11
Chloe
I stare at Nikolai, my heart thudding heavily. Am I misreading the situation, or did he engineer it so we’d end up alone at the table?
“I… don’t really drink,” I say, my throat dry. The look in his richly colored eyes again makes me feel like a mouse trapped by a very large cat—except no mouse would feel such a pull toward a predatory feline.
I want to touch him almost as much as I want to run away.
He arches his dark eyebrows. “No alcohol ever? I find that hard to believe.”
“That’s not what I meant. It’s just, you know, usually beer or wine at a party…” My voice trails off as he lifts one of the crystal decanters and pours two fingers’ worth of amber-colored liquid into a whiskey glass, then slides it toward me.
“Try this. It’s one of the finest cognacs in the world.”
I h
