“And would this something land him in jail?”
“Maybe. But even if it isn’t that bad, there has to be something he’d rather die than have made public. Everyone has a skeleton or two.”
“Got it.”
I smile as vindictive anticipation coils in my gut. One of the things Antoine loves as much as women and food is finding dirt on people. If he had criminal inclinations, he’d make a superb blackmailer.
“So what did you want to talk about?” I ask.
“You got a letter from Elizabeth Pryce-Reed via her foundation. She wants to meet t
o discuss a new cause she wants you to fund.”
“Does she now?”
“She proposed dinner. Everyone’s gotta eat.”
I smile grimly. This has to be her countermove to my declaration that I plan to strip her bare and take what she most values. “Have Brian send her two available time slots,” I say, referring to my assistant.
It’ll be fun to see how she intends to stop me.
Chapter Nineteen
Dominic
Two evenings later, I walk through the marine walls and partitions of La Mer, Elizabeth’s choice of venue.
I’ve never been here before. The restaurant is owned by one of her cousins and is famous for seafood prepared in a million fancy ways. I don’t care for frou-frou cuisine, preferring burgers and fries washed down with an ice-cold beer, but you gotta eat the part to fit in.
In addition to the food, the place is known for its customers wrapping themselves in luxurious fabrics—silk, satin, chiffon—and shiny precious metals and gems. I have on a charcoal Armani suit and burgundy tie.
A hostess in a fitted black dress takes me to a private booth in the back. The walls are actual aquariums full of tropical fish. They stare at the diners with cold indifference before flicking their tailfins and darting away.
Elizabeth’s already seated, nursing a glass of white wine. She’s in a pink sleeveless raw silk dress with a scoop neck that somehow shows off her full breasts and small waist while still managing to appear modest. Pearls shine from her delicate ears and throat, and her unbound hair tumbles down around her shoulders and back like a golden waterfall. With minimal makeup, she looks young and freshly scrubbed—a typical American next-door sweetheart.
Except that the sweetheart next door doesn’t have millions of dollars…nor does she purposely try to ruin a young man’s life.
My brain repeats that point as my dick says hello, perky and happy to see her. That’s her fatal weapon—an ability to stir something soft and gentle in me, clouding my better sense with pheromones.
Steeling myself, I sit down, tell the hostess I’ll have whatever Elizabeth is having, then dismiss the woman.
Left index finger tapping the table, I lean back and wait.
“Dominic,” Elizabeth says finally.
“Elizabeth.”
“I thought about some other place, but decided maybe La Mer would be best. I hope you don’t mind.”
Her voice is polished and warm. She had the same warm voice, sans the polish, when she spoke to me and my sister a decade ago.
People probably call it the voice of an angel. I call it the voice of a schemer. But my heart responds anyway, knocking my ribs a tad faster.
“I don’t,” I start, more curtly than I should. “Customers in expensive clothes and jewelry, classical music nobody’s listening to, food and drink whose price would cause working people to gasp in horror. I would’ve been disappointed if you’d picked somewhere else.”
Resignation and mild annoyance cross her expression, but her face almost immediately returns to its warm pleasantness. Before I can process that, our server shows up with my wine.
I take a sip. Although I’m too aware of her to notice much, this wine is one of the best I’ve ever had. “Is this the kind of stuff you usually drink here?” I ask.