“Wine?” he asks.
I tilt my head. “I’d prefer bourbon.”
“Would you?”
I lift a shoulder in a casual shrug. “My mother used to pound into my head that a proper lady only drinks wine or feminine mixed cocktails. Never hard liquor. My grandfather was a whiskey kind of guy.”
“I see,” he says, and I have the feeling he sees more than I’ve actually told him. “I think I may have just the thing.” He bends down, disappearing beneath the bar. A moment later he appears again, setting the bottle on the bar, pulling down a highball glass, and pouring me two fingers of liquor without another word.
I take the glass, a little in shock, because surely I’m not seeing what I think I’m seeing. “Glen Garioch?” I ask, reading the name off the bottle. I take a tentative sip. It’s exceptionally smooth with a woody flavor and floral undertones. I close my eyes to savor it, and take another sip. “What year is this?” I finally ask, fearing I already know the answer.
“Nineteen fifty-eight,” he says nonchalantly. “Excellent, isn’t it?”
“Nineteen fifty-eight? Are you serious?” This whiskey was my grandfather’s idea of the holy grail. Only three hundred fifty bottles of the Highland whiskey were put out onto the market, and I happen to know that a single bottle retails at about twenty-six hundred dollars. And here I am, drinking it on a Saturday afternoon without a trumpet or a big band or a press release to mark the occasion.
“You’re familiar with this particular label?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Basically we’re drinking gold.”
“Why would I offer you anything but my best?”
He’s poured himself a glass as well, and now he walks around the bar. I think he’s going to sit on the stool next to me, but he doesn’t. He simply leans against it, which means that he’s a few inches closer to me … and between Damien Stark and me, inches can be dangerous.
I tell myself it’s to quell my nerves and take another sip, then wait for Damien to say something else. He’s quiet, though, watching me. I begin to feel a bit self-conscious under his unabashed inspection.
“You’re staring,” I finally say.
“You’re beautiful.”
I look away. It’s not what I want to hear. “I’m not,” I say. “Or maybe I am. Does it matter?”
“Sometimes,” he says, which is the most honest answer I’ve ever heard to that particular question. “It matters to me.”
“Why?”
“Because I like looking at you. I like the way you hold your shoulders back. The way you walk as if the world is yours for the taking.”
I shake my head a little. “That’s just years of walking with a book on my head, and lectures from my mother, and endless etiquette classes.”
“It’s more than that. I like the way you wear your clothes, as if you understand that it’s you and not the cloth that matters. You are beautiful, Nikki, but it’s because of what you exude as much as it is the standard of beauty that we see in pageants and on magazine covers.”
“What if everything you see in me is a lie?”
“It’s not,” he says.
I take a slug of my whiskey. “Maybe you’re not as smart as you think you are, Mr. Stark.”
“Nonsense. I’m fucking brilliant. Or haven’t you heard?” His grin is wide and boyish and I can’t help but laugh. And then, before I even have time to catch my breath, the boyish expression is gone, replaced with one of fire and need. He moves fast, and before I can blink he’s twisted my bar stool so that my back is to the bar and he has a hand on either side of me. I’m caged in, trapped in Damien’s heat. “I am smart, Nikki,” he says. “I’m smart enough to know that you feel it, too. This isn’t just heat, it’s a goddamned conflagration. Not chemistry, but nuclear fission.”
I’m flushed and breathing hard. He’s right—so help me, he’s right. But even so …
“There’s nothing good about an atomic reaction,” I say. “And the blast destroys everything it touches.”
“Bullshit.” The word comes out hard. He’s right in front of me, and I can feel the anger coming off him in waves. “Goddammit, Nikki, don’t do that. Don’t play those kind of games with me. Don’t make this complicated when it should be so damn simple.”
“Should be?” I repeat. “What the hell does that mean? Nothing is simple. Am I attracted to you? Hell yes. But you don’t even know me.”
I stifle a sigh. Sometimes I wonder if I even know myself, or if all those years of being molded by my mother—being told what to eat, what to drink, who to date, when to sleep, and all the other Mommie Dearest bullshit—had sucked Nikki right out of me.
But no. No, I fought to keep the core of myself, even if I do keep it buried deep.
I look fiercely at him. “You don’t know me,” I repeat.
The intensity with which he looks back at me almost makes me stumble. “But I do.”
Something in his voice makes me feel exposed. He has me on edge again, and I look away, not liking the way he seems to be shining a spotlight on me.
It takes me a moment to gather myself, and when I do, I tilt my head just enough to look up at him. “We’re not taking this further, Mr. Stark. Absolutely not.”
“I don’t accept that.” His voice is a low growl that rumbles through me, weakening my resolve.