Okay. Fine. He’s testing me. Seeing if I’ll squirm, if I’ll blush.
Well, joke’s on him. I’m a lost cause, duh, but he’ll have to try harder than that.
“Everything alright?” Preston asks when we’re alone again.
“Fine!” I chirp, forcing as much brightness as possible into my voice. “Just a little inside joke. So—you were telling me about your wine cellar?”
Preston launches back into his wine cellar saga with renewed enthusiasm. Something about a 1982 Château Margaux and a bidding war at Christie’s. I nod along, making appropriate noises of interest, while my brain runs through increasingly elaborate rationalizations for why I should not excuse myself to the restroom to follow Lukas’s orders.
Because I’m not going to do it. Obviously. That would be insane.
Sixty seconds tick by. Then ni
