He leaned in until I could feel the faintest brush of his suit against the back of my chair, sending shivers down my spine. "And that part where you dropped the towel?" His voice dipped, velvet turning sharp. "If that was meant to provoke me, Princess, consider it successful."
I exhaled, slow and shaky, though I hated that he could hear it.
He made a soft tsk with his tongue. "Careful," he murmured, his lips almost touching the shell of my ear. "Keep behaving like that and I might start to think you actually want me watching."
My heartbeat slammed against my ribs.
I folded my hands across my abdomen, just as he moved to his seat, before my shaking could ever betray me.
"Don't flatter yourself," I bit out, even though my voice wasn't as steady as I wanted.
He hummed, low and amused. "Too late."
Alexandre leaned back in his chair with that infuriating, effortless composure. Like nothing in the world could touch him. His gaze was steady, unblinking, far too warm for a man who had me dragged and cuffed hours ago. It pinned me in place, made the night air felt thicker, heavier...intimate in a way I refused to acknowledge.
The butler returned, silent as a shadow and poured wine into Alexandre's glass.
"Leave the bottle," he murmured, not looking away from me.
Ivan obeyed, bowing before slipping back into the darkness, leaving the bottle between us like a dare. My eyes immediately went to the familiar label. My favorite kind of vintage.
This must be a coincidence. How else would that fucker would've known this?
Alexandre lifted his glass, swirling the red, inhaling it. "I was told you prefer this particular vintage," he said, his voice impossibly smooth.
A small, traitorous warmth unfurled in my chest. An ache I immediately crushed. No, this was just a coincidence. This particular red wine wasn't rare. But still.
"What are you playing at?" I asked, folding my arms instead of touching my own glass. Trusting him with anything I consumed felt suicidal.
His mouth curved, the faintest hint of a smile. "What makes you think I'm playing a game?"
Before I could spit a retort, Ivan returned with our food. He lifted the silver covers, revealing a perfectly cooked steak and mashed potatoes on my plate. A comforting meal, too comforting. Like he had chosen it deliberately.
His plate was even simpler. Plain meat. Plain potatoes. Barely a splash of color.
For someone as complicated and dangerous as Alexandre, he ate like a man who had nothing to prove. And god help me...the simplicity of it all tugged at something warm in me. Something I hated and wanted to bury under all this rage.
"I don't trust you," I said as I picked up my utensils.
His gaze dropped to my wrists, to the bruises he had helped put there. Something dark and sharp flickered across his eyes before he smothered it. I looked away quickly, pretending I hadn't noticed, that the sight didn't make something unwanted twist in my chest.
I focused on cutting the steak instead. The crimson juices bleeding across my plate, reminding me far too vividly of the blood that poured out of my grandfather's steak that night. The night when he first invited Dario into our home.
"Well, you should learn," he said, slicing into his own plain slab of meat with quiet precision.
"I highly doubt it's wise to trust your captor," I muttered, lifting a piece to my mouth. "Especially when I still don't know what you plan to do with me."
His knife paused for the slightest moment. "Wouldn't you like to know?" he murmured.
I looked up despite myself, brows raised.
A slow smile curved at his lips. Dangerously soft, like velvet hiding a blade. "Maybe I'd actually tell you my plans," he said, lifting his wine and watching me over the rim as he took a sip. "If you behave, that is."
A shiver slid down my spine. I hated that he could affect me at all. "If I'm going to end up dead anyway, you can save it."
"You didn't touch your wine," he observed, his eyes glinting with something unreadable.
"That's because I'm afraid it might be poisoned."
Alexandre paused, then lowered his glass deliberately. His tongue briefly touching the corner of his mouth, as if he was savoring the accusation more than the wine.
He pointed to his glass with a dry, incredulous look. "Poisoned?" he repeated softly. "If I wanted you dead, do you really think I'd waste a perfectly good vintage on it?"
The corner of his mouth lifted, slow and mocking.
He set his glass down and leaned in just enough that I felt it. His presence, his warmth, the quiet pressure of his attention settling over me like a velvet trap."And besides," he murmured, those green eyes locked on mine, "this was my wife's favorite wine."
The air thinned in my lungs. My pulse kicked hard, betraying me.
"She has good taste," I managed.
A flicker crossed his expression. I couldn't make it out exactly, but I caught it. The way he looked back down at his plate, clearing his throat as if he had said more than he meant to. As if the subject itself was an exposed nerve he hadn't intended to show me.
Then his gaze rose again, slower this time, dipping first to my untouched wine, then to my lips.
"You should drink," he said. His voice had changed. It was lower, smoother, with an edge that felt intimate and inappropriate under the soft glow of these garden lights. "You'll want a clear mind for the offer I'm about to make."
Heat curled in my stomach. Unwanted and infuriating.
"I'm not interested," I forced out.
He chuckled, a low sound that slid right under my skin. "You say that now," he murmured, tilting his head, studying me like he could peel apart every lie I told myself. "But this one...you might find very hard to refuse."
"I doubt it," I bit out. But the words thinned quickly, curiosity pushing through the cracks. "What kind of deal?"
He didn't answer right away. Instead, he reached for his knife again, cutting through his meat with slow, deliberate ease, as if he hadn't just turned my pulse into a warring drum. He ate, unhurried, wiped the corner of his mouth with his napkin, and only then did he lifted his gaze.
Steady and unblinking. Gleaming with something dark and unguarded that stole a breath from my lungs.
"The kind where we both get what we want," he said.
A quiet pause stretched between us, then the faintest tilt of his head.
"No politics. No debts. No blood."
The night breeze brushed against us as he leaned back, his shirt shifting with the movement. The atmosphere tightening around his words.
"Just you," he murmured, voice dropping to something intimate. "And me."
I could feel my fingers tightening around my fork, like an out-of-the-body experience.
His gaze dipped to my mouth once again, slow and deliberate, before curling into a half-smile that was nothing short of sinful.
"Sleep with me," he said it as if it were the simplest request in the world. "No strings. No consequences. A choice that's entirely yours."
The world went completely still.
No wind. No guards. No distant night sounds. Just the table between us, the soft pool of candlelight and his impossible proposition, settling like a brand against my skin.
I couldn't speak. I couldn't even breathe.