Harsh, but it wasn’t a sentiment she could hold against him. The world was better off without her father as well. Her stepfather, too. She guessed they had more in common than she ever could have imagined.
His unexpected answer made her feel bad for purposefully introducing a dark subject just to get around his mild flirtation. There was a dark cloud hanging over the table now, and she attempted to clear it away by segueing into a less painful topic, one that seemed to have brought him quite a bit of amusement over the last twenty-four hours.
“So here we are, two orphans in Greece, living it up before your big event, which is…” she teased, waiting for him to shut her inquiry down again.
But when his eyes met hers they were quizzical, not amused. Like Sam asking the same question she’d been asking him over the last twenty-four hours had somehow confused him greatly.
“What?” she asked, using a hand to check for food on her face. She’d gone hard on a flaky pastry dish filled with meat. Maybe her mouth was covered with it now. But no, no food, which prompted her to ask, “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Zhena… you still have not figured it out?” he asked.
She stared at him, perplexed.
“Do you remember what you said first time we met at party? About dates?” he asked. Then he lifted his eyebrow, as if he were waiting for the other shoe to drop.
After a quick memory search, her own words came floating back to her, When I’m working late, I’m always like, wouldn’t it be cool to be one of those people who goes on dates? Seriously, how nice would that be? To like, you know, go to a dinner and a movie.
That was when the other shoe finally dropped with a great, big thud. She gaped at Nikolai. They were on a date! An actual real life date. In Greece!
And as if to confirm her thoughts, Nikolai said. “This is dinner. Next comes movie.”
33
Da-yam!!!! Sam thought as she walked out of the restaurant after finishing one of the best meals she’d ever eaten. Nikolai Rustanov had game. For someone who’d sworn up and down he didn’t date when they first met, he was proving he was more than adept making a date happen. In a BIG way.
Her state of shell shock must have been written clear across her face, because he placed her hand in the crook of his arm before they got to the gravel lane outside the restaurant, which sat at the top of a slight incline. “Hold on to me, zhena. This is not good place for falling.”
Her cheeks heated, but she did as he said since she couldn’t necessarily trust herself not to trip. And she was glad when they made it all the way to the bottom of the hill without incident.
“Just so you know, I don’t trip all the time,” she said, taking back her hand at the bottom of the inclined road. “Just around you.”
“Because I make you nervous.”
Yes, that was exactly why, but Sam folded her arms across her burgeoning waist and said, “Because you do things like sleep on the floor, which is like a huge—some might say Mount Nik-sized—safety hazard. Especially for a pregnant woman trying to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.”
If he felt any guilt whatsoever about compromising her safety, it didn’t sound like it when he replied, “I’m ready to return to our bed whenever you are, zhena.”
If anything, he sounded the exact opposite of guilty. Flirty Nikolai was back.
“You know, this isn’t going to work,” she told him.
“What?” he asked.
“This. Taking me to Greece, showing me a good time so you can get back in my pants. You’re manipulating my emotions with a big gesture, and using scale to get what you want. Don’t think I don’t get that.”
Get that and totally falling for it, she added to herself. Between her pregnancy hormones and the pleasant surprise of an exotic trip, she had no idea how she was going to keep her Celibate Bride Defense going when they got back to the hotel room.
Say something smug, she mentally begged him. Convince me I’m right to be way suspicious of your motives in bringing me to this insanely gorgeous country with its incredibly yummy food.
But all Nikolai said in that moment was, “Here we are.”
“Here” turned out to be an empty, amphitheater-style movie theater. Thanks to an almost full moon and cloudless sky, she could see it was made out of the same bleached white terracotta as the hotel and surrounded by what she guessed were olive trees. A warm breeze blew through the space bringing a heady floral scent with it, like a blessing from the Greek gods.
So. Freaking. Romantic.
Sam shivered as even more of her defenses came crumbling down.
“Here, zhena.” Nikolai took off his jacket and put it around her shoulders.
They stood there for a moment, facing each other like they had that night at the party, the last time he’d given her his jacket, Sam’s heart helplessly beating with the thunder of a thousand horses.
She knew she should give the jacket back to him. Her dress was on the shorter side, but long-sleeved. It wasn’t like she needed it in such a temperate climate. But his jacket was warm, and she liked the spicy, dark scent of the cologne he’d decided to wear tonight.
It didn’t make her want to throw up. Like, not at all.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
“You’re welcome,” he answered, leaning forward. And for a moment she thought he would kiss her again, wondered how she would resist kissing him back if he did.
But he didn’t kiss her, just whispered in her ear, “Will you give me your hand, zhena?”
Tomorrow. Tomorrow she was going to wake up early. Go down to the front desk and look up the meaning of that damn Russian word. She swore this to herself solemnly.
Then she gave him her hand.
He led her to the two best seats in the house, which wasn’t hard to do since they were literally the only two people there if you didn’t count the handful of theater staff.
“When does the movie start?” Sam asked, after a movie attendant came by with two sparkling waters and a small white bag of caramel popcorn.
“Soon,” he answered, holding the popcorn out to her. “This is how people do on dates. They share popcorn, da? That is what it said in woman’s magazine Isaac got for me.”
She stared at him. “You did not have Isaac get you a woman’s magazine.”
“How else do I know how to do this dating?” he asked.
She shook her head, feeling both amused and overwhelmed. Oh, she was in trouble. She didn’t have any idea if he was being this charming on purpose or if he really had no idea how appealing he was right now with his innocent I-read-this-is-how-you-do-it-in-a-magazine shtick, but either way, she could sense the boundaries she’d set down between them blowing away in the warm Grecian breeze.