintry little smile curving his lips.

“Really?” he said, controlled and calm. “How very amusing. Pray do enlighten me.”

“My Dearest High Majesty, I apologize completely! Let me assure you Melisse in no way condones this type of—”

Leander made a sharp, dismissive motion to Geoffrey with the hand that was draped over the back of the banquette and kept his wolfish gaze on Jenna’s face. “No apology needed. Leave us.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Jenna saw Geoffrey’s face turn an interesting shade of eggplant. He clutched the waiter’s arm and dragged him off toward the kitchen.

“You were saying?” Leander said.

“I call them the penis wines,” Jenna replied, keeping the same tone of lightly contemptuous civility though her blood was boiling. She knew there would be hell to pay for this, knew her job was most likely kaput, but for the moment she could not care less.

“They are the ridiculously expensive wines purchased as a show of masculinity by a certain species of men—excuse me, males—who have no real appreciation for their value but feel the pathetic need to display their tail feathers.”

Her small smile grew larger as his disappeared altogether. “I think a man secure in his masculinity would choose something a little more...substantial, shall we say. A little less showy.”

A moment passed, not long but wide and cavernous, in which neither of them spoke.

“I’ve offended you,” he finally said. His face betrayed nothing, his tone was quiet and acutely polite. Only his body revealed a hint of anything other than utter detachment. He gripped the edge of the table so hard his knuckles turned white. “How?”

A shade of hostility faded from her posture. She’d expected blustering, outrage, even outright yelling. Most blowhards like him were more than happy to shout at an underling if the opportunity presented itself. She’d been primed and ready for an argument, had even thought of a few more witticisms to snap at him.

But she hadn’t expected this. Not this patience. Not this...concern.