When She Learned My Name

7. Childish

A low, amused hum vibrates deep in his chest. Tomato soup. It’s the safe choice—childish, simple, and entirely devoid of any substance that requires a knife to cut.

Exactly what a cornered animal orders when it just wants to survive the hour.

"Tomato soup," Fernando repeats, rolling the words over his tongue with a quiet, velvet mockery that makes her skin prickle. "Still clinging to your childhood favorites, aren't you?"

Without missing a beat, he sets his own menu aside and smoothly flags down the hovering sommelier, his presence commanding absolute attention without a single raised voice. He places the order for her, adding a warm basket of artisan sourdough before turning his undivided, suffocating focus back to her.

He doesn't touch his wine glass. Instead, his dark eyes drop deliberately to her white-knuckled grip on the phone resting in her lap.

"You know," Fernando murmurs, leaning just an inch closer so his breath brushes the shell of her ear, warm and dangerously intimate against the ambient clatter of the dining room, "you've gripped that screen so tightly for the last hour that if you squeezed any harder, it would shatter. Are you waiting for a text to save you, Gabby? Or are you desperately trying to Google how to survive a dinner with a monster?"

Across the mahogany table, Richard Blake and Eleanor are deep in conversation about municipal zoning laws, completely insulated from the silent, psychological war playing out between the two younger seats. Gray, however, catches movement out of the corner of his eye and shoots a sharp, warning glare down the table toward Fernando, though he's blocked by the centerpieces from seeing just how close Fernando has invaded her space.

Fernando ignores Gray entirely. He keeps his gaze locked onto Gabriella's wide, trapped eyes, a slow, predatory smirk touching the corners of his mouth.

"Relax," he whispers, the velvet edge of his voice wrapping around her like iron wire. "I promised your mother I’d take care of you tonight. I keep my promises. Now... eat your soup, and tell me why you're really so afraid of me."

The sudden, sharp vibration against her thigh acts like an electric shock. Without even glancing down to verify the screen, Gabriella’s chair scrapes harshly back against the polished hardwood floor, the screech cutting through the low murmur of the dining room.

Before anyone at the table can even blink, she bolts upright, blurting out her hurried excuse with a breathless desperation that makes half the table turn in surprise.

"I GOTTA GO RESTROOM! I’LL BE BACK!"

She doesn't wait for a response. She spins on her heel and practically flies toward the private corridor, her heels clicking in a frantic, uneven rhythm as she flees the table.

Gray half-rises from his seat, a frown etching deep lines into his forehead as he watches her retreat. "Gabby, wait—what's wrong with her tonight?" he mutters, his protective instincts instantly flaring up as he looks ready to chase after her.

"Let her be, Gray," Richard Blake’s smooth, authoritative voice cuts in effortlessly from the head of the table, his obsidian eyes gleaming with calm, measured calculation. He takes a slow sip of his wine, unbothered. "Young women have their moments. I'm sure she just needs a breath of fresh air."

Gray hesitates, glancing down the hall, then throws a sharp, suspicious look across the table.

Fernando hasn't moved an inch.

He sits back against the plush upholstery of his chair, the linen napkin resting neatly across his lap. But the easy, casual facade has completely vanished from his posture. His dark eyes are fixed entirely on the empty seat beside him, tracking the exact direction of her escape with a chilling, predatory stillness. The sudden vibration of her abrupt departure doesn't amuse him anymore; it triggers a hard, analytical shift behind his gaze. A message she's been waiting for.

A slow, dangerous smile touches the corner of Fernando’s mouth—thin, razor-sharp, and entirely calculating.

He slowly sets his fork down beside his plate, the metallic clink sounding unnaturally loud in the sudden quiet of the table.

"Excuse me for a moment," Fernando murmurs smoothly, his deep voice carrying an effortless, polite composure as he stands up. Before Gray or anyone else can question his sudden departure, Fernando adjusts the cuffs of his shirt and turns toward the corridor, his long, unhurried strides following the exact path Gabriella just took into the shadows of the restaurant.